itch.io

Great, thanks! I'll look out for it.

Thanks! The tools available for SMS now make things a lot easier. As you mention though, knowledge of C or assembler is still required. This game is almost entirely written in C.

Yes, one of our play testers used MiSTer to complete the game. I believe you need to set "bios: disable" for it to run. Some other games have the same issue.

Alternatively, you can use the newer Mega Drive core which doesn't have the above issue.

The manual is in English, it's in the zip file.

The Brazilian Portuguese manual is downloaded separately.

Great! There's an Alpha Demo here if you'd like to try it: https://badcomputer0.itch.io/frontier-force-alpha-demo

Thank you!

Yes, it's a game made for the SEGA Master System. If your device can play SMS games then it should work fine.

The game briefly had speed power ups but it didn't really add anything to the game, other than an extra pick up. The dash came in after that as I felt it was a more interesting mechanic. Faster movement is just a stat increase, but the dash can be used for temporary faster movement or to dash through bullets, it also has risk/reward if you fail and is tied to the scoring mechanics by generating score if you dash through bullets.

Another reason is the game is not exactly the same as traditional shmups due to no vertical movement. Likewise a dash mechanic would be harder to integrate in a traditional shmup I imagine.

Lol thanks for playing! Don't worry, you can do it with practice!

It's too early to answer.

It starts to get a bit complicated having different states to enable dashing and introduces another layer of difficulty to the controls. Although I agree it can be difficult to control dashing in the beginning, it feels more straightforward to learn.

Yes, it was announced here: https://x.com/ichigobankai_/status/1916081881520525314

Thanks for playing!

On accidentally dashing. I discussed this with the play testers and we found that it disappears over time. As you get used to it you begin to move knowing there is a dash move, avoiding double tapping unless you want to dash. It's just incorporating that into how you move.

I like your suggestion, but there are times (without spoiling) you might want to dash and shoot.

¡Muchas gracias!

No.

I use Emulicious, I believe it's the most accurate.

Yeah exactly, it's tough to find a good input for it. I've toned down the sensitivity so I'll see what the broad feedback is.

Thanks for playing! Dashing will be important to other parts of the game later so ideally I don't want to make it entirely optional. It does get easier to use with practice.

That would be cool. I'd like to make a real MSX game at some point.

It's play by web only.

Yes, this is an HTML5 game but I'm planning to make an SMS version in the future!

It's not an SMS emulator, I chose the letter O as it was in the middle of WASD and arrow keys so both types of movement scheme could use letter O key easily.

In hindsight a simpler option like spacebar would've been better.

Thanks Robin! All valid points, I'll use these to improve the game in the future.

It's in the description but I could've made it easier to find in-game. Thanks for playing!

Thank you!

Thanks! It has 20.

Just to say that this now should be fixed as I updated the latest version of the engine I'm using and the game.

No one is stopping you from making your own game with your own definition of the word "inspired".

Ah great! Thanks for playing!

Very strange! Thank you for reporting, I don't know what the issue might be but I'll try to find out.

Thank you.

Apologies for this, I've reported the issue with the Pyxel engine dev, thanks for the solution in the mean time.

I don't know what you mean, but thanks anyway.

You made a mistake and didn't read the description correctly. I described it as "MSX/SG-1000 inspired", so that's why it's not an exact replica of a game for those systems.

Cool game!

Neither.

Thanks! No plans currently, but maybe in the future if I make any changes.

Cool video, thanks for playing!

Thanks man!

Thanks! I'm glad it worked well on your setup.