Devileader - Sinistar inspired multi-direction shooter (now available on steam)

[hijong park]

I recently became fan of williams electrinics arcade game, sinistar after buying a flight stick.

I didn't like sinistar that much before because the game felt too frustrating, but using flight stick was a game changer as it allows to move the ship much preciser and made it much more fun.

But I still found it flawed as sinistar's gameplay doesn't offer much to keep playing unlike other classics like defener and robotron 2084.

There are only 3 kinds of enemies including sinistar himself, and sinistar's pattern is quite simple and basic that warriors are actually much more scary and sometimes downright cheap, who don't even give a second to react and kill me instantly.

So, I decided to make my own version of sinistar, with today's much more precise ananlog controls, and many new features and tweaks to improve its gameplay.

Currently, I made the basic prototype of Sinistar's gameplay loop, with some original enemies and new weapons.

The player's laser now have two firerate option. regular fire is same as firing laser in sinistar, and there's rapidfire mode that fires lasers 3 times faster but quickly overheats the gun. I designed it so you have to use two firerate modes wisely to deal with many amount of enemies and mine crystals from planetoids faster but avoid destroying it with too many shots.

There are also 5 kinds of supweapons you can choose. In the video I changed the weapons during game to showcase them but in the completed version I'll make it to choose one of them before starting the game.

I added various control types including Keyboard, asteroids(controls just like Asteroids, left to CCW rotation and right to CW and up to thrust), controller (either Xinput or Directinput devices are supported), and mouse. I tested it with various controllers and so far Flight stick feels best. no other devices are as precise as it.

my plans are adding more new enemies and patterns for Devileader to make the gameplay less repetitive, and adding bonus levels that have other objectives than destroying Devileader.

Save 25% on Devileader on Steam

Devileader, a fearsome space demon who once have destroyed countless planets of the solar system is about to be resurrected by his minions and fanatics, who want to bring chaos to the universe. Pilot the agile space interceptor Deviship and survive the terror of this demon lord.

store.steampowered.com

Devileader is now available on steam !

 

[hijong park]

- Added 6 kinds of levels. One loop contains Minor zone, Attacker zone, Worker zone, Attacker zone 2, Planetoid zone, and Void zone.

- Improved Devileader's AI. At first He just rush towards you, but following patterns will be added as the difficulty increases :

1.If the player launches Devibombs, Devileader will try to avoid them as shown in 09:45

2. He will anticipate the player's movement when moving, making it harder to run away from him.

3. He will spawn Minidevils who slows down the player.

- Added Supply ship and upgrade items.

- The player has twin laser for better firepower.

- Added a bonus round fighting with enemy fighters after wave 3, but it's not tested yet. I'll remove it if it doesn't work well with the gameplay.


I'll adjust the learning curve now, which will be the most tedious work. Right now the scoring and difficulty are all over the place.

 

[hijong park]

- Added Hyper warp drive feature to start from later levels.

- Completed all levels.

- Since Devibomb is the only weapon that can affect devileader, enemies will do their best to stop it by bumping or shooting devibombs. you can also use it to distract enemies attacking you.

- Added 2 more powerups, Cloak and Tail gunner. Cloak confuses the enemies to make them harder to attack the player, and tail gunner attacks enemies at rear.

- Added Highscore list. I wanted to add online highscore but couldn't find any functional online highscore for Game maker studio 2, so I eventually added local highscore list. I'll add online highscore for steam version instead.

- I have tweaked the controls to make it suitable with keyboard or 8 way D pads. It's still not as good as analog stick especially when attacking diagonally, but It's quite playable. In this video I used keyboard.

- Added 2 obstacles, Mine and Repeller. Mines create a huge explosion that kills both the player and enemies when destroyed, and Repellers push player and enemies away and limits movement radius.

- Many bugfixes and difficulty adjustments, but it still need more testing. The game is almost finished except background musics.

https://discord.gg/3BPm3PVq Follow my discord server !

 

[hijong park]

Devileader by hijong park

Survive against the giant space demon !

hijong-park.itch.io

The devileader is finally finished ! Feel free to leave feedbacks about the game.

 

[hijong park]

Save 25% on Devileader on Steam

Devileader, a fearsome space demon who once have destroyed countless planets of the solar system is about to be resurrected by his minions and fanatics, who want to bring chaos to the universe. Pilot the agile space interceptor Deviship and survive the terror of this demon lord.

store.steampowered.com

Devileader is now available on steam.