LittleBear
says: It's six-dozen of one, half the other.
30.01.09
Xevious Resurrection
I haven’t heard too much about Xevious Resurrection, but it appears to be coming out soon (at least in Japan). Pretty graphics, I hope they add something to the game play.
26.01.09
Pulse
The guys at UglyApps sent me a link to an interesting game they’ve just released called Pulse. It’s almost a shooter, without the shooting. It reminds me a little of Every Extend, though it’s certainly different in many ways too.
Use your mouse to graze the enemies, gathering power for your pulse cannon. Gather enough energy and it’ll become active, and the more enemies within your range the more points you get when firing it. It’s a simple premise, but seems to me there’s some interesting possibilities here.
The key will be in the variety of enemy types. There’s already some basic ones, perhaps more that I haven’t seen. Their visual designs are simple, yet different enough that you soon learn their respective behaviours. I think this can be taken a bit further, though, with some indicators for things such as sudden changes of direction.
The game is still being tweaked, and I think it could use some changes to the mouse controls. Right now your “ship” follows the absolute mouse point too quickly, making subtle moves difficult. I imagine this is very dependent on an individual’s own mouse settings. What might work better is a steady rate of movement, perhaps defined by the distance of the mouse cursor to the ship’s position. That way the movement speed would still be adjustable, but perhaps more consistent.
Anyway, I like where this is heading. There are versions available for Windows, Linux, and Mac.
24.01.09
White Butterfly
Linley‘s White Butterfly has finally been finished. I’ve kept the original, 2-level version on my hard-drive and played it off and on since it came out. I really like the game 
The new version adds (at least) a level, 2 new ships (with new weapons!), and improves upon the original. I’m really looking forward to seeing the new content. Downloads are available here, and here. Source is also available.
For those not familiar with the game, it improves upon the 3-weapon system originally used in Garden of Coloured Lights. Weapons must be upgraded as a group in order to gain from the upgrade benefit, encouraging the use of all 3 per ship. The selection of weapons are varied and unique, with my favourite still being the group equipped on the “Hand of Xom” ship.
It’s a challenging game, but well worth putting time into a ship and learning its strengths. Great fun
See also: Garden of Coloured Lights, Excellent Bifurcation.
22.01.09
Taylor’s Entry (Session 08)
Had to give an eponymous name to Taylor‘s entry for Session 8. It’s a simple game, mainly as Taylor was unable to finish much due to time constraints. Despite that, it has some interesting potential.
You shoot either forward or back (‘X‘ or ‘Z‘ respectively) but in addition to that you control your options’ firing direction with your movement. The two work together but are controlled through a different mechanism. With some good level design this could really work out well.
omnigun
omnigun is null1024‘s Session 8 entry. It’s a pretty good game, though the colour scheme (which I initially liked) got tiring to the eyes pretty fast.
The game starts to throw a lot of bullets at you, as you maneuver your way through the environment. null1024 went for a different control scheme here, giving you a cannon that rotates 360 degrees with ‘Z‘ and ‘C‘. I like having to fly my way through some tight spots, and come around a corner shooting.
A little less bullet hell might be more in keeping with the “sniper” style, right now it seems the game is of two types at odds with each other. I also think the controls could be a little less sensitive, as the rotation is pretty fast making it hard to aim properly.
