FX-Unit Yuki: The Henshin Engine for TurboGrafx-16/PC Engine

[spenoza]

The SNES and Genesis also used the exact same software parallax techniques to augment their hardware background support. Software parallax is, in some ways, far more common than hardware parallax.

[OldRover]

Testing begins this weekend. We're so close to completion now.

[Arkhan Asylum]

parallax on the PC Engine is annoying to deal with. 

like rover mentioned, it requires careful preparation.   IE: Unintuitive art requirements, followed by multiple scrolling concepts all working in tandem.

There's a reason why pretty much any game doing this sort of thing has really simple repetition.   It looks cool, but it's pretty much always repetitive tiles.   Like the first level in Schibibin Man 3.   

and then ultimately, you've sacrificed gameplay power for eyecandy, lol.

Lookin at you, giant coral towers in Atlantean.

[OldRover]

"Function before flash" is my modus operandi when doing this kind of thing. It doesn't matter how pretty it looks if it plays like asscandle. We've sacrificed looks for gameplay at various points of this production; tis a shame how many would prefer to do it the other way around, as we saw from time to time back in the day and even occasionally today.

[Michirin9801]

parallax on the PC Engine is annoying to deal with. 

like rover mentioned, it requires careful preparation.   IE: Unintuitive art requirements, followed by multiple scrolling concepts all working in tandem.

There's a reason why pretty much any game doing this sort of thing has really simple repetition.   It looks cool, but it's pretty much always repetitive tiles.   Like the first level in Schibibin Man 3.   

and then ultimately, you've sacrificed gameplay power for eyecandy, lol.

Lookin at you, giant coral towers in Atlantean.

I know what you mean, but if you have a talented artist who understands all of these things and how the system works in general, it's possible to make something which not only looks great, with parallax and all, but doesn't get too much in the way of level design!
And I know a couple of people who can totally do that ;3

[OldRover]

Just posting a quick update: we're now officially in beta testing. There is still work to be done, as a couple of substages aren't quite finished yet, but this should only take a few more days to complete. Here's hoping anyways. Last week of dev coming up.


https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10213261793286673

[touko]

i like it,and this evil transformed MD is excellent .

[CrackTiger]

i like it,and this evil transformed MD is excellent .

Since it was my last chance to design a boss, I wanted to do some kind of mecha Mega Drive, but also reference Shockman.





I also made a more traditionally shaped player ship in the Shockman style.

[NightWolve]

Awesome!

[turboswimbz]

That's great, CrackTiger. I really like it,  can't wait to buy this one.

[OldRover]

Unfortunately, the original design for that boss didn't work due to the PCE's limitations.

[ToyMachine78]

This game is gonna be epic, but when can I order it?

[OldRover]

I believe Saru has an order thingo on his website.

The Megadrive boss didn't work out as originally planned for a couple of reasons. First of all, there were too many sprites in the arms and it caused large amounts of flicker. So, I opted to remove the arm pieces and have the hands fly independently, similar to the second phase of the end boss of Dead Moon. Secondly, in the comic, Yuki transforms into a fighter jet in this scene, so that part had to be altered in the game too.

Damn sprites-per-line limit...

[touko]

Since it was my last chance to design a boss, I wanted to do some kind of mecha Mega Drive, but also reference Shockman.

Wahou, those bosses are really beautiful 
Same thing for backgrounds, very colored (with taste) and detailled,they remind me commercial games quality,good job .

The Megadrive boss didn't work out as originally planned for a couple of reasons. First of all, there were too many sprites in the arms and it caused large amounts of flicker

Arf, damn 
May be you can only deploy the boss's arms at a certain moment and one at a time when he don't fire to limit flickering .

Damn sprites-per-line limit...

It's time to go on SGX then 

[spenoza]

The way to get around that limit is to just make sure the arms are far enough apart vertically, and if they cross each others' path it's at an angle. You could also use alternating flicker on the arms, much like many NES games do on projectiles and whatnot.

[CrackTiger]

The way to get around that limit is to just make sure the arms are far enough apart vertically, and if they cross each others' path it's at an angle. You could also use alternating flicker on the arms, much like many NES games do on projectiles and whatnot.

Using a minimal number of segments that don't necessarily touch one another is something else that was often done.

The problem with this scene is that it's a horizintal shooter, where you're lining up your ship and bullets with another ship and its bullets.

[gilbert]

How about making the segments flickering on purpose? Such as some games use flickering to display more bullets. This would keep flickering of the other stuff on screen to a minimum.
You may get away with it by making those segments made of something like "energy beam", "electric" or whatever.

[spenoza]

The problem with this scene is that it's a horizintal shooter, where you're lining up your ship and bullets with another ship and its bullets.

Yeah, and that makes it more difficult to orchestrate, but certainly not impossible. Then again, this is a homebrew development and not a commercial studio endeavor (in the classic sense), so I understand if the programming attention and skill necessary to orchestrate that well is prohibitive.

[CrackTiger]

The problem with this scene is that it's a horizintal shooter, where you're lining up your ship and bullets with another ship and its bullets.

Yeah, and that makes it more difficult to orchestrate, but certainly not impossible. Then again, this is a homebrew development and not a commercial studio endeavor (in the classic sense), so I understand if the programming attention and skill necessary to orchestrate that well is prohibitive.

I think that the biggest factor keeping things from being reworked until they're ideal instead of jusy shooting for something that is fine and should work as-is, is just the restriction of available time to do it.

This was all done in our spare time and not only are there a lot stages, many of them alone have more assets and misc under the hood than most entire homebrew PCE games.

Remember Aetherbyte's ambitious goal with Insanity, to complete a PCE homebrew game within a year? I still can't believe how close this came to being complete in about a year once things got moving full speed and it'll likely be published within a year and a half. Even on a dev friendly console like Sega Genesis, it would be a big deal conpleting a game of this scope within the same time frame.

This is of course independent of whether or not the game is any good. But I'm excited about PCE homebrew continuing to become more ambitious.

[ToyMachine78]

The problem with this scene is that it's a horizintal shooter, where you're lining up your ship and bullets with another ship and its bullets.

Yeah, and that makes it more difficult to orchestrate, but certainly not impossible. Then again, this is a homebrew development and not a commercial studio endeavor (in the classic sense), so I understand if the programming attention and skill necessary to orchestrate that well is prohibitive.

This may have been done on a hombrew budget, but it sure looks like studio quality.

[CrackTiger]

This is some stuff I put together for a system card warning stage that isn't going to make it into the game:

[ParanoiaDragon]

Bummer, why isn't the warning stage going to make it? Lack of time for the development?

[CrackTiger]

Bummer, why isn't the warning stage going to make it? Lack of time for the development?

Not enough space for CD2 (for much of any kind of stage) and not enough time to include as bonus content.

[turboswimbz]

Bummer, why isn't the warning stage going to make it? Lack of time for the development?

Not enough space for CD2 (for much of any kind of stage) and not enough time to include as bonus content.

It's still a pretty cool idea and beautifully done.  I love the behind the scenes look.  Those flowers reminds me of a mash up of bonk and sonic.

[OldRover]

Yeah, the library alone takes up about half the memory, leaving only the other half for a user program, which usually has to include the graphics stuff too. This is one of the biggest downsides of using HuC, and I'm not smart enough to code anything in pure assembly. On the plus side, that red ship from the stage 6 boss mockup will be included after all.

[OldRover]

As of right now, we are 100 hours away from the curtain call. This weekend will be pretty much nothing but work on the final aspects of the game; doing bugfixes, tweaking level designs, tying up loose ends, doing spit n polish here n there.

[NecroPhile]

GOB is helping?

It's an illusion, Micheal.  Whores do tricks.

[Dicer]

As of right now, we are 100 hours away from the curtain call. This weekend will be pretty much nothing but work on the final aspects of the game; doing bugfixes, tweaking level designs, tying up loose ends, doing spit n polish here n there.

Then you can get back to having a life, ya know cause life is life...

[OldRover]

THERE IS NO LIFE AFTER OBEY. THERE IS ONLY OBEY.

[SmokeMonster]

The Paypal/pre-order link at henshinengine . com doesn't seem to be working.
https://www.fxunityuki.com/

[OldRover]

Looks like some stuff on the website is broken at the moment and there's no time to fix it as we're in the final days of dev. Saru will likely fix it once we're done.

[SmokeMonster]

Thanks! Saru must have just fixed the Paypal system, so I was able to pre-order.

[Sarumaru]

SmokeMonster, thanks for bringing that up to our attention

Also, I drew this up a couple days ago for teh burthdais of teh pce



Yeah, Geni is there too but they are kind of a pair deal

[NecroPhile]

Nice!

You gonna draw one for PC-FX in a couple years when she turns 25?  I vote it involves a PC-FX girly with a strap on giving the business to Rolfee.

[Sarumaru]

Nice!

You gonna draw one for PC-FX in a couple years when she turns 25?  I vote it involves a PC-FX girly with a strap on giving the business to Rolfee.

All is possible, HE already has a character that was inspired by Rolfee too

[Arkhan Asylum]

Nice!

You gonna draw one for PC-FX in a couple years when she turns 25?  I vote it involves a PC-FX girly with a strap on giving the business to Rolfee.

nah man, ass to ass, like that scene in Requiem For A Dream.

except ontop of a PC-FX instead of in some crackheads bang-room.

drugs still present, of course.

[Sarumaru]

Nice!

You gonna draw one for PC-FX in a couple years when she turns 25?  I vote it involves a PC-FX girly with a strap on giving the business to Rolfee.

nah man, ass to ass, like that scene in Requiem For A Dream.

except ontop of a PC-FX instead of in some crackheads bang-room.

drugs still present, of course.

So Yuki and Rolfee, ass to ass in Ark's room. Got it. I'll see what I can do ;)

[Arkhan Asylum]

Nice!

You gonna draw one for PC-FX in a couple years when she turns 25?  I vote it involves a PC-FX girly with a strap on giving the business to Rolfee.

nah man, ass to ass, like that scene in Requiem For A Dream.

except ontop of a PC-FX instead of in some crackheads bang-room.

drugs still present, of course.

So Yuki and Rolfee, ass to ass in Ark's room. Got it. I'll see what I can do ;)

with me dressed up as a PC-FX, and that's what they're on top of?

lol

I joked about drawing Rolfee blowing coke off of a PC-FX once or twice, but I can't draw.

[Sarumaru]

Nice!

You gonna draw one for PC-FX in a couple years when she turns 25?  I vote it involves a PC-FX girly with a strap on giving the business to Rolfee.

nah man, ass to ass, like that scene in Requiem For A Dream.

except ontop of a PC-FX instead of in some crackheads bang-room.

drugs still present, of course.

So Yuki and Rolfee, ass to ass in Ark's room. Got it. I'll see what I can do ;)

with me dressed up as a PC-FX, and that's what they're on top of?

lol

I joked about drawing Rolfee blowing coke off of a PC-FX once or twice, but I can't draw.

She's gotta keep her girlish figure somehow!

[Arkhan Asylum]

She's gotta keep her girlish figure somehow!

get her on meth.

cant eat if you have no teeth.

[spenoza]

cant eat if you have no teeth.

That's what blenders are for.

[Arkhan Asylum]

cant eat if you have no teeth.

That's what blenders are for.

and/or buttchugging.

[spenoza]

I don't even want to know.

[Sarumaru]

cant eat if you have no teeth.

That's what blenders are for.

and/or buttchugging.

Yer a felcher

[OldRover]

So I just wanted to drop a quick update here for y'all. As of right now, Henshin Engine no longer exists. Due to a trademark issue, the name has been changed. I'll let Saru fill everyone in on the changes when the time is right, but let's just say that it was a damn good thing that we did not actually release the game under the name Henshin Engine or we'd have been in a heap of legal trouble. Because of the change, there will be a revised title screen and website and merchandise stuffs and all that jazz... basically, the whole thing has to be re-branded. More details to follow as they become available.

[Psycho Punch]

Bootleg games for $$$: radio silence
Make completely new game with homage title: CEASE IMMEDIATELY

[seieienbu]

I'm really curious what other product/service/thing could possibly be named "Henshin Engine."  Here's hoping that an amusing story comes from all of this.

[Psycho Punch]

I'm really curious what other product/service/thing could possibly be named "Henshin Engine."  Here's hoping that an amusing story comes from all of this.

I thought this was just Konami being annoyed that saru used something too close to PC engine since they are the current owners of it

[seieienbu]

It sounded to me like the problem was the name and not the platform...?

[Arkhan Asylum]

I'm really curious what other product/service/thing could possibly be named "Henshin Engine."  Here's hoping that an amusing story comes from all of this.

Im suspecting jokes and lulz because Henshin Engine's trademark is registered to Saru... so...