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Assault Android Cactus |OT| Do Androids Dream of Bullet Hell? (Multiple platforms)
- Thread starter Shaneus
- Start date
Well Tim is the artist and it's his original concept, though from a purely design point of view much of the art was necessary to improve the gameplay in a 3D world. For example Cactus's original design was very slim and anime-esque but she was hard to see from above with almost no silhouette, adding distinct hair coloring and larger proportions to the character designs solved those issues.
There are a lot of things like that where we take a hit on the perception of the game to improve the game itself, for example every light in the entire game is a downwards facing shadow caster - This means every projectile has a positional accurate shadow, but it also greatly diminishes how 'good' the came can look because despite our really nice real time lighting it all ends up quite similar in look.
There are a few exceptions outside of gameplay moments or moments where we know there are no bullets, like the ending scene in Capacitor where the central pillar erups in shadow casting fire/light and everything looks amazing for a split second with long shadows
I was thinking more along the lines of dropping Cactus and Co altogether for big burly men...or ships. Truth be told I would have loved controlling ships <3
I don't think that would work, dropping the batteries.
I'm still early game but even when I'm not touched by enemies the initial battery won't last the whole stage. I guess a no knockdown mode will work, though.
D
Deleted member 125677
Unconfirmed Member
lmao - final boss spoiler:
died on the post-stage stage thingy, KILL EVERYTHING
Ah hmm, two parts to this. The first is that we really wanted to push personality in the game through the world building story (cut scenes, unique dialogue for each character with bosses), character design (Unique visuals and animation) and gameplay (different weapons), that's a lot harder to achieve with an object like a ship which becomes a tool in the players mind.
Second we developed a theme with the characters all being female and all being awesome, it wasn't always intentional that the game would be like that but once it emerged we were very hesitant to do anything that would take away from the female characters feeling normal - I'm particularly proud that almost no reviews call out the cast as being special for being all awesome females
I think if you add a male, even if you have both sexes, there's often this perception that the male character is the 'default' / 'main' character, and we didn't want that. As for an entire cast of male characters I think there would have to be a really solid reason for me to do that because it's kind of boring and exists in 90% of the games on my shelf, all that being said it's also possible the main character in our next game might end up being male, if the design necessitates it.
Good luck! I'd describe Cactus is a tight focused shoot 'em up in one player that scales toward chaotic party game in 4 player, though due to the shared battery everyone needs to hold their own
We do actually have an up to date demo that has 4 levels and 5 characters though, I wish Steam made that a bit clearer as I hate the idea of people having to risk anything on our game!No plans for a game mode that drastically alters the core mechanics right now, but we do have ideas for implementing a custom super hard remix campaign ala SMB Dark World, our end game caps out at S+ing all the stages (You practically can't get hit, but true single hit would suck with 3D graphics inherent position perception issues) and score chasing the best players.
Thanks for the quick reply. I can see your points regarding all subjects. I never thought of the ships as their own characters, as much as I love the Ikaruga and Vic Viper. Unless...you chibify them, turn the canopy into eyes, and give them a punchable face with a sarcastic personality! What could go wrong?
Giant Bomb put up a video of Assault Android Cactus today. Coverage!
I gotta' say; I finally went back to try to finish the Campaign and I'm not quite liking the last two boss battles. I'll spoiler this just in case:
I like the idea of fighting the clone. That was genuinely interesting. The problem is that the screen is so busy that it's incredibly hard to keep track of everything at once. That, and it seems like a battery almost always spawns next to your clone.
I did manage to beat the doppleganger with the Drill character but I chalk that up to dumb luck. Again, it's just way too busy and the camera pulling out so far just makes the fight feel very sloppy.
Final boss was okay up until the phase where roots come out of the ground (not the tentacles in the final phase). That part felt so incredibly random and again, it was just too busy, too much shit was going on at once to follow it.
I've played Shmups and Twin Stick games for years. I've played every Cave title that's emulated. I've beaten some of the harder non-Bullet Hell Shmups. And I've beaten a few of the Bullet-Hell ones too. But these two fights in particular were just too sloppy.
I did manage to beat the doppleganger with the Drill character but I chalk that up to dumb luck. Again, it's just way too busy and the camera pulling out so far just makes the fight feel very sloppy.
Final boss was okay up until the phase where roots come out of the ground (not the tentacles in the final phase). That part felt so incredibly random and again, it was just too busy, too much shit was going on at once to follow it.
I've played Shmups and Twin Stick games for years. I've played every Cave title that's emulated. I've beaten some of the harder non-Bullet Hell Shmups. And I've beaten a few of the Bullet-Hell ones too. But these two fights in particular were just too sloppy.
wild wild rice
Member
Shit, thought the bump meant this was out for Wii U/PS4. Will there be a demo on consoles?
What bump? It's been consistently posted in for almost a week now.
wild wild rice
Member
Haven't noticed, thought it's been out on PC for a few months now.
It was in early access for a while and was officially launched last week.
Crab Milk Mickey
Member
Technically a no-knockdown difficulty already exists if you enable the 'auto-reset when dropping the S+ chain' setting. Not really seeing the appeal behind a hypothetical Hard Mode sans batteries either.
First time that happened I gawked at it in disbelief. Seriously cool delivery.
My frothing demand for this remixed campaign increases.
What are the odds for extra behind-the-scenes adjustments, for that matter? Like tweaking certain characters for example, specifically Aubergine if you want me to elaborate.
Ignore if you don't want any advice:
The key to fighting Liquorice and preventing her from reaching the batteries is to focus on the collectible speed boost. Instead of actively having to walk over to it, the yellow power-up will have a magnetic effect on the battery within a certain radius even if the battery ends up dropping closer to Liquorice. There's also a tendency of your currently active power-up having an increased drop rate over the rest from what I gathered, so that way it's relatively easy to stack up on it. Furthermore, there can be some leeway to stall the battery drop in itself since while some enemies will inevitably spawn closer to Liquorice than to you, upon knocking her down you can drastically lower her time-to-kill output and incapacitate her once more prior killing the enemy robot(s) in question. The ease of this naturally varies between the playable androids, but there are valid strategies that allow you to consistently hit a groove, otherwise S+ would be a nigh-on impossible nightmare. Let alone the achievement of preventing to her to acquire a single battery.
With regards to Medulla: the roots from her Vespula phase aren't random and even though you clarified you didn't mean these, neither are the tentacles from her final phase. The latter will always spawn near you, whereas the former will always be launched in a cone towards the player. Said roots also narrow down the longer they travel, so it's advantageous to stick close to the boss once you spot the tell animation. With that in mind, it's possible to entirely ignore those roots and focus your field-of-vision elsewhere, especially when utilizing the invincibility frames on the weapon swapping.
Didn't think either fight had too much noise going on - in fact, I feel Assault Android Cactus excels in audiovisual clarity - but that's of course a subjective matter. The game however is reasonable and fair enough for a bullet hell novice like myself to complete and subsequently ace all levels, someone who hasn't been able to beat (let alone 1CC) any of the Cave titles nor less difficult classic shmups.
With regards to Medulla: the roots from her Vespula phase aren't random and even though you clarified you didn't mean these, neither are the tentacles from her final phase. The latter will always spawn near you, whereas the former will always be launched in a cone towards the player. Said roots also narrow down the longer they travel, so it's advantageous to stick close to the boss once you spot the tell animation. With that in mind, it's possible to entirely ignore those roots and focus your field-of-vision elsewhere, especially when utilizing the invincibility frames on the weapon swapping.
Didn't think either fight had too much noise going on - in fact, I feel Assault Android Cactus excels in audiovisual clarity - but that's of course a subjective matter. The game however is reasonable and fair enough for a bullet hell novice like myself to complete and subsequently ace all levels, someone who hasn't been able to beat (let alone 1CC) any of the Cave titles nor less difficult classic shmups.
Just unlocked Aubergine. She seems really cool but controlling her minion is really hard for me right now.
Also, I just suffered from a glitch in zone 3 stage 2, Transit. I was in the first part of the level and one of the little robots that fired missiles glitched and became both inactive and indestructible. No matter how many times I shot him with main the main and secondary weapons as Cactus he just stood there shouting "I'm fucking invincible!'. In the end I died after destroying everyone else due to the battery running out.
Also, I just suffered from a glitch in zone 3 stage 2, Transit. I was in the first part of the level and one of the little robots that fired missiles glitched and became both inactive and indestructible. No matter how many times I shot him with main the main and secondary weapons as Cactus he just stood there shouting "I'm fucking invincible!'. In the end I died after destroying everyone else due to the battery running out.
maybe try playing her with KB/M. she's made for it
Like the above post. She is pretty damn good when using a mouse and keyboard. Her partner in conjunction with her secondary attack does some serious destruction.
Crab Milk Mickey
Member
I feel conflicted now knowing there's a second, completionist S+ indicator for each level. Resisting OCD urges...
grandwizard
Member
This game is so great. I've never been fan of 'bullet hell' but the boss fights where you have to dodge a million things while keeping your aim on point are really getting me into it.
Messofanego
Banned
One player being able to move and goof around at the end of the level while the other is fixed was hilarious.
Crab Milk Mickey
Member
Peanut is indeed a ton of fun, though I struggle to have her turn around during her drill animation. Not quite sure how to go about it, unless she's simply not allowed to make really sharp turns by design.
Shadowhaxor
Member
I feel conflicted now knowing there's a second, completionist S+ indicator for each level. Resisting OCD urges...
I need to see some gameplay action of you. I can't even break S on half of these stages ;(
Crab Milk Mickey
Member
To be fair, some androids do allow more room for error than others on average, although the game kicks it up a notch for realsies around halfway through world 3.
#2's score is within arm's reach since that one isn't an S+ rank, but there's a deficit of over 300k points between mine and the #1's. There's definite room for improvement in my run since I was playing a lot safer than I normally would against certain bosses because of built-up stress, but even then I don't think I'd be accumulating that many points...
One Foul Note
Member
Just got past the third world with this and overall enjoying it, although a few design choices were a mistake. The battery mechanic has negative impact on the way the game plays and a few of the controls are clumsily implemented. However, their is a lovely level of diversity in the separate characters abilities, the dynamic aspect to the separate stages are very well done and the different characteristics of the enemies is all very good. The last point is especially impressive due to the fact so often top town shooters fall into the hole of making all the enemies very similar in attack styles and it is good the developers didn't fall into that trap. So overall, I wouldn't rate it as one of my favourite top downs, but it has some interesting ideas and is well worth it for fans of the genre.
Also, the music is pretty swell.
Also, the music is pretty swell.
Played this yesterday for a bit over an hour, and I'm really impressed by the level of polish. It plays extremely well and looks great. What surprised me most is that the framerate seems rock solid despite using Unity. I guess the small self-contained levels help with that.
I do have a minor bug to report: the first time in the tutorial, the camera bugged out during the 4th or 5th tutorial message, looking at some completely different direction (below the level). We had to restart that one, luckily it wasn't reproducible.
I do have a minor bug to report: the first time in the tutorial, the camera bugged out during the 4th or 5th tutorial message, looking at some completely different direction (below the level). We had to restart that one, luckily it wasn't reproducible.
Americanmushroom
Banned
its probably been asked a few times but: When is it coming on Ps4?
Oh crap that's not good, we hadn't seen that bug or had it reported since we re-worked the camera system in the tutorial after someone made it happen at BitSummit , we never got a clear reproduction case and implemented a bunch of stuff that would theoretically solve it but obviously there's still an edge case somewhere :/ don't suppose you were video recording or anything at the time? It's very rare and seems it might be multiplayer specific, but anything that can cause the game to become unplayable and need a level restart is critical to us.
As for the framerate we do a lot of things to ensure the experience is smooth, Tim wrote a system for interpolating (well predicting actually so it's theoretically ahead by 1 frame and constantly correcting based on motion) player/enemy positions to avoid physics tick/visual update inconsistencies that could cause any judder in the motion, things like animation are already interpolated properly at high framerates but now everything should be moving at whatever fps your monitor is. In terms of the underlying tech he also put a lot of effort in to pooling and avoiding garbage generation along with managed update systems for things like the wasp enemies that can have hundreds trying to interact every frame, this stuff is great for keeping the PC version as smooth as it can be and also helps us hit our console targets.
D
Deleted member 125677
Unconfirmed Member
finally
Wow, that's an insane amount of detail he's gone into to make it run like it does.
I have a minor suggestion as well: Can the Y-axis in FPS mode be removed? It's pointless shooting vertically because obviously it's of no value in the regular camera modes, and found myself needlessly missing because I was getting too excited with the left stick. Or maybe even just an option to disable it.
Hmm an option for the vertical aiming could definitely work, though its also a big tricky as there are a number of guns and scenarios in which vertical aiming can make a difference (despite being top down most of Cactus is calculated in 3D) like the magma welder which has a firing arc or starch's missiles.
We were trying to avoid adding too many options to FPS mode to not give the wrong impression about what it is, though we had to add Y Axis invert or otherwise some people simply couldn't play heh. Good suggestion and will think on it Shaneus.
We were trying to avoid adding too many options to FPS mode to not give the wrong impression about what it is, though we had to add Y Axis invert or otherwise some people simply couldn't play heh. Good suggestion and will think on it Shaneus.
Sadly I don't have a recording. From what I recall, We were playing with 2 players, I (as player 1) had picked up a speed upgrade, and the camera was trying to center on me gradually and then suddenly spun out.
All the stuff you mentioned probably helps, but I can imagine that this is key. I always had this suspicion that the intermittent stuttering in many Unity games is caused by the GC kicking in.
Anyway, a very good job on the technical details indeed.
D
Deleted member 125677
Unconfirmed Member
S+ on Justice with Holly. #cannonballin'
CONGRATULATIONS
If you can S+ that bastard there's a good chance you can clear the rest of the game with a little practice Love watching people evolve.And Durante - No problem on the video, I'll do some heavy testing on it next week to try and find a repro case. Avoiding GC is really important for avoiding hiccups so yeah we put a lot of time in to that, the other stuff is just there to make it shine on stuff like 144hz monitors (We recently got Tim that nice Acer G-Sync one) because trying anything to the physics tick would cause a juddery look, and even at 60hz there would some times be phasing between the physics tick and visual update. Now everything is super smooth and moves at the speed of your framerate which is great.
As an owner of one of those 144hz G-Sync monitors, I REALLY appreciate the effort. I only wish other devs paid as much attention to that stuff.
FOR EXAMPLE: Elite Dangerous has been a microstuttery mess on my machine since the first backer beta. Tested with three different operating systems, three different video cards and two monitors. It will never be fixed.
FOR EXAMPLE: Elite Dangerous has been a microstuttery mess on my machine since the first backer beta. Tested with three different operating systems, three different video cards and two monitors. It will never be fixed.
Reached the final boss and was doing OK until
Gonna come back to it later.
Holly would work pretty good in that fight. But she's a problem in boss fights with swarms of enemies that attract her fire.
trippy phase activated.
Holly would work pretty good in that fight. But she's a problem in boss fights with swarms of enemies that attract her fire.
D
Deleted member 125677
Unconfirmed Member
CONGRATULATIONS
Thanks! I cleared the game a couple of days ago (a couple of posts up), and I think it was all the hours spent on the final boss that made me good enough to go back and S+ earlier levels.
ichtyander
Member
Just beat the game, almost in one sitting, all the way to the final boss but I had to take a breather, then finished him later.
A really well done twin stick shooter, surprisingly fun to play and kept me hooked for a couple of hours right until the end. That final boss was a bit of a challenge but once you get used to it it's not that tough (beaten it with Cactus).
Really like some of the interesting weapon types, like that Helo thing, completely changes the way it's played yet it's still balanced well enough. Overall it's a very neat package, very recommended.
Btw, right after beating the game and the credits ending, the mouse cursor was invisible although you could still choose all of the options etc. It reappeared when I entered the infinite mode, at the character select screen.
Another thing I noticed but I'm not sure - if you use Peanut's drill while being tethered by those little annoying clingy bots, it seems like the player stays in that drill state forever, unless you manually press the change weapon button again. This is of course related to cases where you drill away from the bot that's currently holding you, as in you haven't destroyed him by drilling towards him. I'm not entirely sure this is what actually happens, since the action can get pretty hectic later on in the levels, but I felt this happened a few times, like I was stuck in that drilling animation, unable to shoot and in the moment wondering why I'm not killing anybody. Will have to test this properly, maybe I'm just imagining it.
Anyway, pretty great game, I've also tried the endless mode and got to Layer 16, pretty addictive stuff.
A really well done twin stick shooter, surprisingly fun to play and kept me hooked for a couple of hours right until the end. That final boss was a bit of a challenge but once you get used to it it's not that tough (beaten it with Cactus).
Really like some of the interesting weapon types, like that Helo thing, completely changes the way it's played yet it's still balanced well enough. Overall it's a very neat package, very recommended.
Btw, right after beating the game and the credits ending, the mouse cursor was invisible although you could still choose all of the options etc. It reappeared when I entered the infinite mode, at the character select screen.
Another thing I noticed but I'm not sure - if you use Peanut's drill while being tethered by those little annoying clingy bots, it seems like the player stays in that drill state forever, unless you manually press the change weapon button again. This is of course related to cases where you drill away from the bot that's currently holding you, as in you haven't destroyed him by drilling towards him. I'm not entirely sure this is what actually happens, since the action can get pretty hectic later on in the levels, but I felt this happened a few times, like I was stuck in that drilling animation, unable to shoot and in the moment wondering why I'm not killing anybody. Will have to test this properly, maybe I'm just imagining it.
Anyway, pretty great game, I've also tried the endless mode and got to Layer 16, pretty addictive stuff.
Crab Milk Mickey
Member
Attained S+ ranks with all 9 androids for World 1 - 3 and it's proven to be a fun meta objective so far due to the need to reconsider your general approach at times. A given character's strengths and weaknesses become readily apparent on the tougher levels when you play them back-to-back, and it's kind of amusing in a way how certain scenarios or wave compositions can give you far more trouble (or less) with x loadout than they did with y loadout. What's also neat is that there usually isn't a huge time gap between the androids either.
World 5 is likely going to be problematic though, but we'll see how it goes.
World 5 is likely going to be problematic though, but we'll see how it goes.
Yeah you can be tethered to a blue fido and infinite drill in place, you can always let go of fire and change direction or swap weapons - It's not a bug so much as a consequence of systems glad you had a good time.
I spent way too much time cross balancing the androids haha, but I'm glad that depth is there for someone like yourself who is going through and doing *everything*
glad you had a good time.I spent way too much time cross balancing the androids haha, but I'm glad that depth is there for someone like yourself who is going through and doing *everything*
Thanks to Paz and Amir0x for the contest I have been playign this and it is fucking amazing.. The feeling is so good when you get your combo up. The controls are so damn spot on and nice and tight/responsive.. I really like the shield mechanic as it leads to more aggressive playstyle for me.
I have defeated the fourth boss and done some of the wave mode, I mainly have been using Cactus.. but I like how the dialogue changes depending on which android you use. Top notch presentation and the soundtrack is great
I have defeated the fourth boss and done some of the wave mode, I mainly have been using Cactus.. but I like how the dialogue changes depending on which android you use. Top notch presentation and the soundtrack is great