Independent Gaming

Saturday, November 03, 2007

Kamiha

Kamiha is a vertical shooter consisting of two stages, with bullet patterns reminiscent of the ones found in Cave's earlier releases. Options can be used as bombs by holding down the X key, while tapping the same button releases your smart bomb at the expense of all your options.

Use the cursor keys to move your ship, and press the Z key to shoot. Options automatically regenerate when the X key is not held down.

Name: Kamiha
Developer: Tom Beaumont
Category: Shooter
Type: Freeware
Size: 1MB
Direct download link: Click here

Labels: shmupdev4

Posted at 12:15 AM by Tim

Recent Comments

Kamiha I love it! Unfortunately it doesn't look as though the author will pursue this project. Garden of Coloured Lights I love this game. I just wish I had more time to play it :( After many hours of practice - I finally beat level 4 on normal. Now to move onto hard. A beautiful game, level 3 and 4 are real treats. Thanks, Tim! Glad you liked it :) Very nice game. Akuchizoku Demo Now that's a damn fine game right there. Not perfect, but it's only got some flaws and they are probably nitpicks of mine.

I love the presentation. It feels like what the Atari developers would do if they could cram more stuff in the cartridges. The controls are responsive, and all the different strategies and play styles of the three pilots make playing with each of them an unique experience. The game's awfully hard for first timers, but it thankfully just restarts the level automatically when you run out of lives, not interrupting the flow and allowing most players to eventually get through the levels. Not to mention the plot is just crazy awesome (emphasis on the 'crazy') and makes the game be instantly recognizeable as a Cactus game.

Now, for the issues.

First is the fact that each ship's collision box is not apparent. Especially when trying to dodge tight-packed bullet sprays it's very hard to know where you can be hit, especially since there is no way to know how big the box is.
Another is how enemy bullets are just not contrasting enough to stand out and blend way too easily with all the crap going on in the screen.
Then we have how the game is heavily relyiant on the surprise element for its difficulty. With how often you'll restart the levels, you'll eventually figure out all the enemy patterns and all those pushover bosses quickly become a cakewalk, often without any special weapons used.
There are also the coins. What is their purpose? I can't see a score or anything, and they don't seem to affect anything gameplay-wise.

The game's still crazy fun. I might just get the full thing. Also, the link leads to the Substitute game. Fix plz. :P This game looks fantastic. cactus is my hero. Thanks for the great feedback, Melly!

I tried to make the hitbox visible for all the pilots, but it's not very apparent.

Chopper - Wind shield
Skullguy - Arm
Chick - Middle segment/penis shaft

I can't do much about the blood having bad contrast in the first level. Except maybe have it blink a bit or something, but it'd look weird. I think most of my games favour stylistic choices over practical choices when it comes to visibillity of things. Dunno if that's good or bad :P

The coins are supposed to give you a highscore, but I ended up short on time, so I couldn't manage to get that into the game. The HUD is terrible, as well. It's gonna be a lot nicer in the final version. By the way, forgot to mention the music makes me feel fuzzy...

In my pants. I'm pretty much seconding everything Melly said. This is a great little game that could use a tiny bit more tuning.. but this IS a work-in-progress demo, and if it's this good now, the final build should be fantastic.

Keep up the good work, Cactus. Probably your best game so far, and given that I really like your other stuff, that's pretty much frothing praise.

Definitely getting the full thing.. In fact, I recall donating to this very blog a while back, and apparently that included - in part - the full version of this anyway. So there. You've got my money - spend it well, you mad bastard! I've already paid cactus - he will send you guys an email when the game is done. But feel free to donate more. :D

crazy.cactus@gmail.com

Last I heard from him, he's working on at least seven or eight more freeware games. ;) I'm having a tough time figuring out how to use the woman effectively. She seems like she could potentially have the strongest attacking power of them all, much like the Attractor from Clean Asia. The skull man may actually be the easiest one to survive with for newbies, since two of his modes can block enemy bullets. Wow, point me to where I can donate for this game.

I must have it. Oop, gotta transfer some money to Paypal then Strange, as it's layed out on Tim's blog, I replied to Tim before he told me what to do.

Anyways, funds transfering, it'll be about 3 or 4 days cactus, but you'll be getting my pre-order cash soon enough! Details on Akuchizoku's web site (click on Enter, then Buy button):
http://www.akuchizoku.co.nr/

Send at least USD $1 using PayPal to:

crazy.cactus@gmail.com

(but try to send at least $5, or buy five copies if you want, since paypal deducts nearly half of $1 as fee)

Preorders only currently, since the game isn't finished. The full version will be sent to you when it's done.

If you don't have PayPal and still want the game, you can send an email to cactus for 'special arrangements'. ;)

If there is enough preorders, I believe cactus will make a sequel? My thoughts on the characters:

The helicopter: The most standard run-of-the-mill craft, its options trail the ship and fire bullets, its got limited missiles and a focused special. Probably the easiest to figure out.

The skullman: The most unique character for me. His option-ramming attack is, I think, the most powerful unlimited attack of the three when you have all options condensed, making gameplay with him a very agreesive, but effective one if you use that. Also versatile with other attack types. Probably for balance he has no limited weapons. Can be very hard to grasp because of how he controls.

The cockrocket: The best to fire at odd angles and against straight lines of enemies. Her limited lasers also fire rapidly, allowing you to quickly take down the most annoying enemies you save it for.

I love how differently they all control, though you MIGHT want to place a short tutorial mode. It's not that necessary, though. NO SEQUELS! This game may be a labour of love, but all I can remember right now is pain, sweat and tears. And it's not even over yet. Also, I found it very limiting and tedious to simulate low resolutions (although I like the results).

I'm glad you like the Skullman, Melly. I wasn't sure I had nailed him all too well.

Oh, and I'd love some donations. I spend a few hours everyday making games, and I really want to keep doing it. So don't force me to go get a job... :P Varia Very cool games. All the different elements (Chorensha-style power up, Ikaruga-chaining...) fit together quite nicely. However, selecting the options while moving the ship is a total mess unless you restrict your ship movement during that moment to left right. Wouldn't it be better to use "A" and "S" for switching between options? Anyway, nice one...I keep playing it:-) ^I meant "very cool game" of course...sorry Thanks Tim.

@anonymous comments:

The selecting felt natural for me, though I can understand. I prefer it this way because I hate having any more buttons than ZXC, Enter and the arrow keys in a shoot-em-up. Also, you should remember that not all keyboards have ZXC beside eachother, which makes it a pain to play for a lot of people.

I love the game, personally. I'm still not fully aware of all its intricacies, but what I saw I liked. The effects and bg lagged my computer, but the game still looks pretty good without them. I'm sure collecting only the powers you want takes only time and practice (and a good bit of memorization).

Very awesome. Support for QZERTZ and AZERTY type keyboards - already in the game. I'm just not sure if it works properly. @kairos
Changing set.ini works very good...just like you decribed it in the readme which is very good by the way - not too long, well structured.
How about letting the player cycle through options with "space"? Kinda hard to do while dodging bullets...and yes, I'm the same guy who complained in the first commment...just another suggestion;-)
@melly
Read the readme...there are some intricacies you should be aware of to fully enjoy it. I could probably allow for something like that in future releases. Most people didn't have a problem though. Playing through the game more and all, I think I now have the ability to give a few more opinions.

The game's greatest flaw, for me, is the fact that it tries to do too much, and doesn't fully realize any of it.

You took Cho Ren Sha's power-up system and it works, but there's not much challenge in getting the three powerups most of the time.

You took Ikaruga's color chaining, but color chaining is at the same time very easy because enemies will almost always come in continuous groups of the same color, and a bit out of your control thanks to your 45 degree shots which may hit other color enemies you're not aiming for. There is a reason Ikaruga's shots were always the same power and only fired straight.

The options being able to pick abilities from enemies is the most unique aspect, and to be honest I'd have preferred if you had focused on this gameplay element and ran with it. Right now there is little to no incentive in getting any other ability than the average vulcan bullets. As long as you get the triple power-ups (pretty easy) and is good at dodging there is no need for better weapons, and the game gives you no opportunities and situations in which different weapons will be more useful than others.

It's still a great game, and I love the fact it was made in GM (kind of obvious by your previous works and the loading bar, though you may correct me if I'm mistaken), but it just seems like you got a bit overexcited while designing its gameplay. :) Also, to make my point more valid, I beat the game in both Easy and Normal not aiming to get any of the fancy weapons. Well, I tried my best. The Ikaruga chaining, as explained in the manual, isn't the same at all. Its an bonus aspect there for you to try to get a higher score.

While there is no incentive to get any other bullets, that's how you play it. Its implied that if you want the game to be more fun, you can choose to get those abilities.

But then again, I didn't get in everything I want because it was for a competition and I had personal time problems. Well, I surely hope after the competition you continue developing it. Prototype 2 Thanks Tim

Also you can use the default C key to detonate the orb like a smart bomb for those tricky areas.

I've worked hard, I'm a little bit proud. Hope someone out there enjoys :) Runs too slow on my old 1300Mhz PC :-( My jaw just dropped, and had a hard time closing it again. Looks great on screenshots. Can't wait to see how it plays! Does this have anything to do with ye olde DOS-game Prototype?

The title suggests so...

The Prototype soundtrack was awesome. OK - I have checked out the game now and it certainly doesn't have anything in common with the original (commercial game) Prototype although it was a shmup, too. Looks fantastic, and the fist few bits I've already enjoyed. Great find Tim! DroneSwarm I wish it was vertical :/ I will be supporting tate mode so you can flip your monitor and play it vertically if you wish.

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