At any rate, it’s probably best to break my two month streak of silence.

Been playing a lot of TGM (well…actually a freeware version called Heboris (http://www.hosiken.com/software/windows/heboris2001/) with the unofficial expansions (http://hebo.game-host.org)–feel free to download and check ‘em out!), mostly working on improving my speed in both 20G and sub-20G play…and, somewhat to my surprise, I’ve been making major improvements–I can clear Master (G4) mode in approximately 9 minutes with a ~M3 grade, which is starting to get to a high level of play. I’m hoping to break sub-9 soon, and eventually sub-8.

I’ll get some replay data and/or screenshots posted soon of all my Heboris records.

Outside of that, been working on finishing up school (as of later tonight I will be a high school graduate!) and getting things squared away for college.

One last random note: If you haven’t, check out the little blurb on the Aristieluan War in the Lead Curtain forum–that’ll be Lead Curtain’s official pack-in game, featuring…well…if I told you that here, you wouldn’t visit the thread, so I’ll hush up for now.

Anyway, that should be it. Depending on your luck (no stacking the dice either!) you might see another post from me SOONER than two months!

~Eric/EI

I never would have expected the forum’s opening to be this sudden, but so it goes.

At any rate, Espgaluda is still whooping me left and right, and I’ve all but given up on further Star Fox 64 play after breaking the 2000 hit barrier. Instead, my time has been mostly spent with school, work, and most importantly sleep.

I might also mention that the ultra-wacky, bizarre timesink Disgaea (both my recently acquired copy of 1 and my more distantly acquired copy of 2) has once again caught my attention, and draws a lot of time as well.

Either way, the impending public release is exciting, and hopefully we’ll attract some users and some extra talent to help push development.

One last cryptic note to the public: Empress Aristielua is on her way……eventually…

~EI

At any rate, been bogged down with school, gaming to some degree (such as a Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door speedrun), and just plain getting some R&R.
Somewhere in there, though, a new idea has brewed within my brain, and I feel like expressing it now before it flits away.

It’s called Reactix, a top-down shooter in similar vein to the dual-stick shooters like Robotron 2048, Smash TV or Total Carnage (the Eugene Jarvis ones). The whole point is to destroy a reactor before it can supply enough power to a doomsday device. Each level will be timed, requiring you to not only navigate through the reactors without dying, but also quickly. In the later reactors, more and more defenses will be set up, including bosses that guard the central cores. In addition, later reactors would become more and more complex, requiring you to be able to navigate large mazes (while being chases by multitudes of guard robots).

It should be a good show–and I’d like to note that it’ll probably be my first major project after the completion of the Aristieluan War.

At any rate, stay tuned. As more thoughts develop on either this or tAW, I’ll make sure to share them with you. (Okay, admittedly, it’s more when I decide that some information on tAW should be made PUBLIC more than anything).

~EI

However, it wasn’t always this way.

One game in particular has stood out to me as exemplary in this case (at least as far as games I’ve very recently played is concerned): Star Fox 64.

This game manages to create a fairly simple system for a rail shooter: you move, you can shoot or bomb, hold the shot button down for a charge shot, and boost, brake, and somersault/U-turn (which are specialized enough that you generally don’t need to worry about them). For the most part, you move and shoot. To play through the game, you just have to shoot everything, maybe using a bomb on large enemy mobs or what have you. But…the game manages to hide much more within its charge shot system–if you kill more than one enemy simultaneously with a charge shot, you get a point bonus. If you delve deeper, you’ll note that if you get a certain amount of points on a level, you can earn a medal. However, the game isn’t done there–get all the medals and you get an expert mode to extend the game’s life. However, even with that conquered, the charge shot system still taunts you. You KNOW you can get an extra few points from this location here, or what have you. The scoring draws you back in for repeated plays–yet the game hides enough things that you have to study the levels to figure out the best routes, the best strategies for high scoring play.

These games are sorely missed by yours truly in the modern gaming world, as many companies instead opt for games with ridiculous amounts of unlockables, and fail to make a game that’s not only fun to play in its own right, but also gives you something to shoot for.

Once Lead Curtain comes out, expect me to put forth my best efforts at making a game that’s easy enough to grasp at the surface, but horrendously difficult to truly MASTER and play PERFECTLY. In other words, the Aristieluan War, my pet shooter project for the kit will be both accessible and maddeningly good at drawing your latent obsessive-compulsiveness, at least regarding scoring tendencies. At the very least, that’s my aim, one I intend to fulfill.

After all…these days a skill contest is almost novel in its own right.

Just some food for thought.

~EI

Also broke my Arrange record by an equally good margin–about 13 million points (from 53 million to 66,593,823), though I didn’t reach much further in the game itself. What is notable, however, are record stage 1 and 3 scores (likely because I actually reached the miniboss on this particular run for the first time).

All in all, a good day. Maybe I’ll go back later for another couple runs. Actually, I think I might go back to FFXII. I’m getting close to actually being done with that beast…

~EI

At any rate, for those who weren’t thoroughly aware, I’m the resident shooter fanatic on the Stencyl team…and yes, I do mean “fanatic”. Fanatic to the point of torrenting 8 gigs of MAME ROMs only to filter out and play almost only shooters on it (ironically now lost due to formatting my hard drive). Fanatic to the point of acquiring no less than 15 total locally released shooters. Fanatic to the point of IMPORTING a Japanese PS2 solely to import shooters to play on them. Fanatic.

Either way, it’s clear that shooters (and, before you read any further, know that I mean TRUE shooters, or what you newfangled kids might call “arcade shooters” or “scrolling shooters”. R-Type. Gradius. Ikaruga. Those. If you so much as think in my presence (insert FPS here, say…”Halo” or “Doom 3″ or whatever random FPS it is that’s populr these days) is a shooter, I’ll kill you where you sit. No joke) are a major part of my gaming life.

At any rate, that should hopefully serve a sufficient introduction. I don’t feel like rambling much more.

~EI