Zenohell - $1 At Groupees till Nov 13

[Alterworldruler]

After months of hard work and few more months to come, I present you, Zenohell, it's a shoot-em'up (shmup) inspired by 90s arcade offerings.

Now not to spam you with screenshots and all, but here it is released!
Steam (20% launch discount going on currently for a week): http://store.steampowered.com/app/402030/
Itch.io (DRM free): http://jackdarx.itch.io/zenohell

It features:

- 6 (?) Stages packed with music, bosses of varying sizes and intensity,
- A secret mode locked till you beat the game,
- 3 different player ships offering various playstyles, with more to be unlocked as you progress,
- 20+ music tracks created by Jorgen Sjolander (dj_emphatic on soundcloud (https://soundcloud.com/dj_emphatic), check him out!) to suit the madness,
- 3 difficulty modes, which do affect how the game plays in minor and major ways, one of which has been custom designed by one of our members,
- Music moddability (Yep you can swap out the in-game music for your favorites!),
- Gameplay from times when it was more about reflexes and less about complex scoring.

[Reactor]

"Good luck..."
"Cleared enemy platforms!"
"Danger!!!"
"Unexplained speed-increase!"
"Level completed..."

Damn, how I LOVE space-shooters! This one looks indeed yummy. Be sure you add a few bonus or secret levels, where extra stuff can be grabbed. It's also a good idea to give stages names, makes writing a walkthru easier.

Pew pew lazorz!!!

[Marrub]

Looks very, very cool. The intro really reminds me of arcade shmups, as well as pretty much everything in the game itself.
How much will the game be going for? I'm quite compelled to buy this.

[Alterworldruler]

Looks very, very cool. The intro really reminds me of arcade shmups, as well as pretty much everything in the game itself.
How much will the game be going for? I'm quite compelled to buy this.

I can't say the launch price yet as it's a matter of discussion with distributions themselves, but it should be accessible enough if all goes well.

[scalliano]

SOLD!

[Alterworldruler]

Bad news, the game was denied from GOG, basically the reason is that they find the game too niche and it's not high budget enough so they believe their customers will not be satisfied with the product. Normally I would be okay with something like this, but then there's a certain other game on that service which I will not mention that is more hardcore than mine. So go figure, if you have money, you'll get in there.

Good news is, this doesn't mean the release is in danger, itch.io release is 100% guaranteed and setup incase for the launch. I may submit the game to playism and the humble store, however i'll wait until the game's 100% complete.

So I have to apologize that the game won't be out on GOG but, things happen.

As a reward for reading this, have some arcade cabinet gameplay from my music composer! (has some bugs)

part 1
part 2

[Reactor]

So what? You can still sell the game somehow, thankfully, not GOG.com is the only site in the known universe which hosts such games. So you put it some place else, and the asshats at GOG can go to Hell.

[Alterworldruler]

So what? You can still sell the game somehow, thankfully, not GOG.com is the only site in the known universe which hosts such games. So you put it some place else, and the asshats at GOG can go to Hell.

Oh it will sell at itch.io at first. I looked into Desura/Playism/Humble Store, but i'll hold off until the game's complete and out on itch.io so I can provide the final product (Humble Store requires one), although Desura does accept the games earlier... I'll think about it when I have time.

[Reactor]

This "not high budget enough" was the one of the poorest excuses I ever heard in my whole life. Many popular games started as low-budget or no-budget-at-all projects and they became insanely successful. Syobon Action is an excellent example. Yeh, sure, the top-down space shooter age is slowly fading, however, this doesn't mean there is no potential left on this concept. I'd say go for it And make sure you include the allmighty "pew-pew lazorz" as a weapon!

[Alterworldruler]

I suppose this is worth a bump, so I set up a developer twitter for this game (and future titles coming from me or my friend BP), you'll be getting more updates there although they will be not as major, i'll be also sharing thoughts on certain game design things, so go ahead and follow us: https://twitter.com/TeamGBSRFox

[Alterworldruler]

Bump, the game's finally on greenlight, you can find the link in the main post so you can vote for it

[Tapwave]

Very DonPahci esque, I like it.

[Kinsie]

although Desura does accept the games earlier... I'll think about it when I have time.

You may want to think carefully about this.

This "not high budget enough" was the one of the poorest excuses I ever heard in my whole life. Many popular games started as low-budget or no-budget-at-all projects and they became insanely successful. Syobon Action is an excellent example.

Syobon Action was a free joke game parodying Super Mario Bros. This is ostensibly something that will be sold for dollars. Kind of different wavelengths, here.

While the game looks decent enough and like something I'll probably snatch up at some point, I can see why GOG turned it down...

• The backgrounds are fairly repetitive and loop very quickly. If you look at popular classic shmups like CAVE and Toaplan's efforts (or even very old games like Xevious), the background typically scrolls slowly but has a unique layout all the way until you reach the boss. That doesn't mean every single pixel's unique forever (it can, though!) using a tilemap for the background can give you a nice look with sufficient tile variety. It can also add life to the enemies by giving them things to do - for example, enemy ships launching off of a passing carrier.
• The pixel art, whilst servicable, lacks polish. The black outlines in this and this shot look especially bad. Also, it's really weird to see the player ship have a completely different visual style from the rest of the game.
• The trailer... geez. The trailer is lengthy and meandering, and all the useful detail is crammed up the top of the screen in flat white unaliased font. This doesn't mean you have to create a ten-second long masterpiece of After Effects, but cut it down to somewhere between a minute and a minute and a half while demonstrating the game, conveying the mood and giving pertinent info. Here's some good examples of indie game trailers that do this: Scraps Early Access, Your First Day In Rust, Nuclear Throne Playstation Version.

This whole post might sound pretty negative, but that's just because I want you to do well because shmups are ace and you've got something going on here. Best of luck, guy! Break a leg!

[NeuralStunner]

Wow, this is the fourth game from a ZDoomer I've thrown in a vote for. I'm liking this trend.

[Dancso]

Zdoom gets you hooked on the sweet feeling of creating amazing stuff A gateway drug, so to speak.
I do wish I had time to continue modding for doom again though.

Best of luck to you Alter, you have my vote.

Edit: an update on Desura. They're bankrupt.
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2015/06 ... uju-games/