Hey everyone! My name is Sri Kankanahalli, and I'm currently developing a 2D action platformer called Steel Assault. Its aesthetic is inspired by late NES games like Shatterhand or Batman, and it's focused on close combat with a variety of different weapons. On the hardest difficulty, it's an arcade style game (i.e. the goal is a 1CC) with one life and seamlessly connected levels.
We've just launched campaigns on Kickstarter and Steam Greenlight, where you can find a trailer and more info! You can also check out the game's official site at: http://steelassault.com
This site has been a really great resource for me while thinking about and developing Steel Assault so far. I've loved all of the time I've spent here combing through threads like Macaw's giant list of Famicom action games and playing them, or learning about super obscure PC Engine STGs that came out before I was even born, or reading about the culture of the Japanese game industry in the '80s and '90s. This place is awesome!
A lot of you guys have played and cleared way more of these games then I'll ever have the time or even inclination to, so it seems like the people here would make the ideal beta testers for Steel Assault. If you'd be interested in this, feel free to shoot me a PM or post in this thread! I completely understand if you don't have time or don't want to spoil the game for yourself, though. (The game isn't currently in a state where we feel fully comfortable sending it off to others, but it'll be ready for a short demo in 1 or 2 months, and at that point I'll let anyone interested know.)
Any other feedback, criticism, or questions about Steel Assault are also always welcome!
P.S. I also have a quick question relating to a design decision I'm mulling over. How many arcade side-scrollers are there which have short mid-level dialogue without stopping the player dead in his tracks to listen to it like the later Megaman X games or the Igavanias do (or really almost every platformer with mid-level dialogue that I can think of)? So the player can still walk around, keep fighting enemies, etc. while the person is talking on the very top of the screen. I know they must exist, but I'm really drawing a blank here. I can think of Assault Suits Valken (and many of the games inspired by it) and a few other SNES/MD titles, but no arcade games.
The reason is because I had originally planned for the game to be structured like a NES Ninja Gaiden or Vice: Project Doom with discrete levels and cutscene interludes inbetween, before I decided for a completely seamless structure instead. However, I'd still like to have some dialogue and "hi-res" human face portraits within the game (to give it a bit more life), and the best way to do that without breaking the flow of the game seems to be mid-level dialogue (with multiple randomized variants for each "dialogue point" so it doesn't become repetitive). Nothing too long, just simple terse Star Fox-esque stuff along the lines of "the bad guy is doing the thing there, go and stop him" or "WTF why are there giant eels under the National Harbor". I guess one compromise option would be to let the player turn it off in the options menu if they get annoyed by it.
