Chromacell - sideways scrolling shmup

Dev diaries
#1

After the modest success of Tameshi, I decided to specialise in the shmup genre for a while longer, this time with a horizontal scroller.

Chromacell is cast from a similar mould to R-Type, Gradius, Hydorah and Darius. A wide variety of enemy comes at the the player over various worlds and stages. The player has a range of weaponry to collect and use.

It’s still early days and only the basics are up and running. I’ll be updating this diary from time to time during development. The game will hopefully be ready late Q3 this year. Targetting PC and Switch.

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17 Likes
#2

I’m enjoying Tameshi a lot! It’s pure fun :heartpulse:

Wishing you all the best with it! :wink:

6 Likes
#3

There is a bare-bones Steam page up for Chromacell! Teaser trailer and screenshots are viewable, as is a basic description of the game. The goal of publishing this early is to gather more wishlists in the long run. The page will be updated periodically when I have more stuff to share.

Please wishlist if you can! Thanks.

12 Likes
#4

A single stage demo is now up on itch. Play in browser or grab the Windows build!

Let me know what you think. The same demo will be out on Steam in a few days.

10 Likes
#5

Great game! A lot of fun! Excellent work as usual, Ben!

2 Likes
#6

Phase 2 of development on Chromacell has come to a close. This means everything is roughly in place and the game is playable from beginning to end.

The third and final phase will be fine-tuning everything, finishing off some enemy behaviors and difficulty levelling. This will be commenced in about a month after a break to do LOWREZJAM 2024 and Defold Jam 2024

Targetting release on Steam sometime in October or November 2024. It’s been a slog at times but the light is at the end of the tunnel now.

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16 Likes
#7

I’m back to finish work on Chromacell after the summer break! The game is now functionally complete and there is now a short period of test and tuning to be done.

Expecting to submit the game to Steam by the end of this month. Implementation of the new Steamworks SDK extension was trouble-free – a few Steam Achievements have been added to the game.

I’m still happy the demo build released back in February still represents the game well so that wont be updated again. Looking forward now to release day around the beginning of October!

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9 Likes
#8

OUT NOW to Steam!

25% launch discount and the free demo is still up.

Thanks for everyone’s support and encouragment during this project, it’s been tough at times but we’re finally over the finish line.

AFAIK the game wont run on Steam Deck (?)

If able, please leave a review on Steam, it would do me a great service!

The link, one final time:

16 Likes
#9

Awesome! Will buy it when I get home and leave a review. :grin:

4 Likes
#10

Well done @benjames171 !

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Dropped my review already. I encourage everyone to grab the game and leave a review - Steam doesn’t really provide much visibility until you hit 10 reviews, so help Ben out!

6 Likes
#11

I also put down a review and yes, it’s a great game! :smiley:

I especially love the Organic Disco area, I would love if those lights would flash around, but I bet this would be too much noise :smiley:

And I am amazed about the laser - I don’t know how to describe it (and how it’s implemented) but, when you release the trigger it is no longer emitting laser, not by removing the whole line of laser immediately, but really ceasing it, so that for example, when you repeatedly press trigger you are shooting like blasters :smiley: It’s great!

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#12

I should be working but this is. So polished and fun. :sweat_smile:
Working great on the old Rog Ally!

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9 Likes
#13

Nice!

Also…

Switch - when? :smiley:

#14

Someday… maybe! I started the process of submitting Tameshi for Switch but it was too hard for me to figure out… so it’s currently on Refold’s backlog but they’re busy guys.

1 Like
#15

According to Steam, the game is verified as working on Steam Deck. They sent me an unprompted email after testing.

Please can anyone here verify this?

1 Like
#16

It works for me, but only if I force the use of “Proton Experimental” in the Compatibility section. Which suggests to me that it’s trying to run a Windows build.

1 Like
#17

Thanks Alex, that’s what I’d thought. Perhaps I should look at putting up a Linux build.

3 Likes