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Rhys Lewis (DKCTF, BK) bringing Star Ghost shmup to Wii U eShop, music by David Wise

H

Hero of Legend

Member
ZNsMVAT.png


Edit: Price is £7.99, €8.99, $8.99.

https://twitter.com/SquareheadStdio/status/703343786919927809

Trailer (thanks jariw!):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QglVTS6zQy4

Out on March 10th. (edit: Sounds like it's that day in both NA and EU)

http://gonintendo.com/stories/252888-official-pr-star-ghost-preparing-to-launch-on-nintendo-eshop

This is seemingly based on a mobile game he did called Star Drift which is essentially the same thing (shmup, music by David Wise), but OMG I actually suggested he'd bring it to Wii U a year ago, and he did it!!! o_O

cUf6iFe.png
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https://twitter.com/SquareheadStdio/status/582534428817244160

And you read the title right; he worked at BOTH Retro Studios AND Rare! However his only Rare role was a programmer on Banjo-Kazooie.

Website with more screens:

http://www.squareheadstudios.co.uk/star-ghost.html

PR:

South Wales, United Kingdom, 26th February, 2016.
Squarehead Studios has announced that it is an officially licensed Wii U™ developer and is bringing its new title, Star Ghost, exclusively to the Nintendo eShop.

About Star Ghost
Set to launch in March 2016, Star Ghost is an exciting evolution of the side-scrolling shoot-em-up, featuring procedurally generated levels, a unique control scheme and an atmospheric soundtrack from renowned composer, David Wise.

Rhys Lewis, founder, Squarehead Studios said "I am delighted to be able to return to Nintendo development with a game that is so close to my heart. I wanted to focus on a tight and accessible gameplay experience that celebrates the arcade games of the past, whilst taking advantage of today's much improved graphics and processing power."

Star Ghost challenges the player to patrol 12 beautifully rendered star systems, navigating the fragments of exploding planets, surviving intense asteroid fields and dogfighting deadly Sentinel ships in a desperate bid to save the galaxy from the Metagon empire.

About Squarehead Studios
Squarehead Studios is an independent game developer, founded in 2014 by former Nintendo developer, Rhys Lewis. Based in the beautiful mountains of South Wales, Rhys formed Squarehead with the aim to engage and delight gamers of all ages with high quality, easily accessible entertainment.

About the Development Team
Prior to founding Squarehead, Rhys was the A.I. lead at Retro Studios. He has contributed to a number of well-known titles, including Banjo-Kazooie, Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, Donkey Kong Country Returns and Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze.

David Wise is a highly acclaimed composer, perhaps best known for his work on the Donkey Kong Country series, Diddy Kong Racing and Star Fox Adventures.
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M

maxcriden

Member
AtomicShroom said:
Well judging from the screenshots released so far, it doesn't seem to have anything more in terms of variety. It does look prettier, but that's it. I can't imagine how randomly-generated levels are going to be engaging in a shmup...
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Procedurally generated, though, not randomly...there's a significant difference between the two, right?
 
A

AtomicShroom

Member
maxcriden said:
Procedurally generated, though, not randomly...there's a significant difference between the two, right?
Click to expand...

Yeah, procedurally implies that there are limits and algorithms imposed on the randomness to give it some coherence. Still has nowhere near the kind of planned, careful design that a standard shmup has. I mean looking at the videos for Star Drift, there's literally no variety whatsoever. It looks like amateur hour. Lifeforce on NES had more variety and excitement in the half of its first level than the 5 levels of Star Drift I watched through.

I mean this is like the poor man's shmup equivalent of Cloudberry Kingdom... and that didn't keep my interest for very long.
 
TheMoon

TheMoon

Member
AtomicShroom said:
Yeah, procedurally implies that there are limits and algorithms imposed on the randomness to give it some coherence. Still has nowhere near the kind of planned, careful design that a standard shmup has. I mean looking at the videos for Star Drift, there's literally no variety whatsoever. It looks like amateur hour. Lifeforce on NES had more variety and excitement in the half of its first level than the 5 levels of Star Drift I watched through.

I mean this is like the poor man's shmup equivalent of Cloudberry Kingdom... and that didn't keep my interest for very long.
Click to expand...

You should be looking at videos of Star Ghost and not Star Drift, though. That's the point. The usual channels will have videos with gameplay to look at once it's out so there's no reason to base any opinions on an only vaguely related game.
 
J

jariw

Member
Soapbox Killer said:
Player is not very good or they are playing bad on purpose, still grabbing. David Wise and Shump.

Nintendo has done well on the WiiU with the indies. Above anything they have attempted this Gen.
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I'm also very confused about the player skills in that video.
 
TheMoon

TheMoon

Member
Soapbox Killer said:
Player is not very good or they are playing bad on purpose, still grabbing. David Wise and Shump.

Nintendo has done well on the WiiU with the indies. Above anything they have attempted this Gen.
Click to expand...

jariw said:
I'm also very confused about the player skills in that video.
Click to expand...

Not sure but are you guys aware that this uses the DKCR/TF rocket barrel controls? This ain't no regular shmup control setup :)
 
E

EhoaVash

Member
Hmmm looks pretty generic. Very generic :/

Shumps are just not worth it to me this day age. Unless it's FTP mobile game ...
 
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