There’s some stuff about creating Aeternum, some stuff on my thoughts indie development of bullet hells in general.

Read the whole thing at AizenGamer.

Unlike most releases, she only comes with two faces. However she makes up for it with a good range of arm bend alternatives, and more importantly with her three little included dolls! The dolls all have the same body and head, but come with three different interchangeable sets of legs and arms/weapons.

I ordered the Yuyuko reissue at the same time as well, but they haven’t shipped yet. Hopefully she’ll show up soon, followed in a couple months by Mokou!

Until then, here’s how scoring in Aeternum is broken down. Happy point hunting!

Point Breakdown

Graze (focused) – 1 point

Graze (unfocused) – 10 points

Shoot an enemy – 100 points

Kill an enemy – 1000 points

Bullet Point Item – 100 points

When a boss phase is completed, all remaining enemy bullets on screen are converted to Bullet Point Items and automatically collected. These items are worth 100 points each.

Collecting Point Items -

The value of a Point item depends on the following:

1. The difficulty rank (a value from 0.0 to 1.0)
   Normal = 0.0, Hard = 0.2, Demonic = 0.5, Lunatic = 1.0
2. The current Graze counter
3. Your position horizontally on the screen as a fraction of distance to the Point of Collection

Here’s the formula used in the game to determine the value of a Point item:

PointValue = (1000 + Rank * 3000) * Clamp(Player.X / PointOfCollection, 0.2, 1.0) * (0.2 + Graze * 0.001)

Note that collecting a point item gives at least 20% of the value, ramping linearly up to 100% at the Point of Collection.

Clearing a Boss Spell -

When a boss pulls you into their own subspace to perform an attack, and the visual background changes, they are performing a spell. Exhausting the boss’s hit points without dying or using a bomb rewards you with a significant point bonus based on difficulty rank and time remaining on the boss attack. This bonus is calculated as follows:

PointBonus = (1000000 * (Stage + (Rank * 3))) * Clamp(TimeLeft / (TotalAttackTime – 5.0), 0, 1)

Panics -

There is no bonus for having panics left over, as there is already significant score gained from the point tokens collected.

In Conclusion

The key to getting a high score is most definitely not getting hit. This is especially true for garnering boss spell bonuses, and secondarily for maximizing point token collection.

Since there is no bonus for panics, it is safe to use them for stage waves and for boss non-spells, but getting hit with a panic counts against the spell bonus.

Throughout my life, I have been criticized by the best. But beyond my experience alone, I think any time someone decides to actually create something, they are forced to listen to others critique it. But you know what? 99% of those critics are not doers. And if you don’t DO anything you have no chance to succeed. So in a way I have begun to pity people who harp on indie games, or focus on the negative side of everything they play. Because in the end unlike them, I can say “Yeah, I was involved in something.”

Although I hold a part time job that forces me to don an orange apron, I fully consider Wasted Brilliance my primary job. I would rather create with this team for free, than get paid to do something of no creative value at all. If we get ten people playing our game or ten thousand, I will continue to progress forward. I’m sure we all feel this way. You have a lot to look forward to from Wasted Brilliance, and so do I.

Fist up, Classic Game Room Undertow with a super classy review by one of my most favorite game networks. I urge you, watch this one. I did, about six times. Well … okay, sixteen times. Oops, make that seventeen.

Up next, MrDeadmanDT  mispronounces Ikaruga, drinks, and plays the demo of Aeternum after skipping the tutorial.

And thirdly we have, DarkHogosha. Not a review, but an awesome run through the game on normal. I could watch this all day. The dude has some serious chops when it comes to SHMUPS. Subscribe. He’s currently the world record holder in speedrunning Soulcaster, and his Let’s Plays are radical.

So far, I think this and popping up on IndieGames.com have been my two favorite moments.

Check out the feature. It’s in Japanese, so you either need to read that, or know how to stumble through a Google translation!

So I thought it was pretty hilarious when I learned that the Cthulhu mythos was being used as the basis for a light manga, which in turn was being made into an anime series. While I didn’t think the anime was the greatest thing I had ever seen, I still couldn’t pass up the chance to own a moe Nyarlathothep figure.

Enough with my chatter, here’s some photos!

Read the review or watch the video version below.

Oh, and I started work on a new track for the Aeternum expansion. The OST will be re-released (Still at the “Name your own price” price point) with the new track, remixes, and covers from myself as well as some super talented video game arrangers and re-mixers. Stay tuned. And have a happy new year!