Inviyya - OCS Shoot Em Up

[torturedutopian]

Originally Posted by MrClump

Loving the newly balanced version. My 46 year old self is now able to get to level 3, something my 16 year old self would previously only been capable of!

Heh ! My 38-yo self is actually much better at playing shmups than my teenager self :-)

Thank you so much for the balance patch. Small details sometimes make a big difference. And in this case, I'm sure many would have struggled with the firing pace which was difficult to master

[Tigerskunk]

Nice to hear you guys like the changes.

[Predseda]

So today is the boxed Inviyya day?

[Tigerskunk]

Originally Posted by Predseda

So today is the boxed Inviyya day?

I hope so.
(Like I said and wrote before, I am not that involved in the physical release other than supplying the game for it)

[manossg]

Now that there is autofire in the game, I have just purchased! Looking forward to playing Invyya!

[Tigerskunk]

Originally Posted by manossg

Now that there is autofire in the game, I have just purchased! Looking forward to playing Invyya!

Haha, that's nice.
Hope you will have a lot of fun with the game, mate!

[acidbottle]

The balance patch was spot on for me, though do appreciate some folk think it was too easy (nutters) in the first place. The difficulty balance is always going to be a no win situation as gamers are all at different skill levels. My crappy scores on the EAB game competitions are a testimony to that, though for sure I'm worse at games than I used to be haha

[manossg]

Originally Posted by Steril707

Hope you will have a lot of fun with the game, mate!

The game is truly a joy to play and the fluid controls, the level variety, the player friendly difficulty, combined with the autofire contribute a lot to that end. Thanks for releasing it, mate!

[Predseda]

Inviyya box release is postponed to 1st July.

[Tigerskunk]

Originally Posted by acidbottle

The balance patch was spot on for me, though do appreciate some folk think it was too easy (nutters) in the first place. The difficulty balance is always going to be a no win situation as gamers are all at different skill levels. My crappy scores on the EAB game competitions are a testimony to that, though for sure I'm worse at games than I used to be haha

No joke, I had one guy on itch.io hating on and giving the game 1 star only because it's so easy that he went through it on his first try with one life.

But then, I think the sweet spot of a game should be in a place where good gamers get through the game in one or two days, intermediate in a week, and bad players at least having a chance for advancing a few levels into the game and having fun.

This is not the arcades anymore where you want people to throw as many quarters as possible into your cabinet...
In that vein I kind of found it funny that a guy who reviewed the game on Lemon was sad that there are no "continues" in the game. I mean, you can easily get a lot of lives in the game (I think at start of level 6 you can have as many as 11 or 12 lives if you don't die). That's imo a superior mechanic compared to imitating throwing money into a cabinet on your home computer.

@predseda: that's sad to hear. Where did you read this?

[Predseda]

Originally Posted by Steril707

@predseda: that's sad to hear. Where did you read this?

https://www.polyplay.xyz/navi.php?qs=inviyya&search=

Product available: 01.07.2021
Pre-order is possible
Shipping time: 17 - 24 workdays

[Gilbert]

This is impressive. It has a great arcade style. Looks great for the OCS but if ever a game also needed an AGA version it's this one to get more colors on screen

One minor criticism - maybe it's a memory issue but the shooting sounds are not meaty enough. And that "blippy" sound when you hit an enemy but don't kill it is very weedy sounding. Just seems a shame to make it so arcade-like and then spoil that a bit. Also bit disappointing there is no sound FX when you pick up items.

I you do a sequel on OCS I would consider going to 25 fps and making the graphics even better. 25 fps still feels pretty smooth - e.g. R-Type on the Amiga

[mcgeezer]

Originally Posted by Gilbert

This is impressive. It has a great arcade style. Looks great for the OCS but if ever a game also needed an AGA version it's this one to get more colors on screen

One minor criticism - maybe it's a memory issue but the shooting sounds are not meaty enough. And that "blippy" sound when you hit an enemy but don't kill it is very weedy sounding. Just seems a shame to make it so arcade-like and then spoil that a bit. Also bit disappointing there is no sound FX when you pick up items.

I you do a sequel on OCS I would consider going to 25 fps and making the graphics even better. 25 fps still feels pretty smooth - e.g. R-Type on the Amiga

So how would reducing the frame rate result in gaining more memory for your improved graphics?

Come on, let’s have those pearls of wisdom again.

[Gilbert]

i thought you were a coder? It won't give him any more memory. But it gives him more time to put things on screen. That comment wasn't related to the sound fx.

I'm not attacking his game, just giving my honest opinion on it.

[roondar]

After playing it, I'm not so sure Inviyya needs even more stuff on screen. It seems busy enough as it is for my limited abilities

[torturedutopian]

Well, that's really up the dev.'s vision. As for me, I think I prefer a constant 50 FPS framerate but that's subjective Maybe we could open a separate thread to discuss the respective benefits of each compromise.

[Gilbert]

Just to clarify - I think Inviya is fine as it is - apart from the sound fx issue I mentioned.
I was just saying for a sequel I'd like to see him go 25fps and give himself more time to draw extra stuff to the screen and make it look more spectacular and arcade-like. Doesn't have to be extra enemies on screen - could be cooler power-ups or bigger bosses, more colors, waterfalls, extra parallax layers, raster effects etc

Rainbow Islands runs at half frame rate and people love it, it works well i think.

[Tigerskunk]

Originally Posted by Gilbert

This is impressive. It has a great arcade style. Looks great for the OCS but if ever a game also needed an AGA version it's this one to get more colors on screen

I think the game looks colorful enough as it is, and I don't really see how it would benefit from a wider palette for the kind of scenarios that are being used in the levels.

Originally Posted by Gilbert

One minor criticism - maybe it's a memory issue but the shooting sounds are not meaty enough.

That's an opinion, not a technical issue.

Originally Posted by Gilbert

And that "blippy" sound when you hit an enemy but don't kill it is very weedy sounding.

Once more an opinion.

Originally Posted by Gilbert

Just seems a shame to make it so arcade-like and then spoil that a bit.

Which is your opinion.

Originally Posted by Gilbert

Also bit disappointing there is no sound FX when you pick up items.

True, but on the other side sound fx are expensive in Chip RAM, and Inviyya takes up almost every last byte of it.

So for that pick up sound I'd have to sacrifice something else that I deemed more important than that. There was a pickup sound in the game for a long time (you can ask the testers on that), but it got thrown out for more important stuff in the end.

Originally Posted by Gilbert

I you do a sequel on OCS I would consider going to 25 fps and making the graphics even better. 25 fps still feels pretty smooth - e.g. R-Type on the Amiga

Like McGeezer said, i don't have the slightest idea how this would "solve" anything you complained about above.

It would just make the game less fun to play, because 25 fps suck on reaction based action games.

Just because you are used to shit from old games doesn't mean it's good.

On your opinions, well, good to hear you generally like the game on most fronts. And on the rest, well, if i learned one thing from developing this game it's: You just cannot make everybody happy, especially not in Amiga land.

[torturedutopian]

Yep, some people are more sensitive to smoothness / latency and some prefer the feeling of blowing tons of stuff and shooting tons of bullets. Provided you cannot get both

Both make sense. That's a design decision

As far as I'm concerned, I tend to think, but I may be mistaken and it's probably not universal, that the feeling of "empowerment" and dopamine shoot triggered by a huge number of stuff at a time kinda wears off after a while, while some clever levels constructions remain interesting.

Of course it would make more sense to consider reducing the framerate if the number of sprites was not sufficient to get the desired design / vision done... And obviously it's a constraint (which can be creative).

Just my 2 cents in approximate English

[nikosidis]

Thank god people went away from the low fps seen in many older Amiga games.
R-type II is very, very bad. How on earth I completed that game back in the day is just me being a stubborn,stupid boy at around 13 Not saying I did not enjoy it but playing the game today is a nightmare.
The standard is 50 fps now and that is in most games what make Amiga games smooth and enjoyable.
There are very few games that got the quality of Inviyya regarding GFX and OCS colours.