r/shmupdev

looking for someone familiar with games like RotMG or shmups or the BulletML language to help make some bosses for free/fun?
Asa's Ascended
releasing on Steam 2027

First of all, Apologies on the quality of the clip. Its supposed to be smooth I dunno why GPU Screen recorder just records at 30FPS instead of 60FPS even though its set at 60...

Astro Impact! De_Make was supposed to have a Steam page by now but Steam had other plans. Im too old to publish on Steam lol.

Context: https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/s/fduEdAnOVL

Initially, I thought I'd try with my Passport instead of my ID but Still my Tax Certificate would be more than 10 years old. Someone on the Defold Discord mentioned about Starting a Company and I looked into it and it seems easy. Just a 1 time payment of KES 10, 750 (~USD 75) to the government to get everything necessary to Publish on Steam as an LLC.

Unfortunately, that's still 1 - 2 months away if I'm being honest. I'm drowned in medical expenses for my girlfriend so I cant afford the Steamworks fee and LLC costs as wells as my expenses.

Dont worry, things are looking up so I Spent the evening adding a new font to the GUI because it scales nicely at almost all resolutions.

With the little time I had the past 2 months I managed to almost fully wrap up a huge update to my other game, Rapid Roll DX (It launches on the same day as the Demo), so now I can fully focus on Astro Impact! De_Make. I currently have 2 levels playable; AD 229, 042 & Pluto but I'm planning on 5 levels for the Demo: Caravan A, Score Attack A and Survival + the other 2.

I didnt want to show the Gallery to avoid spoiling the bosses for y'all, but you can check it out here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/defold/s/UD2luPCv6k

Anyways, thats it.

Brace for Impact, Astro Impact!

Hello fellow shmup developers,

After almost 2 years of work, I am happy to say that Cataclyzm now has a release date.
It’s coming 29th Oct 2026!

It has been a long journey, especially since I had to start from ZERO game dev experience, working in parallel to learn the engine (Godot), game dev fundamentals, game design, architecture while also building the tools, systems, art/animation assets and music from scratch.

My takeaway from this experience? Game development is HARD, and solo development is even HARDER! 

It’s a lonely process. 

However, the support and encouragement that I have received from this community has definitely made this journey less lonely. Hearing your feedback on my various enemy enemy designs, pixel art and game builds has been incredibly valuable and has encouraged me to continue working on it. It also helps that I genuinely enjoy playing shmups and to be able to create a game is a childhood dream come true for me!

After completing all of the planned work on my game and doing my usual playtesting rounds on it, it just feels ready to me. I feel like any more major work on it would only end up overcooking it.

My advice to anyone that is starting out in game development (be it for a shmup, or any other genre) is to start small but choose to create a game that you would enjoy playing. 

Don’t be afraid to get out of your comfort zone and share progress on your project as early as possible. I will be taking my own advice for my future projects.

Another thing to keep in mind is that passion will get you started, but discipline will keep you going to the finish.

I hope this has been helpful.

Do check out Cataclyzm on Steam, and play the demo. I will be setting up a steam playtest over the coming week and will keep it active until close to release to get as many fresh eyes on it as possible.

Cataclyzm on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4516840/Cataclyzm/ 

Cheers,
Dogroach

Hey everyone!

A while ago, I asked this community for ideas on how I could signal non-destructive resolution on a boss in the game I'm developing, Project Aether. I got some great feedback, so I'm back with another request.

I've recently finished the current playable version of the game's 3rd mission. The player restores a frontier relay while facing increasingly harder enemy formations. The mission introduces recurring team skills and culminates in a two-phase command-platform boss that deploys additional enemy groups. It's also the first mission where most of the visual asset work is now in place: enemies, boss, player and team ships and the environment.

I'm reasonably happy with the visual direction so far, but I’d really appreciate feedback on the level itself (see video above). In particular:

• Does the level’s escalation look clear and satisfying?
• Are the enemy formations readable enough while the player is also managing team skills?
• Does the boss feel like a natural conclusion to the mission?
• Is there any moment where the background or HUD interferes with threat readability?
• ... any other feedback you feel is relevant

This is all still in development, so I'm specifically looking for constructive criticism.

Thanks!