This game rules! Kind of coincidentally I finally dove into Alien Soldier earlier this year, and this game 100% scratches that itch and draws inspiration from it wonderfully, while still having its own identity that absolutely rules.
This game is incredibly satisfying to grind out fights on. The mechanics are easy enough to understand, while still leaving a lot of room for mastery. It feels amazing to go from struggling to barely clear a fight to basically speedrunning it. And on top of that, the character and enemy boss designs are neat (and sometimes a little silly, which definitely matches up pretty well with the inspiration sources :P). The soundtrack is full of absolute bangers that really do their part to kick up the intensity of the action, and ALSO is such a good call to the games inspiration was drawn from.
I really do just love so much about this game and I'm absolutely hooked!
Out of curiosity:
Is the OST available anywhere for purchase/any chances of it being put up in the future if not?
I'm a bit late, but the engine only supports exporting to Mac of the two, and exporting to Mac requires having Mac hardware, and having Mac hardware requires space and money I don't have.
Mac would, as a result, be financially unfeasible at best, and at worst the game might flat out not run properly on it.
Linux, meanwhile, Clickteam Fusion does not at present have a Linux exporter at all. However, while I haven't tested it, I see no reason the game wouldn't work with Wine, or, at worst, Proton! Heck, I think I remember a friend managing to get the game working on Mac using Wine at one point with relatively few issues...?
The game does have a demo you can use to see if you can get Clickteam Fusion games running in Wine and/or Proton (the latter I think requires running the game through Steam I should note)! It should be a way to then also gauge if the full game will work in those, though I think it was compiled in a slightly earlier Fusion build than the full game from what I recall so I can't make guarantees there admittedly.
Sorry that this isn't the answer you were probably looking for. Just, kind of the reality of things right now.
You're welcome, and again, I'm sorry it's not the answer you probably wanted to hear.
I should probably keep a closer eye on the comments section here so I can remember to reply to these things.
Admittedly one thing that doesn't help is I'm working on a project that I haven't even announced yet that... interesting circumstances have led to becoming my highest priority for the time being, pretty much until it's done.
Though, I mean... hey, maybe I can look into how hard it'd be to port to Mac some day... y'know, when I can get together the money needed to get all the prerequisite things for that... no promises of any kind though, not to mention there's some other things I'd probably wanna patch in this game first if I were to do that since... there's some things I wanna consider tweaking in the game that would be a bit easier than a Mac port.
But I'm still not sure what to do about that one, a lot of the biggest issues have been fixed and it feels like it'd be weird to just suddenly release a patch with a few relatively smaller fixes and nothing more after so long of not updating the game... hm.
...sorry, getting a bit sidetracked, whoops.
If you try running the game's demo via Wine and have issues though, lemme know and maybe I can try to help sort out any problems? Still no promises on that front mind you that it'll work, but I wouldn't mind at least... trying to help with that. I've actually messed with Wine a bit before, albeit on a computer that's no longer working or else I'd test it myself right now and let you know how it went and what I personally did to get it working.
I have a rather complicated answer for this, since it's something where for a while I've tried to gauge in my head how feasible it'd be and how much it'd be worth pursuing it, and if so, how.
The game's control scheme was not designed in a way that is feasible to make work directly on Android between the sheer number of buttons used and the precision the game expects with both aiming and movement.
But more importantly the performance would almost certainly be dreadful given the game wasn't coded to consider that possibility in advance, so even barring that, it might be flat out impossible to port the game as-is (more on that in a bit) without recoding the entire game from scratch.
However, I have thought before about the possibility of how I'd go about making a mobile-focused adaptation or spinoff of the game before, with more mobile-friendly controls and gameplay while still feeling as close to the original as possible.
I just haven't ever really come up with any idea that I find satisfactory to being true enough to the original while also taking advantage of the upsides that a touchscreen can bring to the mix, while minimizing the drawbacks that a game like this tends to have on such devices.
Platformers with more complex control schemes, from what I've seen, haven't had the best history with being adapted to touchscreens, so admittedly it'd be an interesting design challenge to try to overcome some day...
Unfortunately I'm at present busy with another project and can't really look into that, since it'd probably take at least months to actually make and my current project is somewhat time-sensitive.
Though, now that I know there's any actual demand for it... I'll try to keep in mind that there's actually any reason to bother pursuing such a mobile adaptation or spinoff, part of the reason I hadn't bothered pursuing it before was out of uncertainty on if anybody would even actually care.
Keep in mind, the dev team mostly consists of three people, and I'm basically the only programmer and designer on the PC version of the game, and likely the only programmer/designer who'd be working on such a hypothetical mobile adaptation, so I can't exactly just get a bunch of people on that to put it out in like, 2 weeks or something, sadly. But re-using assets from the PC version and knowing roughly what I want out of it would save a bit of time over making a fully new game at least, so there is that...?
I'll try to remember to let you know if it ever happens though! It just... probably is gonna be a while if it ever does, I'm really sorry about that!
There is one! Keyboard I'm guessing, right? It's explained better for controllers. But if I recall correctly for keyboard, you go to the settings screen and press one of the function keys, probably F7, F8 or F11? Can't remember for sure though.
There is no settings from the main menu, but im guessing you mean "Setup" Unfortunately, none of the Function Keys work in both Setup and Accessibility menus
Do you have the latest version? Try downloading "Xenogunner_Itch_Release_1.2.zip", it wasn't a feature available at launch after all. Also, the demo, unfortunately, was never updated to have the feature at all, neither was the GameJam release. Also I just checked, the key is F9.
I was playing in release 1_2 all this time. I reinstalled the game and I still cant bring up the option. I tried pressing F9 in the main menu, setup and accessibility submenus but to no avail.
that's... quite odd. I'm not quite sure what's going on there.
...wait, does your keyboard have a function key or a function lock key or something....? like, is this a full desktop keyboard or is this a laptop keyboard, or what...? if it's a desktop keyboard can you perhaps tell me what keyboard it is so I can look into the keyboard in question...? I probably can't afford to get one myself but I can at least see if the f9 key not working in some programs with it is some known issue with it or something.
it's the only thing I can think of, f9 works just fine on my own keyboard so I have no real way to figure out what's going on over on your end. also, are you sure f9 works in other programs? perhaps the f9 key is simply broken on the keyboard...?
wanna help however I can, I just need to get as much info as possible before I dive in with potential solutions. wouldn't even mind sending you some private test builds to try and diagnose it that way if it comes down to it as a last resort. could start with, say, adding f5 as an alternate option for pulling it up if I do go the test build diagnosis route. or maybe I can find room to add another proper button for it somewhere... hm...
There's honestly only so much that can be done when there are some weird driver-related issues that cause triggers to work completely differently on some systems entirely arbitrarily, even for the same controller, but at least if I know what controller you're using I'll have some idea what's going on and if there might be some kind of solution.
I see... I see... that's probably the issue due to how the game's controller support works. If you use some sort of controller rebinding program (booting the game as a non-Steam app through Steam might work), you might be able to get the game's controller support working with your controller that way.
I could potentially, in the near future, test to see if the game even needs an adapter to use a Switch Pro controller, the input handler I'm using may have already handled that out the box, but I'm not 100% sure. And I'm not sure the Switch Pro controller even works properly at all on PC without some kind of adapter or program, so I'm not sure there's any kind of solution here other than that.
I hope one of us can find some sort of solution (either on your end or by fixing something on the game's end or something else like that), and barring that, can live with weapon switching on the face buttons or enjoy the game on keyboard + mouse, depending on what your circumstances are in why you're using a controller and the specific choice of controller in question.
Reminds me a lot of the run and gun bullet hell style games like Gunstar Heroes and its pretty darn well done. The levels are short, but well balanced around the idea of getting better in the stage areas to maximize your health bar for the very challenging and varied boss encounters. The boss levels can feel a bit frustrating at first, but after getting into the groove of things, I really, really enjoyed this romp jumping and dashing through the bullets. 4/5
Lead dev of the game here! The game's main inspiration was Alien Soldier, which was another Treasure-made run-and-gun for the Sega Genesis... with some similarities to Gunstar Heroes. And hey, in fairness, I love Gunstar Heroes too and the game is a bit inspired by it too, heh...
Glad to hear you enjoyed the game! A steep learning curve is definitely something I'm aware is a bit of a problem in this one. If/when I make a follow-up I'm kinda hoping I can find a way to make it a bit easier to get into, though admittedly with the ideas I have in mind that may be easier said than done.
Hey, thanks for taking time to reply :) I am usually not someone in favor of compromising a games vision by lowering its difficulty, but the disparity between the relatively easy levels and incredibly challenging boss encounters really seems there might be a way for an additional difficulty setting somewhere (like having less health on bosses for an easier mode, but having more enemies in the level areas on a higher difficulty), as that probably limits the broadness of the games appeal somewhat.
But still fantastic game, thank you for keeping making fun games :)
The unusually easy levels and hard bosses were admittedly intentional as the game is a spiritual successor to Alien Soldier, which did basically the same thing, even if I know it limits the appeal a bit to people who aren't fans of that game.
Though in fairness, this game and Alien Soldier aren't the only two games I know of that purposely put most of the difficulty into the boss fights. Metroid Prime did something like that for example. Love that game too btw, though it wasn't really inspiration for this one, and the reason it did that is quite different since that one was supposed to be about exploring, so bosses being the only hard part just kinda made sense.
Though uh... this one maybe kinda didn't put enough into making the stages actually interesting, which I feel is a much bigger problem than the stages being too easy compared to the bosses. If I make a follow-up, more than making the stages harder, I at least want to make sure they're fun. Fun is the priority, if I can get that down then I feel like it'll help out a bit, heh. That and having more difficulty customization that specifically applies to the bosses, that's also something I've had in mind.
This game is so good, wow. The bosses have so many cool ideas and are constantly surprising, the aesthetic and music are great, and I really loved the humor and writing--I didn't expect to be so attached to these characters by the end. I was genuinely sad when I finished the game because I was having such a wonderful time, but I'll definitely be coming back to it for replays.
I really hope this game gets more attention soon because it's ridiculous how obscure it is given the quality.
If you enjoyed the game but want to get more out of it, there's always the Custom Gauntlet, and also some hidden bonus content to try to look for if you haven't already found it.
great game overall, but a lot of problems detracted from the experience.
the graphics and music were excellent. and making a game inspired by alien soldier was a neat choice. but setting up my controller was godawful, and the way to rebind it in-game was well hidden. it lacked a volume slider which is common in most games. DARGONSLAYER as the first password is farcical; not sure if that was a typo or some in-joke, but it made me think the password system was broken.
i could go on, but i think the point's been made. i'd love to see these problems fixed because the game is fun but i fear others might not have the patience to weather them.
ahhh, okay. well, it's an interesting balance to strike because itch.io is free but Steam costs $100 per game, and on itch.io people can pay extra for games and takes a smaller cut than Steam by default, end result is, both have ups and downs, and while you should probably expect higher sales numbers on Steam based on the sales of my previous Steam game (Flashover MegaSector, if you're curious), you may not necessarily make more money depending on the exact numbers and price. it's kind of an interesting situation where exact numbers can't really get across the nuance of it, so basically I'd advise going with both, and maybe start with itch.io since it doesn't cost you anything.
I don't know the exact numbers since I don't have access to the itch.io statistics, but when I asked a week ago it was, at least, definitely purchased more than once, and it's probably only gone up since then making an exact number kind of hard to know without asking my publisher again.
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very funny and good action !!! I'm not a try harder but still good to begin <3
This game rules! Kind of coincidentally I finally dove into Alien Soldier earlier this year, and this game 100% scratches that itch and draws inspiration from it wonderfully, while still having its own identity that absolutely rules.
This game is incredibly satisfying to grind out fights on. The mechanics are easy enough to understand, while still leaving a lot of room for mastery. It feels amazing to go from struggling to barely clear a fight to basically speedrunning it. And on top of that, the character and enemy boss designs are neat (and sometimes a little silly, which definitely matches up pretty well with the inspiration sources :P). The soundtrack is full of absolute bangers that really do their part to kick up the intensity of the action, and ALSO is such a good call to the games inspiration was drawn from.
I really do just love so much about this game and I'm absolutely hooked!
Out of curiosity:
Is the OST available anywhere for purchase/any chances of it being put up in the future if not?
Has anyone cleared Ripulxor 20? ;P
Can we have both Mac and Linux versions of this game?
Hey, lead dev of the game here!
I'm a bit late, but the engine only supports exporting to Mac of the two, and exporting to Mac requires having Mac hardware, and having Mac hardware requires space and money I don't have.
Mac would, as a result, be financially unfeasible at best, and at worst the game might flat out not run properly on it.
Linux, meanwhile, Clickteam Fusion does not at present have a Linux exporter at all. However, while I haven't tested it, I see no reason the game wouldn't work with Wine, or, at worst, Proton! Heck, I think I remember a friend managing to get the game working on Mac using Wine at one point with relatively few issues...?
The game does have a demo you can use to see if you can get Clickteam Fusion games running in Wine and/or Proton (the latter I think requires running the game through Steam I should note)! It should be a way to then also gauge if the full game will work in those, though I think it was compiled in a slightly earlier Fusion build than the full game from what I recall so I can't make guarantees there admittedly.
Sorry that this isn't the answer you were probably looking for. Just, kind of the reality of things right now.
Ahh Wahhh!!! Thanks for the reply. :(
You're welcome, and again, I'm sorry it's not the answer you probably wanted to hear.
I should probably keep a closer eye on the comments section here so I can remember to reply to these things.
Admittedly one thing that doesn't help is I'm working on a project that I haven't even announced yet that... interesting circumstances have led to becoming my highest priority for the time being, pretty much until it's done.
Though, I mean... hey, maybe I can look into how hard it'd be to port to Mac some day... y'know, when I can get together the money needed to get all the prerequisite things for that... no promises of any kind though, not to mention there's some other things I'd probably wanna patch in this game first if I were to do that since... there's some things I wanna consider tweaking in the game that would be a bit easier than a Mac port.
But I'm still not sure what to do about that one, a lot of the biggest issues have been fixed and it feels like it'd be weird to just suddenly release a patch with a few relatively smaller fixes and nothing more after so long of not updating the game... hm.
...sorry, getting a bit sidetracked, whoops.
If you try running the game's demo via Wine and have issues though, lemme know and maybe I can try to help sort out any problems? Still no promises on that front mind you that it'll work, but I wouldn't mind at least... trying to help with that. I've actually messed with Wine a bit before, albeit on a computer that's no longer working or else I'd test it myself right now and let you know how it went and what I personally did to get it working.
Okay
I forgot since you used Clickteam Media Fusion is it possible if you can port this game to Android?
I have a rather complicated answer for this, since it's something where for a while I've tried to gauge in my head how feasible it'd be and how much it'd be worth pursuing it, and if so, how.
The game's control scheme was not designed in a way that is feasible to make work directly on Android between the sheer number of buttons used and the precision the game expects with both aiming and movement.
But more importantly the performance would almost certainly be dreadful given the game wasn't coded to consider that possibility in advance, so even barring that, it might be flat out impossible to port the game as-is (more on that in a bit) without recoding the entire game from scratch.
However, I have thought before about the possibility of how I'd go about making a mobile-focused adaptation or spinoff of the game before, with more mobile-friendly controls and gameplay while still feeling as close to the original as possible.
I just haven't ever really come up with any idea that I find satisfactory to being true enough to the original while also taking advantage of the upsides that a touchscreen can bring to the mix, while minimizing the drawbacks that a game like this tends to have on such devices.
Platformers with more complex control schemes, from what I've seen, haven't had the best history with being adapted to touchscreens, so admittedly it'd be an interesting design challenge to try to overcome some day...
Unfortunately I'm at present busy with another project and can't really look into that, since it'd probably take at least months to actually make and my current project is somewhat time-sensitive.
Though, now that I know there's any actual demand for it... I'll try to keep in mind that there's actually any reason to bother pursuing such a mobile adaptation or spinoff, part of the reason I hadn't bothered pursuing it before was out of uncertainty on if anybody would even actually care.
Keep in mind, the dev team mostly consists of three people, and I'm basically the only programmer and designer on the PC version of the game, and likely the only programmer/designer who'd be working on such a hypothetical mobile adaptation, so I can't exactly just get a bunch of people on that to put it out in like, 2 weeks or something, sadly. But re-using assets from the PC version and knowing roughly what I want out of it would save a bit of time over making a fully new game at least, so there is that...?
I'll try to remember to let you know if it ever happens though! It just... probably is gonna be a while if it ever does, I'm really sorry about that!
Fantastic little game! I can't believe how many boss fights you crammed into this game, it's so fun
Glad you are enjoying it!
absolutely outstanding hidden gem. No problems so far, great game :)
This game is really good but an option to remap buttons would be really awesome!
There is one! Keyboard I'm guessing, right? It's explained better for controllers. But if I recall correctly for keyboard, you go to the settings screen and press one of the function keys, probably F7, F8 or F11? Can't remember for sure though.
There is no settings from the main menu, but im guessing you mean "Setup" Unfortunately, none of the Function Keys work in both Setup and Accessibility menus
Do you have the latest version? Try downloading "Xenogunner_Itch_Release_1.2.zip", it wasn't a feature available at launch after all. Also, the demo, unfortunately, was never updated to have the feature at all, neither was the GameJam release. Also I just checked, the key is F9.
I was playing in release 1_2 all this time. I reinstalled the game and I still cant bring up the option. I tried pressing F9 in the main menu, setup and accessibility submenus but to no avail.
that's... quite odd. I'm not quite sure what's going on there.
...wait, does your keyboard have a function key or a function lock key or something....? like, is this a full desktop keyboard or is this a laptop keyboard, or what...? if it's a desktop keyboard can you perhaps tell me what keyboard it is so I can look into the keyboard in question...? I probably can't afford to get one myself but I can at least see if the f9 key not working in some programs with it is some known issue with it or something.
it's the only thing I can think of, f9 works just fine on my own keyboard so I have no real way to figure out what's going on over on your end. also, are you sure f9 works in other programs? perhaps the f9 key is simply broken on the keyboard...?
wanna help however I can, I just need to get as much info as possible before I dive in with potential solutions. wouldn't even mind sending you some private test builds to try and diagnose it that way if it comes down to it as a last resort. could start with, say, adding f5 as an alternate option for pulling it up if I do go the test build diagnosis route. or maybe I can find room to add another proper button for it somewhere... hm...
why can't I map any actions to triggers on a controller?
What controller are you using...?
There's honestly only so much that can be done when there are some weird driver-related issues that cause triggers to work completely differently on some systems entirely arbitrarily, even for the same controller, but at least if I know what controller you're using I'll have some idea what's going on and if there might be some kind of solution.
I'm using a switch pro controller through an adaptor so the game recongnizes it as a xbox controller so that might be the issue
I see... I see... that's probably the issue due to how the game's controller support works. If you use some sort of controller rebinding program (booting the game as a non-Steam app through Steam might work), you might be able to get the game's controller support working with your controller that way.
I could potentially, in the near future, test to see if the game even needs an adapter to use a Switch Pro controller, the input handler I'm using may have already handled that out the box, but I'm not 100% sure. And I'm not sure the Switch Pro controller even works properly at all on PC without some kind of adapter or program, so I'm not sure there's any kind of solution here other than that.
I hope one of us can find some sort of solution (either on your end or by fixing something on the game's end or something else like that), and barring that, can live with weapon switching on the face buttons or enjoy the game on keyboard + mouse, depending on what your circumstances are in why you're using a controller and the specific choice of controller in question.
Reminds me a lot of the run and gun bullet hell style games like Gunstar Heroes and its pretty darn well done. The levels are short, but well balanced around the idea of getting better in the stage areas to maximize your health bar for the very challenging and varied boss encounters. The boss levels can feel a bit frustrating at first, but after getting into the groove of things, I really, really enjoyed this romp jumping and dashing through the bullets. 4/5
More Racial Justice Bundle impressions: http://bit.ly/itchbundle
Youtube Channel: http://bit.ly/YTPList
Lead dev of the game here! The game's main inspiration was Alien Soldier, which was another Treasure-made run-and-gun for the Sega Genesis... with some similarities to Gunstar Heroes. And hey, in fairness, I love Gunstar Heroes too and the game is a bit inspired by it too, heh...
Glad to hear you enjoyed the game! A steep learning curve is definitely something I'm aware is a bit of a problem in this one. If/when I make a follow-up I'm kinda hoping I can find a way to make it a bit easier to get into, though admittedly with the ideas I have in mind that may be easier said than done.
Hey, thanks for taking time to reply :) I am usually not someone in favor of compromising a games vision by lowering its difficulty, but the disparity between the relatively easy levels and incredibly challenging boss encounters really seems there might be a way for an additional difficulty setting somewhere (like having less health on bosses for an easier mode, but having more enemies in the level areas on a higher difficulty), as that probably limits the broadness of the games appeal somewhat.
But still fantastic game, thank you for keeping making fun games :)
The unusually easy levels and hard bosses were admittedly intentional as the game is a spiritual successor to Alien Soldier, which did basically the same thing, even if I know it limits the appeal a bit to people who aren't fans of that game.
Though in fairness, this game and Alien Soldier aren't the only two games I know of that purposely put most of the difficulty into the boss fights. Metroid Prime did something like that for example. Love that game too btw, though it wasn't really inspiration for this one, and the reason it did that is quite different since that one was supposed to be about exploring, so bosses being the only hard part just kinda made sense.
Though uh... this one maybe kinda didn't put enough into making the stages actually interesting, which I feel is a much bigger problem than the stages being too easy compared to the bosses. If I make a follow-up, more than making the stages harder, I at least want to make sure they're fun. Fun is the priority, if I can get that down then I feel like it'll help out a bit, heh. That and having more difficulty customization that specifically applies to the bosses, that's also something I've had in mind.
Ah, very good to hear. Well I certainly am looking forward to your future games. :)
Thanks for the insight, always appreciated!
This game is so good, wow. The bosses have so many cool ideas and are constantly surprising, the aesthetic and music are great, and I really loved the humor and writing--I didn't expect to be so attached to these characters by the end. I was genuinely sad when I finished the game because I was having such a wonderful time, but I'll definitely be coming back to it for replays.
I really hope this game gets more attention soon because it's ridiculous how obscure it is given the quality.
Hey, lead dev of the game here!
If you enjoyed the game but want to get more out of it, there's always the Custom Gauntlet, and also some hidden bonus content to try to look for if you haven't already found it.
And I'm glad to hear you enjoyed it!
great game overall, but a lot of problems detracted from the experience.
the graphics and music were excellent. and making a game inspired by alien soldier was a neat choice. but setting up my controller was godawful, and the way to rebind it in-game was well hidden. it lacked a volume slider which is common in most games. DARGONSLAYER as the first password is farcical; not sure if that was a typo or some in-joke, but it made me think the password system was broken.
i could go on, but i think the point's been made. i'd love to see these problems fixed because the game is fun but i fear others might not have the patience to weather them.
Really good game
A very nice game of bossfights and goofy story.
Required
you uh, pretty much registered just to ask this it seems?
I am curious why you'd wanna know, are you a game dev trying to figure out whether or not it's worth putting games on itch.io...???????
ahhh, okay. well, it's an interesting balance to strike because itch.io is free but Steam costs $100 per game, and on itch.io people can pay extra for games and takes a smaller cut than Steam by default, end result is, both have ups and downs, and while you should probably expect higher sales numbers on Steam based on the sales of my previous Steam game (Flashover MegaSector, if you're curious), you may not necessarily make more money depending on the exact numbers and price. it's kind of an interesting situation where exact numbers can't really get across the nuance of it, so basically I'd advise going with both, and maybe start with itch.io since it doesn't cost you anything.
how many bought this? 1 a year?
Game only released on itch.io a few weeks ago, it hasn't even been a full month, even less a year.
how many downloaded?
I don't know the exact numbers since I don't have access to the itch.io statistics, but when I asked a week ago it was, at least, definitely purchased more than once, and it's probably only gone up since then making an exact number kind of hard to know without asking my publisher again.
Dang a game for 14.99 and no comments?