Xeno Crisis coming to Neo Geo

[Neo Alec]

NGDevTeam seems to make a point of keeping their releases non-standard. The games don't support the memory card or Unibios. Start is used for pause. It will be nice to have a more typical Neo Geo experience for this game.

 

[bitmapbureau]

NGDevTeam seems to make a point of keeping their releases non-standard. The games don't support the memory card or Unibios. Start is used for pause. It will be nice to have a more typical Neo Geo experience for this game.

We're certainly hoping to make use of the Neo's memory cards and have one ready for testing, and I know Matt's talking with the Unibios creator. I've not really had much experience with unibios - can you give an example of a game that takes advantage of it? And what's the problem with 'start' being used for pause? You'll have to excuse my memory a bit as I sold my AES collection some years ago and I'm still familiarising myself with all things Neo Geo again!

 

[-SD-]

Anyway, it's been interesting to read the comments so far, and if you have any questions at all then I'll do my best to answer them.

Cheers,

Mike.

It’d be interesting to see a comparison between the Megadrive and Neo versions to see the extra frames and colours used in some of the sprite work...

Anyway, good luck with the project, I hope it all goes as smoothly as such a thing can go.

 

[bitmapbureau]

It’d be interesting to see a comparison between the Megadrive and Neo versions to see the extra frames and colours used in some of the sprite work...

Anyway, good luck with the project, I hope it all goes as smoothly as such a thing can go.

Thank you! It'll be a while before we have anything to show, but we'll keep everyone updated!

 

[DevilRedeemed]

Best of luck with this. It does seem to have great potential. You know what would be great? Creating a decent lore around this game and maybe thinking about sequels. Too many of these indie game's are one offs but there's something to be said about franchises.
About the lore, a mini novel would be awesome. It sounds silly but in an age where manuals are a thing of the past, the words on a page have evermore weight in gaming. It is the tail (/tale) which has long fallen off, and it is a shame.
Sorry about the ridiculous suggestions. All the best

 

[wyo]

How's it feel to still be butthurt about a guy who's not even here?

This has nothing to do with mads. But come on dude, we all know you're buying this game.

I will probably buy ONE COPY of it...

 

[Massive Urethra Chode]

Best of luck with this. It does seem to have great potential. You know what would be great? Creating a decent lore around this game and maybe thinking about sequels. Too many of these indie game's are one offs but there's something to be said about franchises.
About the lore, a mini novel would be awesome. It sounds silly but in an age where manuals are a thing of the past, the words on a page have evermore weight in gaming. It is the tail (/tale) which has long fallen off, and it is a shame.
Sorry about the ridiculous suggestions. All the best

How about go oldschool and include a little comic book with the game? Like back in the Atari days

 

[DevilRedeemed]

How about go oldschool and include a little comic book with the game? Like back in the Atari days

Totally

 

[Razoola]

We're certainly hoping to make use of the Neo's memory cards and have one ready for testing, and I know Matt's talking with the Unibios creator. I've not really had much experience with unibios - can you give an example of a game that takes advantage of it? And what's the problem with 'start' being used for pause? You'll have to excuse my memory a bit as I sold my AES collection some years ago and I'm still familiarising myself with all things Neo Geo again!

Hi Matt, yea Ive been talking with Mike so if you have any questions about NeoGeo integration I offer my help where I can. There are little quirks here and there with the system that you'll need to be aware of given the different NeoGeo hardware models and regions. It's all easy stuff but it could be quite easy to miss some things here and there for some setups.

I think the main thing people would probably like to see is the game work within the standard NeoGeo game footprint so for example it would fully work in a NeoGeo Multislot in relation to attract mode, automatic game cycling and game selection. And of course because the NeoGeo is an arcade based system, the game working on a credit based game start system gives it an extra buzz.

As far as the UniBios goes, no game really takes advantage of the Unibios but I guess game owners might like to see the possibility of the UniBios ingame menu being accessible (not locked out) so the unibios could technically add cheats for the game at a later date. That would mean the first 0x300 tiles on the FIX layer including the standard NeoGeo font set (or a font set of your own design) so the UniBios can display correct text. It also requires you use the standard NeoGeo Bios I/O call each frame (0xC0044A, https://wiki.neogeodev.org/index.php?title=SYSTEM_IO). The NGdev games have this locked out, I suspect because it will be saving them some 68k cycles and protection related, the NeoGeo Bios I/O call does steal quite a bit that you may need. That said it is however possible to create your own I/O to replace the bios default while still keeping the game fully NeoGeo bios and UniBios compatable. Actually thinking about it, I'm surprised no one has actually done this yet and put it up on the wiki pages.

 

[famicommander]

I will probably buy ONE COPY of it...

One.

One for AES, one for MVS, one for CD, one AES CE, and one MVS CE.

Got it.

 

[Bennett]

Why would he want to order that many copies?

 

[DevilRedeemed]

Why would he want to order that many copies?

To create a golem

 

[GadgetUK]

The controls actually mimic those of Shock Troopers, which I hope you'll agree are excellent. On top of this though you can also rotate your shot direction whilst shooting by tapping 'A' or 'C', as seen in Skeleton Krew on the Mega Drive.

^

 

[cat]

I've been waiting with baited breath for the MD version for quite a while now, i love arena shooters and this looks something special, henk nieborg is a legend when it comes to pixel art, lomax and flink still look amazing even today in my opinion.
I jumped on the MVS CE when pre orders were announced by the way.

 

[snes_collector]

This looks really cool, and is priced reasonable as well. Just not sure which system I would like to play this on the most.

 

[damasco]

Just pre-ordered the MVS CE.
After watching the video on Youtube, it seems to be fun and dynamic ...
but I have some doubts about how the controls will be managed and responsive !
As far as I remember playing that kind of games in the past, It was only really enjoyable with a mouse and a keyboard

 

[neo_mao]

Game looks great and I am tempted to get an AES copy...but my only question is that the recent video for Area 1 Perimeter was a really short stage. I wonder if that is representative of how long all the levels will be...or will they be a bit larger?

 

[damasco]

Game looks great and I am tempted to get an AES copy...but my only question is that the recent video for Area 1 Perimeter was a really short stage. I wonder if that is representative of how long all the levels will be...or will they be a bit larger?

good remark. it also seemed to me to be very confined. I hope the other levels will be a bit more open !

 

[TMOSteel]

Best of luck with this. It does seem to have great potential. You know what would be great? Creating a decent lore around this game and maybe thinking about sequels. Too many of these indie game's are one offs but there's something to be said about franchises.
About the lore, a mini novel would be awesome. It sounds silly but in an age where manuals are a thing of the past, the words on a page have evermore weight in gaming. It is the tail (/tale) which has long fallen off, and it is a shame.
Sorry about the ridiculous suggestions. All the best

How about go oldschool and include a little comic book with the game? Like back in the Atari days

Totally

Cartoon. It needs its own cartoon.

 

[zouzzz]

bitmapbureau :
I ordered CE version.
I forgot the serial number on my order, can i give you by PM ?
Can you put my pseudo rather than my name in the game ?
Thanks

 

[bitmapbureau]

Best of luck with this. It does seem to have great potential. You know what would be great? Creating a decent lore around this game and maybe thinking about sequels. Too many of these indie game's are one offs but there's something to be said about franchises.
About the lore, a mini novel would be awesome. It sounds silly but in an age where manuals are a thing of the past, the words on a page have evermore weight in gaming. It is the tail (/tale) which has long fallen off, and it is a shame.
Sorry about the ridiculous suggestions. All the best

No that's a great idea, and we actually did something similar on an older title we developed with Adult Swim called "Super House Of Dead Ninjas", embedding a comic within the game itself:



I think a short novel or something similar would be a good fit for Xeno Crisis too, although these things all cost time and money of course, and we're currently working flat-out to get the Mega Drive and Dreamcast versions finished before returning to the Neo Geo version, so diverting our energies elsewhere right now just isn't possible. It's good to know that there's interest in such a thing though, so we'll see if it's something we can make happen at a later date, or possibly in a future title.

 

[bitmapbureau]

Hi Matt, yea Ive been talking with Mike so if you have any questions about NeoGeo integration I offer my help where I can. There are little quirks here and there with the system that you'll need to be aware of given the different NeoGeo hardware models and regions. It's all easy stuff but it could be quite easy to miss some things here and there for some setups.

I think the main thing people would probably like to see is the game work within the standard NeoGeo game footprint so for example it would fully work in a NeoGeo Multislot in relation to attract mode, automatic game cycling and game selection. And of course because the NeoGeo is an arcade based system, the game working on a credit based game start system gives it an extra buzz.

As far as the UniBios goes, no game really takes advantage of the Unibios but I guess game owners might like to see the possibility of the UniBios ingame menu being accessible (not locked out) so the unibios could technically add cheats for the game at a later date. That would mean the first 0x300 tiles on the FIX layer including the standard NeoGeo font set (or a font set of your own design) so the UniBios can display correct text. It also requires you use the standard NeoGeo Bios I/O call each frame (0xC0044A, https://wiki.neogeodev.org/index.php?title=SYSTEM_IO). The NGdev games have this locked out, I suspect because it will be saving them some 68k cycles and protection related, the NeoGeo Bios I/O call does steal quite a bit that you may need. That said it is however possible to create your own I/O to replace the bios default while still keeping the game fully NeoGeo bios and UniBios compatable. Actually thinking about it, I'm surprised no one has actually done this yet and put it up on the wiki pages.

Hey Razoola, yeah it sounds like yourself and Matt have everything covered. Totally agree about the arcade / cab experience, which will make the MVS version a slightly different experience - currently you can purchase extra continues in-game, so we'd have to remove that and replace it with a proper credit system. I imagine the various options for audio, difficulty etc would need to become dipswitch settings too? Anyway, it's great that you're helping us out, and nice to e-meet you.

 

[oliverclaude]

No that's a great idea, and we actually did something similar on an older title we developed with Adult Swim called "Super House Of Dead Ninjas", embedding a comic within the game itself:

View attachment 52678

Wow, that looks extremely cool! Things like that elevate a manual from a throw away item to an integral part of the game. I mean, everything else about an arcade game is self-explaining and doesn't require a manual.

 

[bitmapbureau]

Game looks great and I am tempted to get an AES copy...but my only question is that the recent video for Area 1 Perimeter was a really short stage. I wonder if that is representative of how long all the levels will be...or will they be a bit larger?

Yeah the video doesn't do a good job of showing the size of the various levels as I had to get through the first area as quickly as possible to keep the video length down for Twitter in particular - next time I'll post some 2 player co-op footage of the second area and do a more realistic playthrough without adhering to Twitter's time limit. The areas do get progressively longer as the game goes on, so yes, the final areas are considerably longer than the first area, which is meant as more of an introduction. Also, I got pretty lucky with the level generation in that video - I'd normally have to go through another room or two on the way to the boss.

I'd say the total playtime is around 40 - 60 minutes dependant on your skill and how much you want to explore the complex, which I think is about right for an arcade game - always good to hear other's opinions though!

 

[DevilRedeemed]

No that's a great idea, and we actually did something similar on an older title we developed with Adult Swim called "Super House Of Dead Ninjas", embedding a comic within the game itself:

View attachment 52678

I think a short novel or something similar would be a good fit for Xeno Crisis too, although these things all cost time and money of course, and we're currently working flat-out to get the Mega Drive and Dreamcast versions finished before returning to the Neo Geo version, so diverting our energies elsewhere right now just isn't possible. It's good to know that there's interest in such a thing though, so we'll see if it's something we can make happen at a later date, or possibly in a future title.

Excellent. I think there's a great niche for such things, moreso with indie games as the idea is not to make games that have the characteristics of modern games but rather work the stimulants of old. I'm just glad the mindset is similar