Duality ZF (by Xona Games)

[Matthew Doucette]

[APPENDED 2009-Dec-22:]

Duality ZF Nov 2009 Gameplay




[APPENDED 2009-Apr-29:]

Duality ZF April 2009 Trailer




[ORIGINAL POST:]

Duality: ZF March 2009 Tech Demo



I'm not going to beat around the bush. This place seems great and it's very welcoming. I don't feel like a stranger at all. I want to share the shmup project I am working on, and hear your feedback as time progresses. It's an indie effort. It's almost finished and I wish I found your forums about 8 months ago when I started. Most of the feedback we got came from the system11 forums! But, there will be a sequel...

Anyways, video above, and screenshots below:



















(screenshots from http://xona.com/2009/03/31.html)

The breakdown is... it's a shooter with two "duality" features. One is "dual play", which is one player controlling two fighters at once, and the other is the duality weapon system, the "dual-sl", a spread / laser morphing system. Watch the video at the top to see it in action. 4X local multiplayer is supported. 4X dual play as well, which means eight fighters on screen at once. It's insanely ridiculous. There are six game modes. The video above is "survival", a one-life, live-as-long-as-you-can battle. And despite XBLCG restrictions we are going to have online scoreboards for gold xbox live members through a p2p score sharing system.

[dlmvii]

I saw someone mention your game on these forums earlier, so I was just looking more into it a few hours ago (initially I thought it was out already )
It looks great though, it will definitely be a purchase for me when it comes out, and I know there's lots of other shmup fans on racketboy
Best of luck to you, I hope it sells well. How much of a cut do you get vs Microsoft?

[Matthew Doucette]

Hey, well that's cool that you already heard of it. I hope the word eventually spreads on it's own. We have done zero marketing so far. I figure the majority of people who would like our game haven't heard of it. MS takes 30% and we take 70%. So if our game sells for 400 MS Pts, which it will, that's $5 USD (the majority of sales will be USD for now), MS takes $1.50 USD and we will keep $3.50 USD, per game. XBLCG is still in its infancy (as are we as developers), so we are not expecting too much. I want to break it out in Japan when it opens there. It will be interesting to see if our game develops any fans there.

[Matthew Doucette]

And for what it's worth, I wish the game was out! I honestly cannot wait to play it. When it's in development, it's always changing, so the scores are not meaning anything to us yet. Only when the game is done for real will we have that same feeling of accomplishment that comes from playing games!

[Ack]

Ok chief, I mentioned earlier that I enjoyed the art style, and having watched the YouTube vids, I gotta say I really do enjoy it, especially watching fighters crash on the ground after you've destroyed them. Now I don't play SHMUPS much, so there's likely some terminology you'll use that I won't understand(I wandered here from the fighter forum just to ask you these questions), so please, keep it simple. And if you're unable to answer at this time due to it being unreleased, I understand.

First, control setups. How are you controlling two ships with one controller? Are they mapped to both sticks on the 360 controller but with only one fire button, or do they fire separately? Adding to that, are you switching weapons or merely focusing fire when your shot spread suddenly narrows and then expands?

Next, about the size of the play field. I noticed several times in the video the player sweeping to the left or right and the field of vision shifting with them. In a few stationary instances, the camera still moved slightly forward and back. Is this the norm for the game, or did I just miss something?

Also, is that the final music for the game? If so, it sounds great.

Has the price been decided upon? I read 400 points but I wish to confirm.

Also, will it be 360 exclusive, or could we expect a PC, PS3, or Wii version possible in the future? I know you are already working towards a sequel(it's been mentioned a few times), but will there be any changes there, or is it too early to say?

Thanks very much. If you can't tell, I'm very interested in the game.

[RyaNtheSlayA]

Please love for Linux if you release it on PC. Or put it in a custom WINE installer that makes sure it works? This is assuming you put it on PC.

[Jayson]

That looks like a really good game. Are you going to be developing it for the PSN as well? You have a customer if so.

[MrPopo]

Based on the way the ships are moving, I'm 99% sure that the control scheme is each stick is a fighter, hold down the corresponding trigger for wide shot and the bumper for focus shot. I might have those two inverted, but that's at least how I would do it. I'm confident on the two sticks, though. You'll notice that the ships are always moving in tandem with each other, either in the same direction or the complete opposite direction. I saw the same thing happen when I tried the demo for Schizoid (which is a very interesting game if the idea of controlling two things at once appeals to you).

The background slightly panning to the left and right really reminds me of Blazing Lazers, except that you actually maintain the position of enemies/bullets relative to the ground, instead of relative to the screen.

The only thing that concerns me is that it looks like some of the bigger explosions might obscure my view of the incoming enemy fire, which I personally feel isn't a good thing. Then again, you don't have a lot of fire going on in the level, so it probably balances out.

[bobbynewmarkiii]

This looks great. I'm a big shmup fan, even through I'm not very good at them...

I just wanted to detail my problem with a couple of modern shooters (specifically 1942 Joint Strike and Soldner X Himmlesturmer on PSN) - which is that they don't bust you up enough. I don't know what the bar is in the bottom left of the screenshots - but I really dislike healthbars in shmups - if you get hit you should die!! My problem with JS42 & SX:H is that the games take way too long as players get too many lives - I play shmups because I have a generally short attention span, and don't want to play for a 1/2 hour unless it's going to get me through the game... (and don't get me started on the mini-level in JS1942 when you can't shoot because your guns are broked...it's a SHOOTING game for F's sake...).

Anyway - moral of the story is... please give us continues by all means - at least then it's up to us whether to use them, but please don't give us too many lives or (much of) a healthbar...

Xbox is totally pwning the PSN for decent shmups, and I hope your shooter carries on this trend. Do you have a release date yet???

[BigTinz]

It looks really good and I'm pleasantly surprised that an indie company located in America is putting out a shmup.

A few suggestions:

1. Make it VERY HARD
2. Keep tweaking the music until it's got the right bpm and "kick".(music sounds just fine in the youtube video btw)
3. Advertise on the shmups forum, neo-geo.com, arcade otaku and try to contact the people at "Kotaku"...if you can get a mention with kotaku you are set.


I think this might be a very popular game, there are a ton of shmup enthusiasts out there(myself included) that will support efforts like this.