Windows Typhoon Unit - Side-scrolling bullet-hell action!

[GhostlyFeline]

DOWNLOAD THE LATEST DEMO ON ITCH.IO (06/30/2016)

Typhoon Unit is a bullet-hell shooter built around switching between a variety of characters on the fly. Players take control of a pair of flying fighters, as they dodge, shoot, and cast spells through challenging levels, meeting a cast of colorful characters along the way.

STORY
In a world where mythical creatures are commonplace, and magic is regularly utilized as a power source for new technologies, peace is but a distant dream. An organization known as Sylphen has spread destruction and chaos. In response to this, the Typhoon Unit was created, a specialized group of airborne soldiers, spanning a wide variety of species and backgrounds. These brave heroes will put an end to Sylphen's destructive ambitions, and return peace to the land.

GIFS

Spoiler: GIFs

 

[iMilchshake]

My Thoughts while Playing.
1. Music is Awesome! But music is ing loud! rip my ears.
1.2 Turning the music volume down takes years
2. Reminder: Z and Y Keys are swapped in some parts of europe:
Its really frustrating to play that way..
3. I like hard games. I want a challange. But not beeing able to finish the First level because of sloppy controlls, swapped z-y keys and a too high difficulty (Bomb is useless if it only destroys projectiles, Its almost impossible to dodge bullets and and still hit yours at the same time, Boss has toooooo much HP) actually made me "ragequit".

Game has alot of potential, everything is smooth and looks cool. But Movement and Controlls feel stiff and not smooth at all.

 

[GhostlyFeline]

1. Music is Awesome! But music is ****ing loud! rip my ears.
1.2 Turning the music volume down takes years

Noted. Will fix that for the next version.

2. Reminder: Z and Y Keys are swapped in some parts of europe:
Its really frustrating to play that way.

I actually didn't know about that. I'm so sorry. That said, I'm definitely going to figure out how to do custom control schemes for the next version. It's on the to-do list.

3. I like hard games. I want a challange. But not beeing able to finish the First level because of sloppy controlls, swapped z-y keys and a too high difficulty (Bomb is useless if it only destroys projectiles, Its almost impossible to dodge bullets and and still hit yours at the same time, Boss has toooooo much HP) actually made me "ragequit".

I purposely designed the bombs as a purely defensive option, as I wanted to put more emphasis on the characters' special attacks. You're saying maybe I should add at least some damage to the bomb?
As for the bosses, have you tried swapping characters? The bosses actually don't have that much HP. The colored circle around enemies is an indicator that you need a certain character to damage it. One of the most common complaints I've gotten so far is that the game doesn't adequately teach character swapping before the midboss. I'll have to work on more feedback for that.


Thank you very much for playing. I appreciate it.

 

[wadaltmon]

I finally was able to beat the story mode last night and I've made a video explaining my thoughts on the game as a whole as it stands in the current version. Doing a text post just didn't provide the kind of tone I wanted to convey with what I was saying. I just wanted to ask you if you had any objection to me making the video public for everyone to see. If so, I can always just send you the video in a PM.

 

[GhostlyFeline]

I finally was able to beat the story mode last night and I've made a video explaining my thoughts on the game as a whole as it stands in the current version. Doing a text post just didn't provide the kind of tone I wanted to convey with what I was saying. I just wanted to ask you if you had any objection to me making the video public for everyone to see. If so, I can always just send you the video in a PM.

I don't see a problem with that. It's pretty cool that you took the time to put a video together. Go ahead and make it public if you want. I'm looking forward to checking it out.

 

[wadaltmon]

Here is the video covering the demo of "Typhoon Unit". Let me know what you think.

 

[GhostlyFeline]

Here is the video covering the demo of "Typhoon Unit". Let me know what you think.

Wow. I was not expecting a half hour review video. Had to take notes while watching it. That said, I'd like to address a few of the points that you brought up in the video.

• I will consider adding support for higher resolutions, but I might not be able to adequately test on said resolutions. My laptop that I use for development only goes up to 1280 x 800.
• You were correct that a lot of the narrative elements of the game are still in a work-in-progress stage, and is subject to change. The focus is supposed to be on characterization, so maybe I could afford to cut down on exposition. I've been trying to find a good balance.
• Forward and backward movement are the same speed. The background gives the illusion of it being otherwise.
• The special abilities don't work the way that you mention in the video. You hold the Special button until the meter fills up to the level of attack you want to use. A Team Attack is activated by holding the Special button until it reaches level 4. As far as I know, holding Special and Swap at the same time doesn't do anything.
• Audio volume is a known issue, as indicated in a previous post. I'm glad you mentioned the thing about the sound effects not feeling distinct enough. I wouldn't have even thought of that if you hadn't brought it up. I'm not very skilled at doing sound effects, but I can try to make them more unique and recognizable.
• There's no unavoidable attacks in the game. There are ones that are probably too hard for where they're placed, but they're all doable without a single bomb. The laser example from stage 2 especially made me cringe. You're supposed to go up on the first laser wave. That's why the first one goes up. I even added the weak enemies as another indicator of where the player should be. Granted, I'm going to revisit the designs of both levels anyway, but that was not an area that I overlooked.
• The Level 5 bar was not a glitch. Maria's passive ability is "Energetic", which adds another level to the power meter. This means you can use a Team Attack and still be left with 1 level of shot power.
• Overall, I agree that there is a problem with some things not being communicated clearly enough to the player. A short tutorial level might be a good idea.

That's all the points that I could think of to respond to. I appreciate that you took the time to make such an extensive and detailed review. I'm glad you enjoyed the game.

 

[Misty]

Dude, this game broke my computer. Only GM game that ever broke my computer. Couldn't move the arrow keys to quit, couldn't even ctrl+alt+delete it away. I've never, in the history of games, had a game literally had a game break my computer like this, so consider it an achievement. I had to restart my computer 5 times afterwards because it wouldn't boot up.

For those of you with older computers, be cautious of this game.

For what it's worth, it had nice music.

 

[GhostlyFeline]

Dude, this game broke my computer. Only GM game that ever broke my computer. Couldn't move the arrow keys to quit, couldn't even ctrl+alt+delete it away. I've never, in the history of games, had a game literally had a game break my computer like this, so consider it an achievement. I had to restart my computer 5 times afterwards because it wouldn't boot up.

For those of you with older computers, be cautious of this game.

For what it's worth, it had nice music.

In which section did the game cause problems? I really don't know how that could have happened. If anyone else runs into this problem, please let me know. I'd like to know whether this is an isolated incident, or a legit problem with my game. Thank you for telling me.

 

[Misty]

Simply loading the menu.

 

[GhostlyFeline]

That's the last place I expected there to be a problem. I'll look into it though. It could be an issue with your system, but it's still worth inspecting, just in case.

 

[Misty]

Even on my computer, I can still close laggy higher end games like StarCraft 2. (even though they are at 1fps.)
Is there anything odd in your code, like dependence on the GPU or some special threading processor code?

 

[GhostlyFeline]

As far as I can tell, there's nothing in here that's out of the ordinary, at least not in the loading and menu code. I'd need a lot more information to be able to do anything about it, if I even can at all. Unfortunately, since I can't reproduce the problem, there's not much I can do to fix it. Apologies.

 

[marius]

it's... strange.... the gameplay looks interesting... but the sprites .... i don't know... they are ugly... >.<

 

[wadaltmon]

Dude, this game broke my computer. Only GM game that ever broke my computer. Couldn't move the arrow keys to quit, couldn't even ctrl+alt+delete it away. I've never, in the history of games, had a game literally had a game break my computer like this, so consider it an achievement. I had to restart my computer 5 times afterwards because it wouldn't boot up.

For those of you with older computers, be cautious of this game.

For what it's worth, it had nice music.

This happened to me. The game didn't seem to open the first time I double clicked, so I did so again. It then opened 2 instances of the game. That caused this exact situation. Did you also possibly open 2 instances of it?

 

[Misty]

This happened to me. The game didn't seem to open the first time I double clicked, so I did so again. It then opened 2 instances of the game. That caused this exact situation. Did you also possibly open 2 instances of it?

Nope, just one instance was enough to break my computer.

I can run Star Craft 2 on this computer, at 1 fps, yet this game literally broke my computer.