Post by Happy Frog Games in Xenogunner comments

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Lead dev of the game here! The game's main inspiration was Alien Soldier, which was another Treasure-made run-and-gun for the Sega Genesis... with some similarities to Gunstar Heroes. And hey, in fairness, I love Gunstar Heroes too and the game is a bit inspired by it too, heh...

Glad to hear you enjoyed the game! A steep learning curve is definitely something I'm aware is a bit of a problem in this one. If/when I make a follow-up I'm kinda hoping I can find a way to make it a bit easier to get into, though admittedly with the ideas I have in mind that may be easier said than done.

Toma2 years ago

Hey, thanks for taking time to reply :) I am usually not someone in favor of compromising a games vision by lowering its difficulty, but the disparity between the relatively easy levels and incredibly challenging boss encounters really seems there might be a way for an additional difficulty setting somewhere (like having less health on bosses for an easier mode, but having more enemies in the level areas on a higher difficulty), as that probably limits the broadness of the games appeal somewhat.

But still fantastic game, thank you for keeping making fun games :)

Happy Frog Games2 years ago

The unusually easy levels and hard bosses were admittedly intentional as the game is a spiritual successor to Alien Soldier, which did basically the same thing, even if I know it limits the appeal a bit to people who aren't fans of that game.

Though in fairness, this game and Alien Soldier aren't the only two games I know of that purposely put most of the difficulty into the boss fights. Metroid Prime did something like that for example. Love that game too btw, though it wasn't really inspiration for this one, and the reason it did that is quite different since that one was supposed to be about exploring, so bosses being the only hard part just kinda made sense.

Though uh... this one maybe kinda didn't put enough into making the stages actually interesting, which I feel is a much bigger problem than the stages being too easy compared to the bosses. If I make a follow-up, more than making the stages harder, I at least want to make sure they're fun. Fun is the priority, if I can get that down then I feel like it'll help out a bit, heh. That and having more difficulty customization that specifically applies to the bosses, that's also something I've had in mind.

Toma2 years ago

Ah, very good to hear. Well I certainly am looking forward to your future games. :)
Thanks for the insight, always appreciated!

itch.io

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