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Heaven Variant: Vote For Us On Steam Greenlight!


Strike911
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Please help us out by voting for us on Steam Greenlight. All you have to do is login and give us a thumbs up! Our whole team would appreciate it, because your vote could help us get on Steam!

VOTE HERE: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=92965039

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(August 8, 2012):

We have a new video up. I hope you folks will take a look. :]

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Hey everybody! I hope I don't get in any trouble for posting a link to my game project I've been working on. Over the last few months I started a team and began work on HEAVEN VARIANT, a non bullethell shoot 'em up, and we just released a new gameplay video in hopes that we can spread the word and become a little more visible. If people don't know we exist, we're dead in the water, so forgive me! It's still a work-in-progress and we're just a team of three so our budget is bouncing off zero, but I hope you'll check us out and let us know what you think. And tell your friends, your family... your dog "Thunder Force".... wholly assuming your dog is at all interested in shmups and doesn't secretly loathe the moniker in which he was granted.

We're kind of intentionally going for a pseudo-campy 80s/early 90s aesthetic with regard to presentation, so I hope you won't take the silly line deliveries too seriously. The game is less about bullet dodging, and more about blowing the living daylights out of things. There are definitely a number of influences from games of yesteryear that you'll probably catch, so I hope you'll take a look though, and again, if it's anything that resonates even moderately with you, please tell your friends.

I've been doing a lot of the level design, concept art, sound design, and texturing, but most important to me is music development which in a way OCRemix has made a large impact on me with regard to learning how to produce things and get started in music and then game design, which is why I feel compelled to post this thread. Anyhoo, I hope you'll take a look! I appreciate it.

Cheers.

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Dear heavenly god...

The launch sequence reminds me of Ikaruga, and that lighting effect when the cop cars come in is gorgeous. Take my money, all of it.

EDIT: You know what would make the launch sequence even a little more epic? Putting some slow camera shake on the camera before takeoff. Would add some excitement and interest before takeoff. Just a thought.

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Thanks for the kind words guys, I seriously appreciate it!!! I never expected such a positive response! And thanks for the music kudos, that was the aspect I was honestly most worried about. My aim for the music was to make it as nostalgically cheese-filled as possible. Glad its striking the right chord so far.

@Darksword, Einhander is our primary inspiration. It does so many things right that even by today's standards are really sophisticated and the game is over ten years old. But we're also tipping our hat to a lot of other shooters, too. We're not trying to outright copy them, but we know we aren't reinventing the wheel... but seriously, the wheel; developers forgot about the damned wheel in the first place!

@Modus, you're right. The introductory launch sequence could use some kind of treatment or camera shake.

With regard to not using doors, the player character will often fly through things throughout the game, not only because it looks cooler, but because it is the manly thing to do. He just does it. It's his thing. Plus blowing up battleships is going to be a lot more fun this way. ;D We want the game not to take itself too seriously while pushing for over the top action.

Thanks guys seriously. :]

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Thanks for the kind words guys, I seriously appreciate it!!! I never expected such a positive response! And thanks for the music kudos, that was the aspect I was honestly most worried about. My aim for the music was to make it as nostalgically cheese-filled as possible. Glad its striking the right chord so far.

I hope you plan to release the music album sometime after you release the game. Seriously, it makes me wish my brain could implode from it. Multiple times.

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@Darksword, Einhander is our primary inspiration. It does so many things right that even by today's standards are really sophisticated and the game is over ten years old. But we're also tipping our hat to a lot of other shooters, too. We're not trying to outright copy them, but we know we aren't reinventing the wheel... but seriously, the wheel; developers forgot about the damned wheel in the first place!

Me saying, "Looks like Einhander," is basically just me saying it looks awesome.

If it looks like Einhander, you really can't be doing anything wrong.

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With regard to not using doors, the player character will often fly through things throughout the game, not only because it looks cooler, but because it is the manly thing to do. He just does it. It's his thing.

I LOVE this XD

Seriously, I'm going to keep an eye on this and grab it as soon as it is released. Nice job. :)!!

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Been following this for a while and damn I love how its shaping up. Every time I hear samples of the soundtrack it seems to be getting better and better too. Honestly, I love soundtracks like this, it complements the action so well. Graphically it looks pretty polished too, especially considering how small your development team is. And the sequence with the building opening up just to have him burst through the wall anyways? Just amazing.

Really like how this is looking, I will for sure buy it whenever it happens to release.

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Thanks for the response guys! I never expected this many replies. lol. I'll try my best to address what you guys have posted. And just a big thanks to everyone for the warm wishes, our team really appreciates it!

We're designing this game for PC exclusively right now, however, if that release goes well ports to other consoles might be a possibility. It really is too early to say though at this point. Honestly though, the game will play best with a standard game controller, but we have mouse+keyboard controls too which was what we used in the video to demonstrate with. Right now though, we'd love to get on Steam if they'd approve us (not that we've submitted anything to them).

And I've wanted to do a transformation sequence this whole time. We'll probably sneak one in somewhere. :D

With regard to the logo, fair enough. Originally we had a super serious design that just took itself too seriously, but the one we're using currently has more of a retro arcadey aesthetic, but we'll be judging reactions on this (and everything else too) and adjusting as necessary. :]

We have a really cool armor system in place, too. We can pretty much build a piece of armor for a ship, set it up, and then put it on anything we want, and as simple as that sounds, it's makes it really easy for us to create armored monstrosities. Even small ships can be armored to be the size of larger ships, though we haven't showed ships with more than one piece of armor. It's something we're working on that I'm really excited about. And that system is going to make bosses really fun.

EDIT:

@ OA actually yeah, Youtube destroyed the quality of the video I uploaded originally. >_< I tried all night to get something passable but what got uploaded really was the best I could get. It also doesn't help that towards the end of the video during the building collapse that the audio gets a little screwy. I hope you'll forgive that!

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Been following this one for ages, patiently waiting in the shadows for some action. And boy, 'Heavenly' is the right word.

The trailer just blew my mind, I really wasn't expecting something of that caliber. The level of detail is uncanny for an indie shooter.

You've nailed the overall feel, and as a huge fan of Einhander, I can safely say this is a very convincing and fitting tribute.

The background scenery reminded me of the colony in Vanquish. Dunno if that's an intentional reference or not...

The soundtrack in particular is straight out of a classic 90s japanese arcade game. So nostalgic! :nicework:

You probably know about them if you're the hardcore shmup-fan I suspect you are, but there are other titles influenced by Einhander:

by Atlantec,
and it's sequel
by EastAsia Soft.

Also, I loved the old HV logo. It really caught my eye back then, cause it reminded me of Radiant Silvergun.

games_hv_logo.png

Anyway, can't wait to see what you guys have in store for this. Definitely one of my most anticipated indie games. :smile:

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Graphics are awesome- although, silly criticism, I don't like the logo much at all.

I like the current logo - although, taking a second look at it, maybe there are a few too many diagonal slashy things on the letters (the middle lines of the e's,bottom of the n, the left side of the last a). It sort of confuses it for me.

I tried doing a very rough mockup in M$ paint, just to give an idea of how it looks.

hevaedit.png

I think this just looks cleaner.

Edit: Oops, I forgot to mention the giant horizontal lines on two of the a's.

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