The Coding Pony

We recently finished《Umbraseal》game flow update. Although we cannot keep adding new features, because of budget issue. We found this game has marketing and planing issue rather than development issue. According to player feedback, 《Umbraseal》is playable but missing some feedback. More importantly, we don’t know how to show what unique experience this game provided to player.

However, we still…

Prepare to finish Umbraseal

After Steam Early Access and few times of update. We find special bullet is not as fun as we expected. On the other hand, we also realize our budget cannot afford scenario material of story. Current material already consume our last budget, but the quality still under excepted. So instead of presenting roughly made story, we decide to reorder game flow for change the game style.

We want to adjust…

Revisit Danmaku made by Haxe

Almost one year ago. I decide to implement a Danmaku System which follows Touhou Danmakufu(th_dnh for short)’s API and make many bullet patterns for our Early Access game 《Umbraseal》. Now th_dnh becomes open source software, I want to learn the design decision from original version for improving our work.

Before we diving this topic, I have to declare that I don’t mean to judge th_dnh’s design.…

Umbraseal is now on Steam Early Access!

After months of working, Umbraseal finally joins Steam Early Access!

All enemy shoot bullets like crazy! 《Umbraseal》is a bullet-hell dungeon crawler top-down shooter.

(more…)

Prepare for Early Access

This month we decide to add shadow ability, new level theme and traps. BTW, Umbraseal becomes pre-beta on itch.io .

To meet game title, our heroine now has shadow ability. Shadow ability contains two phase:

Right click to release Umbra :

Umbra is a shadow entity that attack with player

Each hit from Umbra increases shadow charge

Right click again to release Penumbra:

Penumbra is a shadow entity…

This month we added custom bullet and boss stage seal mechanic.

By default, player has 3-way shot pattern with round bullet. Now you can change what you shot by looting different shape and property of bullet from enemies. We are still trying other bullet pattern shape and bullet property. Although shooting lots of random things is very fun, but the goal is to make bullet pattern become crazy. 😛

Free to play demo and outsourcing

This month we were trying to deliver first playable demo for players. There are many trivial works like adjusting visual effect, user interface, config option, gameplay element. Because we want to get more feedback in early stage, now you can download pre-alpha version of Umbraseal on itch.io for free. The gameplay cycle may seems a little bit rough, but we will polish it as soon as possible.…

Enemy behavior and bullet pattern

This month focus on adjusting enemy behavior and bullet pattern for gameplay.

For enemy behavior, we need they perform flexible movement and attack. So an enemy will chase player to the death, yet keep distance with other characters. Once in right position, enemy will start to surround player like a satellite. Also, enemy will attack constantly. Combine those movement could create a flow. Float…

A little more action, please

To solve the “game is too easy” issue from players’ feedback, we make all character can do more action.

In Shoot ’em up, player can focus on dodging without distraction because bullets usually come from single direction. However, bullets come from any angle in Umbraseal. In that case, player become helpless when facing bullets unless we reduce bullet number (like we did). So that is why players…

The TDD, the BDD and the requirements

In previous article, we decide to change many system for enhancing game experience. Unfortunately, AI behavior and skill are typical complex system that need access information from environment and change some status. It is hard to prevent bug when changing a system which heavily depend on the interactions with other systems. Turns out, we need testing.

Because there are so many system and…

Umbraseal First Pass Demo

In the last month of 2018, we finally finished the first pass demo and start to design polished version features.

Fortunately, there are people would play first pass demo even graphics and UI are bit rough now. According to their precious advice, we find what players expected in this genre. Primary feedback as following:

Guidance – tutorial for goal and skill, mini map

Balance – enemies are too…

Decoration and furnishing for dungeon

This month, we focus on adding enemy ability and decorating generated dungeon. As Cogmind’s author mentioned, most traditional roguelike has pretty barren environment. In our game, Umbraseal, we use two process to make dungeon more interesting:

Decoration for building structure

Placing furnishing by area

For decorating building structure, we define stage theme config by Tilededitor. Currently,…

Danmaku made by Haxe

To build a bullet hell / roguelike game we need both dungeon generator and bullet pattern engine. In Tunneling Maze Generator, we build a framework for dungeon generator. Now we need to decide what kind of bullet pattern engine to use.

AFAIK, there are many types of bullet pattern engine. BulletML which is used by Enter the Gungeon; Touhou Danmakufu which can make Touhou Project-style game; and…

In our new game, we want a dungeon generation algorithm for bullet hell combat. Which means this algorithm should:

Generate enough open space

Prevent narrow corridor

Most Roguelike games generate room first and use corridor to connect them. The narrow corridor and door can improve exploring experience but hurt dodging ability. So we choose Tunneling Algorithm instead of classic method like Space…