Devlog - 39

Hey folks! Got sidetracked with the holidays last week, so we are long overdue for a juicy dev update. In fact, so much content is being rapidly created I have to filter what I show you, as to not overburden the senses.

First of all, I should properly introduce the project. After a couple of teases this past month, it's time to come clean. Gango is busy cooking up a new shmup! While this sadly puts an indefinite hold on development of Beast Planet, I have to be realistic about the business side of things. BP would likely have more mass appeal, but in its current iteration it's not feasible for our small team to create on a reasonable timeline. I mean, I spent a year making the exterior of a town with no real tangible gameplay. It's still a dream project I would like to pursue, but the vision needs to be economized, or the resources of Gango need to be expanded to pull it off.

Furthermore, we reevaluated our business strategy with a realistic philosophy of constraint at the forefront. With this in mind, it makes good sense to directly build from the knowledge and feedback from Hyper Echelon, and make a superior game within the same vein. Cutting away all the fat and leaving behind pure, simple, and engaging arcade gameplay, allow me to introduce Death Vapor.

DV is a vertical scrolling shooter in full 16:9 widescreen. Your core attacks involve a powerful multi-leveled charged laser beam, and a short-ranged rapid fire spread shot. There will also be a roll/strafe mechanic to help utilize the full widescreen format. Gameplay will be much more fast paced and focused on score than HE.

The premise has you taking on the role of the Death Angel, a servant to a wrathful god. Utilizing the mighty ship God Lance, you are ordered to return the fallen to vapor. Is it your destiny to forever deal death in god's name?

For the visuals I'm going for a minimalistic avant garde style that keeps things as pure as possible without powerups and meta score effects all over the place. Also, the UI will be minimal if non-existent during gameplay. While the genre is known for all the noisy bells and whistles, I thought it an interesting challenge to turn things on its head, and see if it's possible to create a grandiose immersive atmosphere like Journey, but still have arcade thrills like Dodonpachi.      

Everything is still in a raw art phase, but the ground work is being laid for the programming, and we should have running builds next month. For this update, I want to show off a few new, and updated enemy sprites, the main attacks for the God Lance, and how the environments can change color at certain points. Next time I'll have to show off all the explosion effects!