Chibi Akumas (チビ悪魔) - Episode 1: Invasion

[keith56]

I'm reliably informed that Chibi Akuma(s) has been reviewd in the new issue (165) of Retro Gamer Magazine!

You can buy the magazine here:
https://www.imagineshop.co.uk/magazines/retro-gamer-issue-165-4847.html

Now I just have to wait a week for my copy to arrive in Japan so I can see it in print!!!

[Puresox]

Just had my first go at Chibi, and here are my impressions . Really enjoyed the style the ability to shoot in both directions is a cool mechanic , which not often seen on cpc ,(maybe Forgotten Worlds ,closest?) It is a game that I can see me wanting to come back too on occasion. My only gripe is in relation to the movement/control  , It annoys me for some reason that the vertical movement is at a slower rate to that of horizontal movement . I find it really off putting , I find it similar to 'Warhawk(Or one of the other vertical shooters). 
I sorry to belly ache about it , and respect the effort gone into it . Just offering my perspective . Is there a reason for this dynamic?Or is it a case of the game being restricted by machine limitations?


Oh and it would be satisfying to get a reaction sound or flash when an enemy  or your own player gets hit . I think when you do not fully know if you are having a damaging effect , you lose something .

Despite my moans I genuinely think the game is really decent , and pretty refreshing . The cpc does get far too many flick screen games churned out , which are great when they offer new idea's to the genre . but can get samey . To get a shooter with plenty of personality to it is great news. cheers

[Puresox]

, the game is starting to really impress me as I get to see some of its features. I haven't read your webpage on it ,is this an original idea or is it a conversion , of an existing game? It is a great first game .


It is a little too heavy on the bullet hell ,for me , I don't think it would lose too much in the gameplay if it had a little less in the density of the bullets , Not sure if it would massively help keep the game from chugging . Maybe difficulty setting toggle .
Lol this is my running commentary of my first impressions of the game btw

[keith56]

the game is starting to really impress me as I get to see some of its features. I haven't read your webpage on it ,is this an original idea or is it a conversion , of an existing game? It is a great first game .

The game is inspired by 'Death Smiles' and 'Cotton' - but the levels, and characters are all original - some of the enemies in the game are clearly spoofs of other things (Like the monty python killer rabbit)

I'm working on the sequel as we speak (Episode 2: Confrontation) - it will have 5 all new levels, enemies and boss battles, the game engine has been upgraded for better sprites, animation and slightly better background graphics (they eat the CPU power, so I can't do much!)

The game will allow to players to play simultaniously, and there will be a second playable character - as well as some other strange characters which will come 'along for the ride'

I'm aiming for a summer release, but there's a ton of work to do before I get there - so I don't want to show anything or say too much at this stage!

[Puresox]

I look forward to seeing your ideas . I am intrigued as to what developments we will get . Although I hope that you branch out from bullet hell .Definitely talented at game design bud !

[Puresox]

What other games have you made on other systems Keith? I wouldn't mind checking them out .

[keith56]

What other games have you made on other systems Keith? I wouldn't mind checking them out .

Most of my development has been tools and things for my own use or work - I've not really done any games work since my childhood, until recently, I've focused a lot on studying Japanese in my spare time, and only recenly came back to development as a hobby

I did an Iphone game a couple of years back , which I've put online - if you can get it to compile, it's all yours!
http://www.benkyoustudio.com/Blog/SpaceHockeyIphoneGame/
It was based on the game of the old Amstrad Action type in.

'benkyoustudio' is a language study tool - it's not a game in any real sense

I wrote a dance game a long time ago, but I can't distribute that because it was written with MP3's I don't have rights to - and needed a special dance mat and webcam to play anyway.

Chibi Akumas Ep2 is another bullet hell game I'm affraid - I scaled back my plan for Chibi Akumas because I was worried I was taking too much on, so Ep2 is the 'second half' of the game if you will - after that's done I will branch out to other non shooter game types, though I plan to keep using the same characters.

Have you tried playing the game with 'easy difficulty' in the settings - it should reduce the fire rate of the enemies to make the game a bit less crazy - Please let me know if this helped any

Testing the levels during design takes a long time, so I can't make two versions for regular and bullet hell, but I can tweak the game engine a bit to reduce fire rates or fire spread, or use more conventional hizones  - after EP2 is done and dusted, I could look at releasing a special version which radically changes the gameplay mechanics of player life, hitzones and enemy bullet spread, but for now I have to focus on getting one version tested and released!

[keith56]

Novabug has done a great Youtube video review / Playthrough of Chibi Akumas on youtube.

it covers the first 3 levels of the game played on the CPC Plus model with a great commentry, so please take a look!


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmyTYkDTp4A

[keith56]

Hello everyone!

As the new game will be coming out soon, I plan to do a 'Lets Play' video of Chibi Akumas Episode 1 - which will be uploaded to youtube in a few weeks.

In the narration I will do my best to describe various technical factors of how the game engine works, and how I developed it.

If anyone has any questions about the game they would like answering, please leave them below, or message me, and I will try to answer them in the video

Thanks,

Keith

[Joseman]

Hi @keith56

I managed to end today Chibi Akumas ep1, i suck at bullet hell games, i used almost 20 credits!!!. Still F on the scoring system.

Great big bosses (i like the humour of the second cowcash-boss).

Love the aquatic level, i really love the colors of my CPC  and this game is a mode 1 - raster - color party.

On the last boss is just ridiculous the amount of bullets on the screen... ¿what game has the record on CPC btw?

It works superb from the M4.

ONLY 1 thing as someone said before, sometimes is difficult to know if you are hitting an enemy because there is no sign that you are shooting correctly at him.

The game overall clearly says the love that you put on the making of it, the presentation, the jokes, that weird atmosphere with the graphics and colors...

I only can say that i'll wait for EP2 and see the improvements on the engine!

Keep working on games on our beloved CPC please, i'm glad that coders like you put this amount of effort and love in our machine!.

[keith56]

The scoring system is a joke, you can only get an F - there's no code to give a different score!
There is one "You won the game" message, 4 "You got a new highscore" messages, and 4 "You didn't get a new highscore" - the last 4 being the most insulting!


The last boss had 1020 bullets, I believe Dragon Attack was coded around 256 (like the other levels of chibi akumas) so it may be the record!


There still isn't a visible 'bullet hit' effect in the new game - I will try to add it for the upgraded versions, but it's too late for Ep2 - I've only got about 30 bytes of free space for new code too - so it'll be a struggle, but I will try to solve this for you.

In the short term. I'm looking to bring my existing two games to the MSX and Spectrum, but after that any new games would be developed for all three systems - I'm not moving away from the CPC as my main development system - quite the contrary, I'm using WinApe as a compiler for MSX/Speccy code because I've not found a compiler that does a better job, and the MSX/ZX do not have debuggers as easy to use as Winape, so CPC will certainly be my primary platform for the foreseeable future!

[guh]

Hi,
Is it compatible with a GX4000 (using C4CPC card) ?

[keith56]

Hi,
Is it compatible with a GX4000 (using C4CPC card) ?

Last time I tried it was not possible, the game disk is 360k - twice the size of a normal CPC floppy, and the C4CPC cart converter could not work with these disks... so unless the converter has been converted to support larger parados disks, then it can't be played on C4CPC.

The game really needs 128k to be played at it's best anyway, so I can't say a lack of GX4000 support is something that concerns me. For your reference, the new game is twice as big again, and has extra features for 256k system, but will still work on machines with only 64k