DEEP SPACE SCOUT SHIP HYPER-5 RESPONDS TO AN UNKNOWN DISTRESS BEACON. A TERRIFYING ENEMY AWAITS. NEW! FREE DEMO DOWNLOAD FOR PC: Hyper-5 by hyper-5
Hi all! I am a solo, “spare time” indie developer from Oxford, UK and have been working on my first title “Hyper-5” for about 2.5 years. The game is a horizontally-scrolling shmup inspired by classics from the “golden era” of my childhood. As such Hyper-5 is a bucket-list project for me rather than a commercial enterprise.
I am roughly 75% through initial development and have reached the point of having a playable alpha of the first three levels. If anyone is interested in joining the Awesome Alpha Testing Squadron then please send me a DM.
Anyone familiar with the asset store will see that I have used a number of third-party assets to realise my game, I plan to contact the various authors and ask them if they would like a credit here and in the eventual release.
I’ll post more news / screenshots etc here as the development continues. Thanks for your interest!
Thanks for sharing the alpha, absolutely love the effects you are using and the clouds feel of the first level, which speaking of, in my quick first attempts I admit I couldn’t finish
Looking great so far, this game really has a unique feel to it which I like very much, my feedback at this point would be:
-Start and exit game loading time, at my computer at least it felt it took too long to open, the level loaded quickly but the game took time, I don’t know if there is anything you can do to speed it up or spread the loading time in between starting the game and loading the levels.
-The clouds look great, but if you reduce the ones that go on top of the players, enemies and bullets a bit, so that it’s easier to play and see things.
-If you can make the first level a bit easier or the difficulty progression more forgiving :).
Hi @EbalStudios ! Many thanks for the feedback it is very much appreciated Several others have raised similar points about start loading / exit game time. I have been able to reduce initial load quite a bit on my machine. It turned out sound / music decompression was a fair chunk of this. Cloud density vs enemies / projectiles is also on the list to look at.
The most tricky point to address is balancing the difficulty progression arc. At the start of the alpha testing phase I was worried the game was too easy. Obviously it is very difficult for me to judge this. Based on feedback the general vibe was the game was a little too difficult to progress for most of the alpha testers (feels a bit “grindy to the next upgrade”). At the moment I plan to address by tweaking in a few ways:
Slightly more powerful weapons at startup (one or two levels on guns)
Gallery unlocks also provide upgrade points, so this will dish out upgrades more rapidly
Checkpoints in the levels, usually just before the boss fight. This will make player lives a bit more meaningful as well.
Hopefully this will tweak the balance in the right direction, but not too far
hi all! Firstly sorry for the lack of updates, the time I have had available for this project has been put into development rather than outreach but I will try to do better on this in the future. I am very pleased to announce the release of the first public demo of Hyper-5 on itch.io:
Sorry im late to reply (so busy), love what your doing bro, and know the assets you use, nice job on some customization, the 3d type dev, in a side scrolling type environment, with video integration, is very cool. So many devs miss the 3d depth you can add to a side view.
I agree with EbalStudios , on 1 point…clouds. They actually obstruct game-play view, and its also takes away the 3d depth. Nice job bro, like seeing something different like this, now get back to work…lol
hi @koirat ! Thanks for the thumbs up I appreciate it! Regards speeding up shooting / enemies dying faster can I ask please if you managed to purchase upgrades in the Armoury? The first play through to gameover should award you enough Upgrade Points to at least level up your main guns which obviously makes it a lot easier to cut through those early waves!
Many thanks to everyone who downloaded the first demo of Hyper-5. I have had a lot of helpful feedback which is great. The main new features for the V2 demo are:
Configurable “Play Styles”
Choose between the existing “Progression” mode, or “Precision” mode which is more tuned to fit feedback from shmup enthusiasts.
I have also made some good progress on the final two levels of the game. Level 4 is a deep, dark underwater cave where light is scarce and Hyper-5 comes under attack from strange biological creatures. Here are a few screenshots showing the action:
Hi All! Many thanks to everyone who downloaded the V2 demo of Hyper-5. It has been really interesting to compare the playing experience of shmup fans with less experienced players. I have a few new features for V3 demo to share:
Player tips: When you die and / or finish a level, the game now shows some contextual tips to assist playing.
Terrain visibility: I have added some details which should make it more obvious where the ground is. Don’t crash into it!
Armoury UI tweaks: Improvements to streamline and clarify the UI
Route holograms: Some of the levels feature branching paths, I have added in “route hologram markers” to assist visualisation.
I am probably a month or so away from being able to send off the last two levels to the Awesome Alpha Testing Squadron which is exciting! Level 5 is longer than the other levels and set on a strange, toxified island full of giant insects and ancient alien machinery:
