Hydorah – Demo Updated

By: Xander

On: January 17th, 2010

Recently updated to alter the speed, hitboxes and power ups within the game, which may or may not have something to do with me being able to finish the damn thing now, there’s almost no better time to talk about the Hydorah Demo .

At its core Hydorah is an 80’s style shoot ‘em up, right down to the punishing difficulty and arcade-style screen ratio. There are a number of major differences in terms of how much freedom you have to move around and the way that power-ups are fairly abundant and even partially retained after death, however it isn’t fully apparent from the demo which doesn’t demonstrate the branching level structure involved in the rest of the game which embraces the sentiment of struggling through and finally beating each one of the 18 main levels of the game.

Since there’s that many I hope that the variety manages to keep the pace, but with a customisable weapon load out and extra levels outside of the main experience this could be really something. Oh, it also looks freaking fantastic and the soundscape is incredibly well thought out, strongly evoking that nostalgic arcade atmosphere. If you know what the phrase ‘Shoot the core’ means, you should probably keep an eye out for this one.

Posted in Action, Shoot-em-ups, Windows

http://www.locomalito.com Locomalito

I MODIFIED (but not uploaded yet), the XBOX controlling thing, with pause added, and gray bullets that are more visible near explosions, but I really don’t have yet anything concrete about what’s wrong with the gameplay and level design… of course, I’m never going to do Gradius Gaiden, but I really want to avoid any terribly mistake/bug I can commit, that’s all.

BTW: I don’t want to f**k anyone with “this game is too hard for you” message, but I wanted the player to warm up his fingers before starting, and always this can be annoying for some people.

(So sorry for the long post)
Dodger

Hey Locomalito,

By the sounds of it you already have a good idea of what you want from the game and by the way things have progressed so far I’d say you’re going about it the right way. The similarities to Gradius/Salamander is apparent in it’s graphics, what a lot of people probably didn’t or don’t realize is that the Salamander games were slightly more difficult than the US or NTSC versions of Gradius and that goes for the MSX version as well. When comparing the games Hydorah almost feels at home along side them with the exception that you’ve made the game bigger and broader, and having those multiple paths to choose from like Konami’s old classics is a great idea! I always did love that idea even for a shmup. It’s not very far from the mechanic that was used in Taito’s Darius series (even though I didn’t really like the Darius games), I always did like the idea of branching paths and discovering unique routes and hidden endings. When done right those games also gave off the feeling of the better you play, the bigger the reward and that applied to score but also weapon load-outs and even the scenery.
I think you’ve got some great ideas so just keep pressing at it, you’re doing great so far and it looks like you’ve promptly tried to refine and enhance the interface and you’re trying to keep the game challenging while remaining engaging and accessible so just keep at it! I can’t wait to play the finished game! By the sounds of it there are others who are eagerly waiting for this game to be released as well.

Lastly, if worse comes to worse, you can make the game exactly how you want and as difficult as you want and then if it’s still too hard for the vast majority of players you could always include an “easier” mode. But if this was my game I wouldn’t deviate from your initial idea too much because I think that by the sounds of what you’re trying to achieve and what is already available it both looks and sounds like it’ll be great once it’s all done!
poopdeck

Loco, for the most part you really need to ignore these clowns. I gave you a huge amount of grief over on indiegames.blog, but you basically fixed all the most serious problems – it’s a fair game now, it’s just hard. As long as this is the second level, and the first one is easier, it’s fine.
Vincent

That’s the point!

People here are trying to tell you the game is in its correct way of developement to become a real kickass Shmup, and I think if proper balance is done, Hydorah could be an awesome creation, so, take notes all over this comments and never lose your original vision and ideas. I hope the full release gameplay is going to be even better than the demo.

We have the intention to encourage you to refine the last details of the game!

Go for it!
Jii

Well, I found this game very entertaining. The graphics are lovely and the music fits the game very well. I haven’t played shmups very much but I did play Gradius (aka Nemesis here in Finland) with MSX many years ago, and this brought a lot of nice memories. :)

Still, a few things I wanted to mention.

First, I think the hit boxes of the bonuses could be bigger. I figured that since you made the player’s hitbox smaller in the latest update it’s now more harder to pick up bonuses?

Second, I did find the missile shooting things in the cave (on the floor and ceiling) a little cheap because first I figured they were part of the background because you couldn’t shoot them. And first time they nailed me with the missiles I didn’t even realize what killed me. I took me 4 times before I could finally get past them.

But other than that, very nice job. Keep up the good work!
Jii

Oh, and one more thing: The game didn’t register my XBox 360 controller. But as I understood from earlier posts that is something that will be fixed, right? Because proper controller support is a must for this type of game.
http://www.locomalito.com Locomalito

I uploaded an update for the demo of Hydorah just five minutes ago.

I spended some days with gryzor87 (the composer and a good friend and
player), studying classic arcade games playability and making some
adjustments in the difficulty curve, so that the 2 or 3 earliest stages are
now more easy before things get really tough. I contrasted the difficulty so each level changed from lets say “hard-hard-hard” scheme, to a “normal-veryhard-normal” scheme, so this way,
“normal” parts can be more enjoyable.

With the feedback here: about the enemy bullets being obscured by
explosions, now the bullets are gray. Xbox 360 controller can be used for playing (and pausing with start).
There are also some little changes in the ship sprite and another small details in general.

Take another look if you want
and thank you all for commenting :-)

Jii: you’re right with the items, I will take a look for the full version, dart plants are cheat, but I will make the shooting sound a lot louder to let the player know the threat.