Assault Android Cactus - Steam Early Access |OT| Four-players. Twin-sticks. 60 frames

Paz said:
It's now entirely possible that outside of the dev team you have played this game the most of anyone in the world, not sure if that says more about our low player count or your dedication :P

I think you currently hold the most #1's don't you?
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Well Paz, I hope you're happy. I just bought it. I expect a PS4 download code upon release as well ;-)
 
Paz said:
It's now entirely possible that outside of the dev team you have played this game the most of anyone in the world, not sure if that says more about our low player count or your dedication :P

I think you currently hold the most #1's don't you?
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Nah just those two right now, I really shouldn't be playing with everything I have to do this week so I just hopped on for a few runs of each to see where I stand :(

I tend to go decently hard, but usually don't put in the insane amount of time to hold top positions (While I do love chasing scores, it's more for my own level of play than figuring out an entire level route to the tee). Those #1 scores for example were just about an hour's worth of time and not optimized at all since I haven't tried other characters or done prioritizing. Like in Defense Grid as long as I get into the top 100 I'm pretty content (and above my friends).

Right now it's just basic optimization and keeping a chain. Luckily(?) player pop is low enough that's enough, hahaha.

I still think:
  • In game timer (0m 0s 000ms)
  • More distinct powerup color / changing graphic (I've gotten a lot better at timing, but still feel the swap over could be clearer)
  • Faster boss intros (8s too long!!!)
  • Some menu shortcuts / UI changes (Have to go to start for leaderboards, can't check level score or rank, can't see character top scores or times)
  • Some Eurobeat
would be good additions

I'd like to be able to swap characters inside a level without backing up, but can easily see how that could be a lot of work with co-op/lobby/online in the future so I'm alright ;)
Apart from that, like I said I really can see or justify many design decisions and appreciate how tight the levels are.

Had a friend but it and he's really enjoying his time. Hopefully the art or price isn't a big turn off (and no online). And unfortunately TB already did a WTF? is... early on before your early access was up, so you won't get that spike again.
 
Tim just posted this awesome sprite version of Cactus on twitter.
jGGc8DveUbDCf.png
Paz wants him to make her a Salty Bet fighter. #AlwaysBetOnCactus, amiright salty crew?

Also I don't think their awesome new facebook page banner has been posted yet :)
jbx5XUcHmcU1pm.png
 
McSpidey said:
Also I don't think their awesome new facebook page banner has been posted yet :)
http://i.minus.com/jbx5XUcHmcU1pm.png[IMG][/QUOTE]
I'm not changing the one in the OP, it took me too goddamn long :P

PS. Damnit, now I want an 8-bit Assault Android Cactus. Or basically a sprite-swap of I guess Smash TV or something.
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Game looks amazing and I love twin stick shooters, but I want to be clear: co-op right now is local only? I'm mostly a PC gamer, and I live pretty far out so I don't get to do local co-op a whole lot.
 
The OP contains the most up-to-date info on the game that's available (as far as the PC version goes). Fifth bullet-point :)

If it ever changes then I'll update the OP as well but until that time (if ever), just remember it's literally only a three-man team working on this game and from what I understand, tight netcode (specifically in a twitch game like this, especially one that's insistent on running at 60fps) can be a bitch, even for far bigger developers.
 
Update:
#1 still on Oxygen
#2 Furnace
#3 Influx
#3 Convection

Bosses:
#3 Embryo
#4 Vespula (S+)

S rank on Convection. I'm pretty sure I can get S+ on this. I'm not dying anymore. Don't like planning for the levels I have not S ranked.

tUrrzOU.png
 
Got this game through the Humble Store. The demo was fantastic. Loving it so far. Each character plays different and requires different strategies. The mix of power ups, pick ups, hordes of enemies, bullet hell dodging, battery maintenance, controlling chokepoints and strategically swapping weapons...all combine to make a challenging frenetic dual stick shooter

One thing I'd like to see is different power-up levels result in different color bullets so you'd instantly be aware of what power level you're at, even while you're being mobbed by hordes of enemies
 
More_Badass said:
Got this game through the Humble Store. The demo was fantastic. Loving it so far. Each character plays different and requires different strategies. The mix of power ups, pick ups, hordes of enemies, bullet hell dodging, battery maintenance, controlling chokepoints and strategically swapping weapons...all combine to make a challenging frenetic dual stick shooter

One thing I'd like to see is different power-up levels result in different color bullets so you'd instantly be aware of what power level you're at, even while you're being mobbed by hordes of enemies
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It says powerup and visually changes which is enough for me, also it's the stars on the top left.
 
Teach me your unity skills! How old are you guys? With a team so small how much experience do you guys have with Unity? This game is fantastic
 
Before the first bomb wave on Revolution the spawn timer for the white turret seems far delayed, enough to really throw off a Chain.

Also that level is entirely bullshit. I may be able to figure out a pattern so the bombs don't bounce towards me at 150mph, but fuck that.
 
Hazaro said:
Before the first bomb wave on Revolution the spawn timer for the white turret seems far delayed, enough to really throw off a Chain.

Also that level is entirely bullshit. I may be able to figure out a pattern so the bombs don't bounce towards me at 150mph, but fuck that.
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Yeah, worst level.
 
I got to play for a few minutes and I like it so far, and maybe the first set of stages isn't the best to gauge this, but it did feel a little easy for a seasoned twin-stick gamer. I might be eating my words once I play the rest of the stages. Although I dig the idea of having "dark world" variants of all the levels. That sounds tasty.

One thing I really liked was how to music had little chiptune arpeggios mixed into it.

Are achievements planned for the final release?
 
PixyJunket said:
I got to play for a few minutes and I like it so far, and maybe the first set of stages isn't the best to gauge this, but it did feel a little easy for a seasoned twin-stick gamer. I might be eating my words once I play the rest of the stages. Although I dig the idea of having "dark world" variants of all the levels. That sounds tasty.
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This is how I felt at the beginning, too. The difficulty ramps up after the first boss.
 
This game looks so sick - totally pumped to play 2-3 player, depending on how many of my buddies I can convince to buy it as well.
 
OK - saw the screenshots, dismissed the game.

Saw the gifs, suddenly interested.

The thing looks great in motion. Crazy how much of a difference that makes.
 
After several weeks off, I'm kind of back on an assault android cactus kick. Mostly because it's easy to pick up and play on short breaks.

I try to place high on the leaderboards with characters other than the dominant one. Like, you'll see the top 8 spots filled with holly, and I make it my goal to try and land a coral or lemon up there. Although I definitely lean in favor of starch when I can.

Currently I have four 1st places~ yay
 
Your base score (before time bonus) varies a lot, even with a perfect combo. Why is that?

Does killing more than one enemy with a single shot give you more points than killing them separately? (assuming same multiplier) What counts as one shot? Coral's shotgun is a single shot? Starch's rockets are all a single shot? Do powerups give points? Does a battery give more points if you pick it up right away?

I'm just having a hard time figuring out why two runs with the same time and same perfect combo will vary by tens of thousands of points.

edit: okay I found some explanation of the score mechanics http://steamcommunity.com/app/250110/discussions/0/864979008455718157/ I think I recall some of these being mentioned in this thread before.

Having to time many kills at the same time seems pretty frustrating :( But I'll give it a shot anyway.
 
Simultaneous kills are within 0.5 seconds of each other I believe (been a while since we tuned that) and they award an extra 50% score bonus, which you can see as the chain counter flashes red and the multiplier is increased (i.e 10 becomes 15).

This can be achieved in a variety of ways including spraying enemies so that they die at roughly the same time, but it's also a core part of Coral's gameplay mechanics as she has the potential to multi-kill easily with the shotgun, which makes up for her on average slightly slower clear times due to shorter weapon range of both primary and secondary weapons.

Starch will tend to get many multi kills using her secondary weapon as it tends to spread out the damage if you're moving or swinging the aim (or if the enemies are going to die to earlier fired rockets). Holly can easily earn them using the cannon ball on bunched up enemies, Lemon naturally earns them with her spreadshot weapon & aoe secondary (although the AOE is small), and Cactus gets them a lot by the nature of how much dmg the flamethrower does if you just push through the enemies.

For the most part multi-kills are a tie-breaker on scores that really only applies at the top top level, there are ways to maximize your number of multi-kills but it has to be treated carefully as the clear bonus is quite significant so anything that slows you down will have a big impact. It's part of our desire to balance the game around a variety of weapon/character types while maintaining score variance.
 
I've been trying to get top scores on a lot of levels. It seems that often times it's better to go a few seconds slower if you can get the x15 on certain things (batteries?). I know that my #1 score on a level earlier was defintiely not my fastest clear.

I stayed up all night doing score attacks. I have the #1 score on seven of the sixteen levels. Most of those are with starch. Vespula eludes me though. I can't beat my lemon score with starch. I spent 3 hours just on vespula, with no improvement to my score haha
 
I think Lemon may just be the best against Vespula, her weapons work so well against the wasps it's crazy. Coral has high potential too, but maybe not quite so high. Btw batteries don't get the multi-kill bonus, only the subsequent enemies killed within 0.5 seconds of the previous enemy are awarded that extra multiplier.

Congratulations on being the worlds best Assault Android Cactus player :) Did you manage to S+ rank all the levels and see the special message?
 
I haven't kept up in awhile since the demo on steam. Has the battery system changed much since the initial demo? Its a big concern for me pulling the trigger.
 
Paz said:
I think Lemon may just be the best against Vespula, her weapons work so well against the wasps it's crazy. Coral has high potential too, but maybe not quite so high. Btw batteries don't get the multi-kill bonus, only the subsequent enemies killed within 0.5 seconds of the previous enemy are awarded that extra multiplier.
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oh, nice.

Did you manage to S+ rank all the levels and see the special message?
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Hm, nope. Once the leaderboards got added, I stopped shooting for that when I discovered it's not governed by the same system as your score is.

I don't think I'm the best. I've probably just spent way more time on it. Fun game.
 
Haven't grabbed it yet, will definitely grab it Day1 for the full release.
Glad it's also coming to WiiU, perfect game for off-tv play.
 
shaowebb said:
I haven't kept up in awhile since the demo on steam. Has the battery system changed much since the initial demo? Its a big concern for me pulling the trigger.
Click to expand...

No, at this stage it's pretty much at the core of the game and drives the experience we want to deliver. Removing it would be like cutting Crates from Super Crate Box, no more reason to engage in the levels and any system we replaced it with (presumably lives) would have its own problems. Sorry if it's not for you, but as I've said before I'd rather keep on improving the game that many people love rather than rip out bits that would hurt their experience in an attempt to give it broader appeal, hopefully there's another twin stick shooter out there that fits your preferences! Or you could always give Cactus another go with an open mind for new mechanics in an attempt to see what other people are enjoying :P

Usea - Wile it is possible to achieve an good S ranking run with a higher score than an average S+ ranking run, it should be worth noting that an S+ ranking will always have a higher score potential than an S ranking.
 
Personally I like the battery mechanic. I'm not sure that other poster's issues were, but I feel that the mechanic encourages a play style that asks the player to weigh risk and reward, that keeps that played engaged in the action and forces them to stay aware of their environment. You can't stay backed in corner and just blast enemies

Question: do any of your actions draw energy from the battery? I was never sure on this. Does the battery drain at a consistent rate or is it affected by your actions?
 
I didn't like the battery at first. My expectations going into the game was that I could just run from an endless horde, shooting at them. I enjoy that type of gameplay very much (Waves, Robotron, Geometry Wars, etc). I kept dying because that strategy doesn't work in this game. I almost quit playing, but after playing more aggressively a few times I found it worked really well. Cactus isn't the game I expected it to be, but it's still a ton of fun. I think most of the things they've put in to encourage aggressive play have been very effective.
 
usea said:
I didn't like the battery at first. My expectations going into the game was that I could just run from an endless horde, shooting at them. I enjoy that type of gameplay very much (Waves, Robotron, Geometry Wars, etc). I kept dying because that strategy doesn't work in this game. I almost quit playing, but after playing more aggressively a few times I found it worked really well. Cactus isn't the game I expected it to be, but it's still a ton of fun. I think most of the things they've put in to encourage aggressive play have been very effective.
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But that's the best part. That you can't just run forever. You have to adapt and change your tactics on the fly. So many dual stick shooters are you just running away while shooting backwards. That this rewards aggressive tactics is a refreshing change IMO
 
Yup. If you're frequently negative about game mechanics that try something new but you don't like, then all you end up with is another game/dev that's exactly the same as every other game you play in the same genre. It's one of the core things (that isn't cosmetic) that really sets AAC apart IMO.
 
Definitely digging the way the battery mechanic forces more aggressive tactics. I'm somewhat surprised there's no melee attack to counter being swarmed, even if it costs a secondary weapon charge/combo break/power level. That may just be my love for Cannon Spike talking though.
 
More_Badass said:
But that's the best part. That you can't just run forever. You have to adapt and change your tactics on the fly. So many dual stick shooters are you just running away while shooting backwards. That this rewards aggressive tactics is a refreshing change IMO
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I enjoy running forever shooting an endless horde. That's fun for me.

This is fun, too. People should try it. If they don't like it, that's fine also. People can like different things. My point was not to let your expectations dictate your experience. It's hard advice in the gaming world, though.

The End said:
Definitely digging the way the battery mechanic forces more aggressive tactics. I'm somewhat surprised there's no melee attack to counter being swarmed, even if it costs a secondary weapon charge/combo break/power level. That may just be my love for Cannon Spike talking though.
Click to expand...
There's a lot of room for more characters with cool abilities, I think :)
 
The End said:
Definitely digging the way the battery mechanic forces more aggressive tactics. I'm somewhat surprised there's no melee attack to counter being swarmed, even if it costs a secondary weapon charge/combo break/power level. That may just be my love for Cannon Spike talking though.
Click to expand...
You know, a melee-style attack would be great as a third/special weapon... but Coral already has the powerdome thing so that kind of rules it out. Plus it would probably make the game a little *too* complicated. Keep it to two attack modes, simple!
 
Weird, the battery mechanic is what seems engaging and different to me as far as most TSS go.
I'm glad the game tries to be different honestly, there's a bazillions of "go run round the corners endlessly shooting at the horde" TSS out there. About time for a new spin on e genre.
 
Update!

Features
  • New whitebox level - Assembly
  • Art dressed levels - Process, Vespula
  • Surround Sound support (configurable from the Audio Options menu)
  • Leaderboards default to checking against friends list, then the global list (on the Stage Clear screen) Can be changed in the Game Options menu, including to disable submitting scores to the leaderboards all together.
  • Command line multi monitor support, add -screens:3 to your command line to support three monitors

Tuning and Improvements
  • New weapon sounds
  • Oxygen's difficulty reduced (leaderboard reset)
  • Vespula's stage time increased (more chance of getting a time bonus - the leaderboard has NOT been reset, but it should now be possible to get higher scores than previously)
  • Vespula now has speech and dialogue, new effects
  • Revolution's difficulty rebalanced (leaderboard reset)
  • Battery timing in the later stages has been tuned slightly more generous
  • Time before Pickups can be collected has been reduced
  • Level name changes (Pillars -> Receiver, Discs -> Focus)

What's coming next?
  • Configurable controls - was supposed to have been rolled out with this update, ran into some issues and didn't want to release it with bugs, apologies to anyone affected
  • New level select system - it's getting there..........
  • New enemy types
  • New playable character
Click to expand...
 
I always say I'm buying neogaffers' games at a high price, time to put the skin in the game. Bought. Will impressions later.

boughtcactus.jpg


And I just realized this was out on steam early access. Would have bought sooner if I wasn't so stupid.
 
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