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Assault Android Cactus |OT| Do Androids Dream of Bullet Hell? (Multiple platforms)

Paz

Member
Well crap. Got home and the region issue is still occurring with Share Play.

I'm still waiting to hear back from Sony on this, it's definitely a back end thing where the system doesn't think the game is released. Sorry :(

Oh and re intro animation question from earlier, the lip sync isn't intended to be in slow mo but it is a bit stylized, I don't think it's a bug but it's hard to say if something has gone wrong without having seen it :p
 

oggob

Member
Played this last night for about 90mins or so, managed to S+ the first zone (5 stages) with Cactus... Lots of retries though! Lol

Gave the Wave mode ago also and got pleasantly owned, bloody mines are sneaky!

Game is buttery smooth and I will lose many hours to this

I didn't completely follow everything about it, but I was surprised to see that stages are mainly kill rooms rather than traditional point A to point B routes. That is not a complaint, just surprising, will make score chasing slightly easier once you learn the patterns.

Would be interested to know if Paz will throw some detail of how the scoring works, I assume the faster the better, but obviously if I get the same level time I'm not going to have the same score as someone else, so do the white orbs and power ups make all the difference?
 
Finally beat it with the shotgun girl, then went 20 something deep in the Ingnition level with her. Time to let my hands heal, haha.
 

Shizuka

Member
Just got most of the misc trophies, except for letting the last boss kill itself with the laser. Tried that three times, I'll try again tomorrow.
 
Finally beat the final boss after dozens of attempts. That's gotta' be one of the toughest end-bosses I've ever faced in a game. Wow.

Amazing game. One of my early favorites for 2016.
 
Damn. The platinum looks hard as nails. I'll need a spare hand for that. Don't think I can get all S+ even if my life depended on it.

Basically. The game is really fun but I don't have it in me to go for all S+ ranks anymore.

I'll watch videos of people doing it though.
 

Paz

Member
Played this last night for about 90mins or so, managed to S+ the first zone (5 stages) with Cactus... Lots of retries though! Lol

Gave the Wave mode ago also and got pleasantly owned, bloody mines are sneaky!

Game is buttery smooth and I will lose many hours to this

I didn't completely follow everything about it, but I was surprised to see that stages are mainly kill rooms rather than traditional point A to point B routes. That is not a complaint, just surprising, will make score chasing slightly easier once you learn the patterns.

Would be interested to know if Paz will throw some detail of how the scoring works, I assume the faster the better, but obviously if I get the same level time I'm not going to have the same score as someone else, so do the white orbs and power ups make all the difference?

The core scoring systems should all sync up with a mantra of 'kill everything as efficiently as possible' but there are a few things that fight against each other for your attention, though white orbs are not the key. They are super useful because because they power up your main gun but they don't give extra score or anything.

Basically every enemy is worth x score, and x score is multiplied by your chain up to 8x, and enemies killed within a split second of each other are considered a multi kill and worth bonus score, but there's also a level clear time bonus so if you slow down to try and earn multi kills you're playing it off against the time bonus. You also lose 10% of your score every time you get knocked down, and even losing your chain has a massive impact on your overall score. Oh and batteries are also worth score, but slowing down to try and get more of them will definitely not help you as the clear score and chain values should always be much more worthwhile.

The granularity should be pretty deep when you consider the time bonus and multi kill elements as well as the way different androids weapons work (Coral for example is prone to multi kills but slower clear times due to her short range but large area simultaneous attack), on PC we see very nice distinctions between players and the systems are identical on PS4 so it should carry over.

There's also the fact that the game is completely deterministic which comes in to play with enemy positions and powerup timing/positioning, your exact physical location + the order in which you defeat enemies + the timing in which you defeat enemies will cause the next spawns and powerup drops and can be 'gamed' to some degree, I recommend playing around with Embryo and trying out different timings on his first phase to see how it works or a level like Hive is nice for trying to roughly control the flow of the enemy spawns etc.
 

Shizuka

Member
Hey Paz, how's the Vita version coming along? Any plans for a limited physical print, maybe through Limited Run Games?
 
Wear headphones, If that's not an option hold the ps button and turn it down from one of the menus there. i dont think there is an option in game.

I don't like it when games use the speaker excessively either. Is my only fault with this game atm otherwise its fricking great.


We'll likely be adding an in-game volume slider for the controller audio in an update, sorry about that oversight we just got used to using the OS controls for volume (I usually use that on other games too for some reason).

For now you can use the volume controls that you see when you hold the PS button for a few seconds, it will also auto disable the controller voice if you use headphones.

Thanks guys. Game is very good. I tend to play with the TV on a low volume so the voice coming from the controller seemed really loud and distracting.
 
Hehe, small head mode looks funny. They look so strange with appropriately proportioned anatomy

I'm still waiting to hear back from Sony on this, it's definitely a back end thing where the system doesn't think the game is released. Sorry :(

Oh and re intro animation question from earlier, the lip sync isn't intended to be in slow mo but it is a bit stylized, I don't think it's a bug but it's hard to say if something has gone wrong without having seen it :p

No apologies necessary. I'm sure it will get sorted out. You guys are awesome and I appreciate you taking the time to reach out to Sony about a bonus feature that is no fault of you or your game.
 

Shaneus

Member
The core scoring systems should all sync up with a mantra of 'kill everything as efficiently as possible' but there are a few things that fight against each other for your attention, though white orbs are not the key. They are super useful because because they power up your main gun but they don't give extra score or anything.

Basically every enemy is worth x score, and x score is multiplied by your chain up to 8x, and enemies killed within a split second of each other are considered a multi kill and worth bonus score, but there's also a level clear time bonus so if you slow down to try and earn multi kills you're playing it off against the time bonus. You also lose 10% of your score every time you get knocked down, and even losing your chain has a massive impact on your overall score. Oh and batteries are also worth score, but slowing down to try and get more of them will definitely not help you as the clear score and chain values should always be much more worthwhile.

The granularity should be pretty deep when you consider the time bonus and multi kill elements as well as the way different androids weapons work (Coral for example is prone to multi kills but slower clear times due to her short range but large area simultaneous attack), on PC we see very nice distinctions between players and the systems are identical on PS4 so it should carry over.

There's also the fact that the game is completely deterministic which comes in to play with enemy positions and powerup timing/positioning, your exact physical location + the order in which you defeat enemies + the timing in which you defeat enemies will cause the next spawns and powerup drops and can be 'gamed' to some degree, I recommend playing around with Embryo and trying out different timings on his first phase to see how it works or a level like Hive is nice for trying to roughly control the flow of the enemy spawns etc.
Linked to this in the OT. For those that pass it off as a "simple" game.
 

nikos

Member
Just experienced the depleted battery music. So good. Also love how the walls, at least in the level I'm on, turn into an EQ.
 

antitrop

Member
Wario64 is the first worldwide platinum. You're a monster, Wario. God bless you.

I've beaten a few of his scores, but I don't think I can do this Plat.

I'll certainly give it a shot. Right now I'm trying to get to Layer 25 in Infinity Drive mode. I've gotten up to 23 and I can always get to the low 20s, but it's a waste of 30 minutes when you fuck up and that sucks.
 

Ogawa-san

Member
I can barely get to 20 in infinity, I've come to accept this plat is out of reach for me. I'll be trying but I know I won't go far. I've S+ the first area but every time I lose the chain because the last enemy in a wave is behind a wall on a rotating stage, I have to take a break.

I wonder if it's a bit easier with more people... Going with AIs changes the dynamic quite a bit, especially for bosses, but they die often and so the game gets harder with them around. Can you even get a S+ when chains are per character?

Also, I know you don't get scores when you have some of the ex options enabled, but do they disable achievements as well?
 

hbkdx12

Member
Anyone interested in ranking the characters in terms of ease of accessibility from noob friendly to difficult to master?

Still early on in the game and so far i've tried cactus, holly and starch. Holly is pretty good but i find i suffer a lot if i get swarmed by enemies, take damage and end up having my weapon power down. Starch feels a bit difficult by comparison to the other two.

Anyone have any opinions about which characters are pretty good once you do master them?
 
Just got back from playing this in the break room here at work. This was one of those rare occasions where the room was packed. Everyone was like 0_0

I offered a co-op spot, but no one accepted. /sigh

The flashes and gunfire interrupted some people's naps. Aww...
 

labaronx

Member
The core scoring systems should all sync up with a mantra of 'kill everything as efficiently as possible' but there are a few things that fight against each other for your attention, though white orbs are not the key. They are super useful because because they power up your main gun but they don't give extra score or anything.

Basically every enemy is worth x score, and x score is multiplied by your chain up to 8x, and enemies killed within a split second of each other are considered a multi kill and worth bonus score, but there's also a level clear time bonus so if you slow down to try and earn multi kills you're playing it off against the time bonus. You also lose 10% of your score every time you get knocked down, and even losing your chain has a massive impact on your overall score. Oh and batteries are also worth score, but slowing down to try and get more of them will definitely not help you as the clear score and chain values should always be much more worthwhile.

The granularity should be pretty deep when you consider the time bonus and multi kill elements as well as the way different androids weapons work (Coral for example is prone to multi kills but slower clear times due to her short range but large area simultaneous attack), on PC we see very nice distinctions between players and the systems are identical on PS4 so it should carry over.

There's also the fact that the game is completely deterministic which comes in to play with enemy positions and powerup timing/positioning, your exact physical location + the order in which you defeat enemies + the timing in which you defeat enemies will cause the next spawns and powerup drops and can be 'gamed' to some degree, I recommend playing around with Embryo and trying out different timings on his first phase to see how it works or a level like Hive is nice for trying to roughly control the flow of the enemy spawns etc.


Just wanted to say im loving the game, you guys did awesome work
 

labaronx

Member
Anyone interested in ranking the characters in terms of ease of accessibility from noob friendly to difficult to master?

Still early on in the game and so far i've tried cactus, holly and starch. Holly is pretty good but i find i suffer a lot if i get swarmed by enemies, take damage and end up having my weapon power down. Starch feels a bit difficult by comparison to the other two.

Anyone have any opinions about which characters are pretty good once you do master them?

Lemon and her seeker gun has worked great for my girlfriend... mild casual gamer
 

Shady859

Member
Just noticed a dev is here so props on a great release! This game is going to be my new crack and i've probably played it almost as much as that other massive game that released the same day... Only made it 2-2 in the campaign but i'm score hunting and Infinity Drive mode is crack.

The only thing lacking in this game is replays on the leaderboards. Would be awesome to see strategies and scoring tricks of at least the top 10 list.
 

Paz

Member

Wow thank you! That's a nice thing to see in the morning :)

Anyone interested in ranking the characters in terms of ease of accessibility from noob friendly to difficult to master?

Still early on in the game and so far i've tried cactus, holly and starch. Holly is pretty good but i find i suffer a lot if i get swarmed by enemies, take damage and end up having my weapon power down. Starch feels a bit difficult by comparison to the other two.

Anyone have any opinions about which characters are pretty good once you do master them?

Holly is a great first timer character with her seeker primary but all of the characters are designed to be viable throughout the game (And leaderboards for the most part), I'd say Aubergine has the biggest payoff when you get to grips with her, she also has the highest learning curve.

My personal love is learning to use Peanut's drill well because it's so fast and visceral :)

Any chance of adding a auto shoot option that fire the weapon whenever the right stick is tilted?

We don't link it to the stick input for a few reasons but you can try the inverted fire mode in the options.

And thanks for all the kind words everyone! One small update on the back end just got fixed up and now scores should be visible for everyone not just the top 1000 on any given leaderboard :)
 
Anyone interested in ranking the characters in terms of ease of accessibility from noob friendly to difficult to master?

Still early on in the game and so far i've tried cactus, holly and starch. Holly is pretty good but i find i suffer a lot if i get swarmed by enemies, take damage and end up having my weapon power down. Starch feels a bit difficult by comparison to the other two.

Anyone have any opinions about which characters are pretty good once you do master them?
Eggplant (Aubergine) is arguably the hardest character to use efficiently when solo. Have to split your spacial awareness between your character, the enemies surrounding you and your individually controlled drone. Also doesn't help that her damage output is fairly low despite this and that her black hole alt fire (which doesn't dish out a whole lot of hurt too given the utility) is moderately easy to misfire for a number of reasons. She's more manageable with a keyboard and mouse, but... that's a moot point on PS4.
 

antitrop

Member
Managed to reach Layer 26 in Infinity Drive and S+'d a bunch more stages. Guess the Plat is within reach after all.

Easily one of the best twin-stick shooters I've ever played, when it's over I'll wish I could do it all over again.
 
I've S+ed the first 15 stages now but it's getting difficult. Stage gimmicks seem like the hardest element to deal with as I really struggled on Transit and the one after with the spinning fire in the middle.
 

Calabi

Member
I seem to have encountered a massive increase in difficulty I cant even get past the first encounter with Liquorice I end up just surviving with the batteries and then she ends up stealing them so its game over.
 

Paz

Member
I've S+ed the first 15 stages now but it's getting difficult. Stage gimmicks seem like the hardest element to deal with as I really struggled on Transit and the one after with the spinning fire in the middle.

Transit is imo one of the hardest levels to S+ due to the nature of the enemy types being introduced and the level elements, Heat is another one that's quite tricky. I can still do them both with all characters but they definitely need a bit more attention than something like Checkpoint, the later levels have harder encounters but not so many tricky situations to manage so it's hard to say where people might end up hitting a wall.

Hey Paz, any update on when the Wii U port is hitting? Thanks!

We're not talking about dates until things are more set in stone, after three years we've learned our lesson sorry!

I seem to have encountered a massive increase in difficulty I cant even get past the first encounter with Liquorice I end up just surviving with the batteries and then she ends up stealing them so its game over.

Your best bet is to make sure your secondary weapon is being used efficiently in the first half of the level, and try to grab things like the accelerate powerup in the second part because it helps you evade her and collect powerups.

The final zone is definitely difficult with the last two stages being quite challenging, but if you try to utilize everything you've learned up until this point I'm sure you can push through. Just remember that damage efficiency is everything, good luck!


And a bit of a brag but we've had some really great reviews roll in over the last few days including a few more 10 out of 10's, it's such an exhilarating feeling to see people *get* Cactus and really enjoy what we've created, you can probably tell from the leaderboards it's not a break out hit but I'm so happy that the people who do know about it seem to love it the way we do :)

Maybe next time we won't launch at the same time as one of the biggest new IP's ever and the 'major' gaming sites will have time for us heh.
 
Transit is imo one of the hardest levels to S+ due to the nature of the enemy types being introduced and the level elements, Heat is another one that's quite tricky. I can still do them both with all characters but they definitely need a bit more attention than something like Checkpoint, the later levels have harder encounters but not so many tricky situations to manage so it's hard to say where people might end up hitting a wall.

I really did not appreciate the laser in Transit because sometimes it seemed like it would multi-hit you if you were in it slightly too long. I could be wrong but It seemed that if it hit me when I was walking to the right, I would take 1 or 2 pips of damage, but if I was walking left, I would take 5. I mean, it makes sense as moving left I would stay in the laser longer, but I I really didn't like that elemental It was only the laser section that was getting me though, lazer aside the rest of the stage isn't too bad. It's the brief moment where the lazer is going off and the big guys are appearing out of boxes that was tough.

But I hadn't slept for 2 days, so after I beat Transit and the level that followed, I decide to go to bed. It felt like I was kind of hitting a wall with those two, as they required 20-40+ retries each, but up to that point I hadn't had much difficulty. Hopefully when I get back to it fresh tomorrow (SFV tournament to attend today) it will be easier!

And a bit of a brag but we've had some really great reviews roll in over the last few days including a few more 10 out of 10's, it's such an exhilarating feeling to see people *get* Cactus and really enjoy what we've created, you can probably tell from the leaderboards it's not a break out hit but I'm so happy that the people who do know about it seem to love it the way we do :)

Maybe next time we won't launch at the same time as one of the biggest new IP's ever and the 'major' gaming sites will have time for us heh.

I'm sorry to hear this but happy that you're happy with the reviews. Hopefully the positive reception will give the game good legs in terms of sales.
 

Wonko_C

Member
I tested the game on a friend's old laptop I'm fixing for him (Pentium Dual Core 2.1 ghz with a Mobile Intel 4 Series) and it actually runs! 30-40 fps with drops to 20 when the screen gets swarmed with enemies, but my friend doesn't really care about graphics or framerate.

Since he's new to Steam/PC gaming, I'll gift this game to him for his account I just made.
 

Paz

Member
I tested the game on a friend's old laptop I'm fixing for him (Pentium Dual Core 2.1 ghz with a Mobile Intel 4 Series) and it actually runs! 30-40 fps with drops to 20 when the screen gets swarmed with enemies, but my friend doesn't really care about graphics or framerate.

Since he's new to Steam/PC gaming, I'll gift this game to him for his account I just made.

If you turn it down to 'low' settings and 720p resolution (Important) you should be able to hit close to 60fps in single player on that, as that's actually close to our min spec target for maximum playability :)
 

Wonko_C

Member
If you turn it down to 'low' settings and 720p resolution (Important) you should be able to hit close to 60fps in single player on that, as that's actually close to our min spec target for maximum playability :)

Wow, the game is truly well optimized then!
I have it running 512x384 with everything at the lowest, though. Next I'm going to open it up and clean it + apply new thermal paste on the CPU, the fans run too loud so it's probably not running better due to that.
 

Paz

Member
I assumed when you said mobile 4 series you meant Intel HD 4000? I'm not up on PC names, but a HD4k should be able to get it going at a decent speed :)

That res seems crazy low though o_O For clarity, our min spec was nearly identical to the original Surface Pro.

Edit - Oh I misread it as 2.1 ghz, not a core 2 at 1 ghz haha, wow that is freakin cool that it's very playable!
 

v1lla21

Member
I've only played the first 4 levels but just looking at the score of some of the peeps in my friends list 0_0 lol. Definitely going to play more today when I get home from work.
 

antitrop

Member
I've S+ed the first 15 stages now but it's getting difficult. Stage gimmicks seem like the hardest element to deal with as I really struggled on Transit and the one after with the spinning fire in the middle.

Transit is my nemesis. That fucking laser beam that sweeps the entire stage.
 

Wonko_C

Member
I assumed when you said mobile 4 series you meant Intel HD 4000? I'm not up on PC names, but a HD4k should be able to get it going at a decent speed :)

That res seems crazy low though o_O For clarity, our min spec was nearly identical to the original Surface Pro.

Edit - Oh I misread it as 2.1 ghz, not a core 2 at 1 ghz haha, wow that is freakin cool that it's very playable!

Oh, no no no, I wish it was as powerful as that at least, LOL. This laptop Is about 4 years older than the first Surface Pro I believe. It "boasts" a Pentium Dual-Core T4300 @ 2.1 ghz, and the Mobile Intel Series 4 is from like 2009, It can barely output Xbox-level graphics.

I'm still amazed and amused it runs this playable, you people rock. :D
 

sn00zer

Member
Holy fuck this game is insanely polished. Kinda shocked how clean it plays, looks, and sounds


Also I hope anyone ho voted for Broforce instead of this feels very bad.
 

antitrop

Member
S+'d every stage except for the Zone 3, 4, and 5 bosses. The time limits on bosses for S+ is so strict, if you don't manage your secondary weapon pretty much perfectly, you always fail like right before the boss is about to actually die.
 

hawk2025

Member
I don't want to pile on Broforce any more, but yesterday it fucking crashed my PS4 right as I was about to launch it for the first time.

I then bought AAC and played the first two worlds, so there's your silver lining :)
 
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