Boss Machine - New AGA shooter for Amiga

[saimon69]

Is the player ship final? I know that is very similar to Thunderforce IV ship (might even be the same) so to avoid troubles and whiners would be a good idea to do your own version (i am ok with that one too though)...

[actually i did see the answer on the youtube video comments, those are all placeholders]

[Tigerskunk]

I think I wouldn't have gone for yet another SHMUP at this point in time, but you cannot deny that this looks fabulous..
Also it's good that it's different from our other ones, style wise.

A Thunderforce like game was still missing...

[timg]

Well ain't that just typical, I've only recently started working on a new game and Thunder Force was my starting point! lol

Good work, looks like you've made some great progress.

[invent]

Hey Saimon69. Dan the coder is a big fan of Thunderforce and a lot of the Neo Geo shooters, we are heavily influenced by this game.

Hi Steril707, going to promise myself to move away from shooters after this one Dan kindly asked for some assets to play with (6 months or so ago) that i had and it progressed into a real demo. Hey is one of my Patreons and I am eternity grateful for that.

I had a few moments this morning to create this [ Show youtube player ] Creating Pixel fonts, while not final, you can see the process. I plan to do more like this for "Iridium" and "Reshoot Proxima III"

@timg please don't be discouraged, love to see what you come up with.

[saimon69]

Do i have to do musics TF inspired too if he need any track?

[Auscoder]

I really should watch this sub-forum more.

Here is a little EAB exclusive unlisted video showing one of the new weapons in progress. We are up to 3 unique weapons now, and I hope to make 5 or 6 with upgrades. [ Show youtube player ]

To those that notice the similarity to TFIV (Genesis/Megadrive) you are right on the money. This game is heavily inspired by the TFIV gameplay and currently uses many TFIV graphics as placeholder while I lack graphical content. The BG is taken from a Java port of the OCS Amiga classic Lionheart. All rights and credit to these awesome games.

I hope the Boss Machine will rival TFIV in technology and features. Goal will be achieved.

Invent is so busy with Reshoot-series, Iridium and probably most other current amiga games and I sometimes just cannot wait - and lack serious pixel skills myself, so I use rips to get the game look and feel going. Boss Machine will be released though with completely new and not some other games assets.

I hope you enjoy Boss Machine and be patient with the placeholder graphics. We have some nice stuff coming out the pipeline but its going to take a bit of time. Cloning tech anyone?

Why another shooter? Among the greats like Project-X, Agony, Banshee, Xenon, the list goes on, or more modern amazing offerings such as Reshoot series or the eagerly awaited Inviyya. Well I think for the same reason these authors made these games.... simply... shooters rock!

It's also in my mind something the Amiga is well suited for without subscribing to jumping in a pool that is too deep for my current skills. I have written a lot of ASM code to get to this point and rebooted more than once. It's scary to think how much more would be needed for an RTS, or really nice platformer or RPG. This allows me to focus on learning more the in's and out's of the Amiga hardware, the 680x0 chip but not lose focus on gameplay, enemy patterns, camera feel and have to worry less about combating the technical constraints of the system and manage super super complex gameplay routines in ASM. I did want to ensure that I did push the Amiga at least a bit and I think its very rare to see multi split scrolling alongside vertical scrolling of this magnitude in an Amiga title. Its not a simple - imo - algorithm to make this work. So really we hope you enjoy

[Auscoder]

Originally Posted by timg

Well ain't that just typical, I've only recently started working on a new game and Thunder Force was my starting point! lol

Good work, looks like you've made some great progress.

UHO!, and thank you, I hope you can find another style, I would like to be greedy and keep this style for Boss Machine. Happy to chat if you want to hit me up in PM.

BTW Rotator is awesome, very well done!! Congrats on the release.

[timg]

Originally Posted by Auscoder

UHO!, and thank you, I hope you can find another style, I would like to be greedy and keep this style for Boss Machine. Happy to chat if you want to hit me up in PM.

Nothing wrong with a little competition, and TBH knowing how fast I work it'll probably be another 20 years until I'm finished anyway.

Getting some vertical scrolling in with parallax is one of my starting points... I guess you like the Strite level in TF4 too? I only discovered TF4 last year after I bought a Megadrive and that was one of the included games... loading that level for the first time was a bit of a "whoa" moment... bit like seeing Shadow Of The Beast for the first time back in the day!

Originally Posted by Auscoder

BTW Rotator is awesome, very well done!! Congrats on the release.

Thanks, glad it's all finished now!

[nikosidis]

Well said "Auscoder" Amiga is very well suited for this type of games.

Maybe 2-player mode It is long time since anyone did a nice 2-player game for Amiga.

[saimon69]

Originally Posted by Auscoder

Why another shooter? Among the greats like Project-X, Agony, Banshee, Xenon, the list goes on, or more modern amazing offerings such as Reshoot series or the eagerly awaited Inviyya. Well I think for the same reason these authors made these games.... simply... shooters rock!

You seem to be in fast shooters, but did you like Powder? Was involved as graphic artist, musician and part of the concept

[Auscoder]

Originally Posted by timg

Nothing wrong with a little competition, and TBH knowing how fast I work it'll probably be another 20 years until I'm finished anyway.

So its on haha, yeah I agree somewhat.... oh well.

Originally Posted by timg

I guess you like the Strite level in TF4 too?

Absolutely, the nuances of the camera, player and scrolling are really what set's it apart in my mind. I've never seen a game before that actually uses game logic to move the player without the player input, and not have the player upset about it... incredible delicate balance.

Originally Posted by nikosidis

Maybe 2-player mode It is long time since anyone did a nice 2-player game for Amiga.

So its tricky!, I have the game running technically in 2 player mode, however a lot of the logic is currently tied to one player. All the base systems are written with multiplayer in mind! So maybe! but maybe not

Originally Posted by saimon69

You seem to be in fast shooters, but did you like Powder? Was involved as graphic artist, musician and part of the concept

Love them, so hard and fast. I had not heard of Powder until you mentioned. Have had a look on youtube. This seems like the best video : [ Show youtube player ] very nice to see thank you for the heads up.

Reading the comments on that video, super interesting the various options how you enabled weapon change for those with only a single button.

[timg]

Originally Posted by Auscoder

Absolutely, the nuances of the camera, player and scrolling are really what set's it apart in my mind. I've never seen a game before that actually uses game logic to move the player without the player input, and not have the player upset about it... incredible delicate balance.

It really is a master class in using the hardware to it's maximum potential... things like the way you dive down into the water, but when you emerge back to the mountains the clouds have been removed which gives them a spare playfield to use for the large ship... so well planned.

Looking at the credits, there was a team of about 20 people working on it and the were at the top of their game when it was released... it'll be a tough one to replicate but it looks like you're making good progress!

[invent]

work is progressing

[nikosidis]

invent: Looking sweet

[invent]

Thanks nikosidis,

[ Show youtube player ]

Boss Machine - quick update. We have a real background now (still using some temp assets)

[wiz12]

I'm really looking forward to this game however (it could be just this video) the gun sound seems to be a bit loud and drowns out the music in places, could be lowered a little?

[DamienD]

Originally Posted by invent

Thanks nikosidis,

[ Show youtube player ]

Boss Machine - quick update. We have a real background now (still using some temp assets)

Absolutely stunning invent!!!

Please whatever you do, don't decide in future to change this into another Reshoot game; like what happened with Proxima 3 - Red Dwarf Star.

[invent]

Thanks wiz12, noted

All good DamienD, thankyou. Assets that don't get used that I have done, I'll rework into future projects (I already have a plan for some of the unused gfx). To some degree when your working on ? 4 projects at once sometimes assets not used in one is modified into another.

Reshoot Proxima III, Paperswing, Boss Machine and Iridium

Thankfully I'm still working but have asked for a month off so I can really focus more on game dev.

[Amigajay]

Looking fantastic!

[jeff b00toNic]

Awesome!
I'll keep my fingers crossed!