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The pixel art and colors are at high level.
It's really cool to see the developer working around Genesis limitations to bring a nice game like in the old days.
A question I ask for simple curiosity, because the Genesis horizontal shump's always show a HUD that occupies a large playable area? This is only an aesthetic decision or serves to save some CPU work, since the sprites are not rendered below the HUD?
Hello @EPSYLON EAGLE, thank you for your support and interest in our project.
To answer your question, we decided to use a hud, because the super power like shinobi requires a lot of CPU resources. In a game like Shinobi II, this is not a problem, because the action is frozen and there are never lot of sprites on the screen.
With IRENA, it is essential not to stop the action, which that implies a consequent CPU load in addition to the problems related to the limitation of sprite (80). If you do a quick calcul, a dragon requires 8 sprites, which gives us a total of 32 sprites to manage at the same time !
To relieve the CPU a little and keep some free sprites, the hud has a great use. So, the four dragons requires 28 sprites to be displayed on the screen.
Naturally, when a sprite is behind the hud, it is automatically hidden / recyled according her definition for more performance.
On this video, IRENA run on Japanese Mega Drive VA2 :
https://youtu.be/AuEl8buF8Ls
Hello, I'm happy to announce that it's now possible to try our prototype demo of IRENA Genesis Metal Fury!
So, the rom is available on itch.io and just go to this address to download the ROM to enjoy it on Mega Drive using an EverDrive or with any emulator. Nevertheless, it is advisable to use RetroArch, Regen or Kega Fusion although most emulators should work without problems.
I have a preference for RetroArch, because the emulation is relatively fast with good latency. Of course, if you want use an emulator, make sure you have a good controller like the RetroBit 6-button Mega Drive.
I sincerely hope that you will enjoy our teamwork and allow us to continue the project.
Feel free to post here opinions, suggestions and your best highscore!
I think it is good for a prototype. Congrats!
Can we expect more things on the background and enemies in the screen at the same time for the actual game or would this be hard to pull off without creating slowdowns?
The demo is great. Nice graphics and gameplay! I really like the Fury mechanic, it makes it worthwhile to destroy enemies. The boss pattern could be a bit better, sometimes it comes from behind and stays there really long, and if the weapon isn't powered up you have to wait for quite a while until you can damage him again. Or maybe you could put weapon upgrades every now and then during the boss too.
Yes, unfortunately we did not have time to work on the background of PLAN A. We should later add a large map with different passages on land areas (metal bridge, cavern, etc.). We will insert new enemies and lots of other things.Quote:
Originally Posted by Zygrunt
Thanks for your feedback !
I wasn't sure what to expect, but I was pleasantly surprised. The game had a certain Neo-Geo-ish quality to it and feels like it would feel at home if you decided to port it over at some point. I really liked that intro demo mechanic with the arcade controller and buttons. Overall, for something so early, it looks pretty good!
OMG WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY!Quote:
Originally Posted by avlon
Jokes aside, this looks really good, I like the arcade feel indeed and I look forward to this game.
I like it, I'm enjoying the demo, graphics look good enough.
There's some space for improvement on the sound department (shooting sound it's kind of annoying), and I think the ship's hitbox it's too big. Keep up the good work!
Yes nice demo! Fan of the foreign japanese like weird voices here and there.
Although the background is very nice, I find it a bit strange that the dithering paterns do actually NOT blend, nor in composite nor RF... whilst this is the sole reason of their existence, at least back then (having more colors on-screen)
Hello everyone, I'm back to announce that the Kickstarter campaign starts today! The long-awaited demo will be available for free on the Kickstarter page.
Much has changed and been improved. This is an official demo unlike the prototype which was as the name suggests, a prototype that allowed us to check out if players wanted this game.
The Kickstarter campaign will be available in just under an hour: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects...sis-metal-fury
I sincerely hope that the SEGA-16 community will appreciate this new demo and the evolution of the project since the prototype.
See you soon !
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRxOHjEiHEw
Kickstarter is live now, so try throwing some money there.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects...sis-metal-fury
I backed at the basic CIB level. Looking good!
Backed. Yay for ROM downloads. I've sold all of my consoles, and I'll play this on my Pi-powered arcade cab.
I'm not a big shoot 'em up fan, but this still look nice. I've watched a video of Kento and he seems like a cool guy.
Was looking online for updates about this game a week or two ago. Glad to see they launched their Kickstarter.
Thanks for posting that in here @nihilblack.
Looks like my cup of tea, so backed. I went for the basic cartridge version. One minor irk: I would have liked an option to buy a cart and ROM file together but no biggie :).
This. Throw it an extra 5 bucks to get the rom at half cost if you buy the CIB cart.Quote:
Originally Posted by cleeg
wow 2/3 funded in 3 days. maybe boosted by this?
https://images2.imgbox.com/bd/01/QBicWJSD_o.jpg
Doesn't the basic 'Metal Core' tier include the cart and ROM file? Am I missing something?
Or was it updated after your posts?
Those who sells sex, sells sex. Those who sells leather underwear, sells leather underwear.
Yes I think it's the latter as previously you could only get both with the 60€ stepQuote:
Originally Posted by Gryson
So is this a French game? Just curious.
Yes, at least Kentosama is french, I don't know about the rest of the team.Quote:
Originally Posted by chilled
I like the demo, and I like the care they've put on making some sort of competitive game with the MEGASCORE website (https://megascore.whiteninjastudio.com/), and the SRAM saving, which should be mandatory on this kind of game. The Kickstarter page is really good, and I think I'll surely back this when I get some money available. I also like the idea that they're stablishing a new franchise that they'll develop in the future. There's a lot of thinking behind Irena.
On the bad side, I think the pixel art could be much better than what is shown on the demo.
The graphic artist is American (as mentioned in the French video I posted).Quote:
Originally Posted by nihilblack
This is looking nice, i wonder if they will keep the fire special move as it looks like it's been ripped from Revenge Of Shinobi
That is intentional. It's one of the many nods or homages that this game contains.Quote:
Originally Posted by Edek
Pretty nice. I'm thinking of backing and getting a physical copy.
During the launch of the Kickstarter campaign, I posted a message here, but strangely it was not published and it's not possible for me to submit it again, because the forum tells me that it has already been sent.
To answer your questions, this is a Franco-American game.
The photo of Melissa, the model to imagine Celina, was posted late in the day (6pm), so it's unlikely that people were motivated for it, but yeah she is beautiful!
Indeed, the special attack "dragon fury" was taken from The Revenge of Shinobi, it's a tribute to the game of SEGA. Besides, the magnetic shield is also inspired by the game.
The sea level was also inspired by Shinobi III.
Regarding the Samsung Slimflit CRT, I own several and there is no problem for 50 / 60Hz consoles in RGB or composite. However I use a CSYNC RGB cable from retrogamingcable.
If you have any questions regarding the Kickstarter campaign or the demo, I would be happy to answer them.
Backed the highest tier yesterday. It's getting some minor hate on /r/shmups, but the game looks and plays solidly for a demo. I can see it becoming pretty polished if given enough time. The Genesis homebrews, if you can even call them that at this point, are looking pretty amazing.
Of course /r/shmups is filled with people who live and breathe shmups. They're certainly going to have their opinions on it, and compare it with existing games. They'll be honest and harsh and be the exact people the project needs for it to improve.
Also backed, Shmups are my favorite genre so this is a nobrainer for me
There's an updated demo available:
https://www.whiteninjastudio.com/pos...-now-available
They also announced a future competition with some prizes:
https://twitter.com/_irenagenesis/st...649520654?s=19
This can't be stated enough. You learn the most from a hard critique. There's no value in empty praise.Quote:
Originally Posted by djcc
That said, I'm sure enough people have given their critique of the demo. I would just say that yeah it needs more tuning in the balancing enemies, weapons, etc. The mechanics and design need to match the rest of the polish put into this. I don't know what level they're going for (professional feel), but it's better than some armature attempts at shmups. I would find someone pretty knowledgeable to help tune everything. I mean, if you can't do that then just up the 'flash/presentation' to like 11. Maybe I'm just being cynical, but given that the KS is at 50k+ and ends in 16 days, I highly doubt anything's gonna be updated. Anyway, congrats! A new MD homebrew haha.
Gave the demo a try, the presentation is fine although limited, the gameplay is mediocre, stage drags (try cutting 2-3 mins), enemy variety gets old fast, overly basic bullet patterns (most enemies just shoot straight and there is barely any aimed or spread pattern), spongey enemies, unsatisfying weapons/fire-rate, hitbox seems too big even for horizontal shooter standards and overall it feels kinda cluttered, especially the section with walls where movement is too restricted and wall contact isn't lenient enough.
Shmprium?
At least these guys are open about the project and seem to accept feedback, if backers don't care much for quality gameplay that's just on them. Tänzer dude's shmup is definitely looking a lot cooler though.Quote:
Originally Posted by chilled
Did a video to show some of the flaws I stated before.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3Hpg5j0K4s
While the campaign page could have used more polish, I was surprised (but happy) to see the game get funded so fast! In particular the trailer at the top of it is blurry and I wasn't a fan of the voice or the soundtrack. The prototype gameplay below does a better job at selling the game imo.
I messed around with the demo a bit then backed the game, but tbh I was going to back it either way.
Vludi is saying is exactly what I was thinking, and the video pretty much sums it up.
The level design and pacing need to be more interesting, I didn't particularly enjoy the demo as even the first level just drags for minutes on end.
It got more interesting with the interior stage and the walls, but I think the ship is too big, especially for a letterboxed game (UI).
Hopefully the levels get much more development, but the cool bosses and good music are promising!
Here is the updated sea level. Which looks much better than before. The rain adds a nice touch:
https://twitter.com/i/status/1364166811235811330
https://twitter.com/i/status/1364166811235811330
Very nice, reminds me of Vectorman a bit actually.