'Circuit Strike One' Developer Notes and New Video
posted March 25th, 2009 12:50 PM EDT by arn in Exclusives, Shooter, Upcoming Games
Chillingo and H.Grenade developer Shay Casey provided us with a new gameplay video and development notes on his upcoming shooter Circuit Strike One. We've been keeping a very close eye on this title since it was previewed. The first gameplay video was especially impressive.
They company has since signed up with Chillingo as a publisher.
We've included Casey's notes here in full and embedded the new video below.
Damn, it's been awhile. A lot of work has gone into optimizing the game engine and assets to run smoothly on the iPhone hardware and provide the best game play experience. It has been a constant trade off between new AV Sync effects and what can be done well with the current tools and SDK. A lot of content has been added, only to be deleted later when it just doesn't work the way it was intended. Then new stuff goes in. Rinse and repeat. We are still tweaking this balance and will continue to, up to the very last second until release.
Those of you who have been following closely will see some new gameplay mechanics … like the wall hack! No more grinding the edge of the arena. Now, the ship just dives through, stalls the audio playback for a second and re-emerges on the exact opposite location just like Asteroids. Well, just like Asteroids if it had a follow camera and a super sexy 3D environment! : )
Bullet Time is fully functional on the iPhone and it is demonstrated a few times in the video. The audio warp that goes along with it makes it a blast to experiment with. Activate and deactivate on beat or just activate for a drum fill and then deactivate after the break. Does this add anything to gameplay?… no. Is it fun and a great way to waste time? Hell yes! We can only hope that you will enjoy it as well because it took forever to get it right.
You might notice the Achievements in the main menu as well. 36 in total of varying difficulties are planned. Some are there to help new players learn more advanced mechanics, others are there to give you much needed moral support during the phase where you basically, still suck ; ) The difficult achievements are there for the diehard gamers out there. People that are marginally OCD and just need to collect everything because they can. Additionally there will secret Achievements unlocked only by those that play it a lot or just like to experiment.
Of course, we are holding onto a few secrets ourselves! We can't tell you everything, can we? You will just have to play it early and often if you want to be in the know. But notice that you don't see any Arena variety or new enemies. That and a new seriously sick Bullet Time feature that we hope will make the initial release.
Note: The video and screenshots are compressed so some things actually look a lot better in real life. Then again, most of the textures in the game are compressed too, so some of it looks exactly like this : ) Either way, we can tell you first hand – it looks pretty decent!
It shouldn't be much longer until it is in the App Store but just like id Software likes to say, "it will be out when its done." In other words, go big or go home.
Errr… migrane!
I have no idea what is going on in this game.
Love the look of it though.
Think they could do with making the bullet trails more visible from your ship.
ZZZzzzzz
actually been hoping to hear more information about this game, thanks for the update arn
Aw…what happened to "'sup bitch"?
Anyway, I like the improvements. Hopefully the actual game is great. Looks good. Although I still don't like the look of the ship. I'd rather it be flat shaded or more in tune with the rest of the game. Sticks out quick a bit.
@Oliath – haha, this is just a crazy section of the game. It changes up quite a bit when you play it. I think the "Rail" trails are disappearing because of the video compression, on the device they show up pretty bright.
@spiffyone – it's still in the game… the death icons just come up randomly and it didn't make it into this video. You don't like the 3D ship. What are you a game designer now!? : p Jk, I will keep under things to consider for now, I still have a lot of work to do : )
Thanks for your input. Any and all feedback is welcome!
First of all thx for wonderful art style – makes me really dig this game.
Second – can you give us approximate date when you will have it up on App Store?
Third – how many levels are there in this game?
Fourth and last – got a link to this vid? Cannot play it
Thx!
I can't get the video to load either. The URL for the SWF that calls the video is http://www.hgrenade.com/circuit_strike/CS.One_Prerelease_Video_2_HD.swf but it just sits there for be, both on the TA page and opening the URL directly. It's a shame, because I really liked the first video and was excited to see this one.
Wow, still isn't released yet?!
Alas, I know with great patience comes a great game. So i will wait. The new video looks great, BUT:
please tell me that is not the final menu screen, the one from the original video looked so much more flowing, and I loved how you could kind of see the previous screen in the background. This new one is well, lame to put it bluntly.
I hope those crybabies are happy now that he bothered to re-skin the "sup bitch?!" into "Terminated"
@Chad
Grow up!
I am certainly anticipaiting this games release even more though after seeing this and reading the feedback comments.
Been waiting for a frantic shooter with style!
I hope that there are online leaderboards or something?
Looking absolutely *fantastic*.
I cannot wait.
This looks and sounds cool! Hope controls are good.
what the eff is taking so long for this to come out? it better be amazing
Zzzz… Wake me up when it's ready. Zzzz…
This game is never coming out…
Just wanted to point out again that this game is never coming out! haha
Zzz… Not out yet!? Zzz… what's sup with that bitch!? Zzz…
Looks like a game on my old vectrex
http://www.old-computers.com/MUSEUM/photos/mb_vectrex_1s.jpg
Very nice! Very old school! One thing though, whats up with this sup bitch, I'm not too sure about that. Rethink methink's.
And another week goes by without news… i'm tempted to say Vaporware?
Some Indie dev could have come out with like 5 of these by now
Still waiting..
Maybe it's taking so long because the are trying to re-spell Supbitch to something else. I hope so as it's a bit lame. I can wait!