Support NeoGAF

[Bullet Club]

The “Tyrian” inspired top-down shooter “DreadStar: The Quest for Revenge” is coming to Steam on October 20th

Lille, France, September 22nd, 2020 – Get ready for a new top-down shooter inspired by Tyrian! “DreadStar: The Quest for Revenge” is set to launch on Steam on October 20th for $9.99.

Bringing a pumping chiptune soundtrack and pixel-perfect gunplay, DreadStar blends RPG elements into the genre, including level-ups, skill points and ship upgrades, without putting players through bullet hell.

With a playable demo set to arrive during the Steam Autumn Festival, players will get to see its gorgeous pixel art and listen to its awesome chiptune soundtrack first hand. They’ll also get to warp to Redbeard’s Burrow where they can spend their hard-earned cash on ship improvements for that perfect loadout. For a truly authentic retro experience, DreadStar is presented in 4:3 with an old-school CRT mode.

The full game will release with 6 replayable sectors, multiple difficulty settings, leveling, skill points, ship upgrades, numerous customization options and weapons ranging from the Gauss Cannons to Hadron Exploders. If things get a little too hot to handle, you can warp out, gear up and get back in there to seek revenge.

Key Features:

-Fast shoot ’em up gameplay with epic boss encounters.
-4 different ships and 10 different weapons to annihilate your opponents.
-Tons of customization options from armors and engines, to shields and special items.
-Gain experience, level-ups and skill points to incrementally improve your ship’s strength.
-6 replayable sectors filled with unique enemies, bosses and minibosses.
-3 difficulty settings for every sector, where you’ll need to improve both your skill and your ship to progress.
-Gorgeous pixel art cutscenes and a kick-ass chiptunes soundtrack made on the famed Atari-ST and ZX Spectrum.
-A 4:3 display and CRT mode for that authentic retro experience.

About Augmented Irreality

Founded in 2017 by one-man army gamedev/game designer Fabrice Bacquart, Augmented Irreality is focused on creating great retro experiences. The studio’s first game, DreadStar, pixel-art mix of fast-paced shoot ’em up gameplay with engaging RPG mechanics will release on Steam in October 2020.




Source: TGG

 

[00_Zer0]

Thanks for posting this. Game looks good. I gravitate more towards old school genres like shmups and 2D action/adventure games nowadays so it's nice to find more games like this out there. Wishlisted.

 

[Faenrir]

Hey ! Thanks for posting about the game
I'm the dev...
Feel free to ask any question about it.

A demo will be available starting from the steam festival (October 7th) and the game releases Oct. 20th.
I'll be streaming the full game on several occasions during the festival, including on Oct. 7th so feel free to drop by and ask me anything.
I'll be holding an AMA on discord during that week as well.

Thanks for posting this. Game looks good. I gravitate more towards old school genres like shmups and 2D action/adventure games nowadays so it's nice to find more games like this out there. Wishlisted.

Thanks for the kind words, glad you like what you saw !
Hope you like the demo (and the game if you buy it).

 

[Bullet Club]

Hey ! Thanks for posting about the game
I'm the dev...

No problem. Your game looks good.

 

[00_Zer0]

Hey ! Thanks for posting about the game
I'm the dev...
Feel free to ask any question about it.

A demo will be available starting from the steam festival (October 7th) and the game releases Oct. 20th.
I'll be streaming the full game on several occasions during the festival, including on Oct. 7th so feel free to drop by and ask me anything.
I'll be holding an AMA on discord during that week as well.

Thanks for the kind words, glad you like what you saw !
Hope you like the demo (and the game if you buy it).

Definitely checking out the demo on the 7th. About how long did it take to finish the game. Do you have any other finished games or upcoming projects?

 

[Faenrir]

Definitely checking out the demo on the 7th. About how long did it take to finish the game. Do you have any other finished games or upcoming projects?

Way too long haha but i did take a break because of some family and health issues at one point (the game was supposed to come out late 2017/early 2018). It did become a real game once i started working with a graphic artist and we basically redesigned everything from scratch, what i had before was a prototype (with a lot of mechanics inside but still).

No other project right now, i plan on updating this one and trying to get it on other platforms such as gog and the epic store...i also want to add a gauntlet mode (where you play each level one after another and get powerups like in more classic shmups) and maybe also add a "custom level" option and release the editor so people can fiddle with it.
So for at least the next 6 months i'll be working on all that and trying to get more people to know the game
I do have several game concepts/ideas i'd like to work on (an action rpg, a dungeon crawler and an adventure game mainly) but we'll see how it goes and what my opportunities are. I'd most likely have to find more people to work on those, too.

@BulletClub: Thanks ! It always helps to know people like what you're working on...especially when you're kind of swamped and hae to stay motivated til the end

 

[00_Zer0]

Way too long haha but i did take a break because of some family and health issues at one point (the game was supposed to come out late 2017/early 2018). It did become a real game once i started working with a graphic artist and we basically redesigned everything from scratch, what i had before was a prototype (with a lot of mechanics inside but still).

No other project right now, i plan on updating this one and trying to get it on other platforms such as gog and the epic store...i also want to add a gauntlet mode (where you play each level one after another and get powerups like in more classic shmups) and maybe also add a "custom level" option and release the editor so people can fiddle with it.
So for at least the next 6 months i'll be working on all that and trying to get more people to know the game
I do have several game concepts/ideas i'd like to work on (an action rpg, a dungeon crawler and an adventure game mainly) but we'll see how it goes and what my opportunities are. I'd most likely have to find more people to work on those, too.

@BulletClub: Thanks ! It always helps to know people like what you're working on...especially when you're kind of swamped and hae to stay motivated til the end

A gauntlet mode with traditional power ups and a custom level editor sounds interesting. I hope you can make it happen, and I wish you great success!

 

[Danny Dudekisser]

Is nothing safe from RPG elements anymore?

Then again, I guess it's a Euroshmup where nothing's sacred.

 

[Fart Knight]

Tyrian huh. Hows the music.

 

[Faenrir]

Is nothing safe from RPG elements anymore?

Then again, I guess it's a Euroshmup where nothing's sacred.

It's not a euroshmup. It actually has good gameplay
Feel free to try the demo during the steam festival, it's free and doesn't take much space on your hard drive

Tyrian huh. Hows the music.

You can check the trailer, it has one of the ingame tracks

It's inspired by Tyrian but also Truxton, Raiden, Donpachi, Xenon 2 and a few others. The similarity with Tyrian is mainly on the equipment system, it has an item shop (hence the xenon 2 inspiration) but the gameplay is inspired by more traditional shmups like Raiden, Truxton and Donpachi...with big boss fights, not too many bullets (not a danmaku/bullet hell) and with a focus on tying it all together.

 

[Faenrir]

Hey everyone !
Slight bump as the festival is coming soon and the demo will release just before it.

I'll be doing a score contest on the demo with chances to win a Steam key for the full game in a few weeks (wanted to do it during the festival but too much to do and too little time ^^).
So feel free to jump on steam in a few hours (it starts at 7pm UTC+2/GMT+2) and try out the demo !

 

[Faenrir]

Bumpity bump!


Hey everyone !
DreadStar is now available on Steam with a 10% launch discount !
Grab it while you can !

 

[00_Zer0]

Thank you for the reminder. Grabbing it now.

Edit-....and bought. Can't wait to try it on my 48 inch LG Oled. With the blacks this tv produces it makes old school pixel games look glorious.

 

[Faenrir]

Thank you for the reminder. Grabbing it now.

Edit-....and bought. Can't wait to try it on my 48 inch LG Oled. With the blacks this tv produces it makes old school pixel games look glorious.

Oooh would love to see a video or a pic of that
Someone told me they made it run on a CRT too, i want to see that as well (i do have a CRT around but nothing to connect my laptop on it).

 

[00_Zer0]

Oooh would love to see a video or a pic of that
Someone told me they made it run on a CRT too, i want to see that as well (i do have a CRT around but nothing to connect my laptop on it).

I will try to get pictures of it running on the TV and post it in this thread. I haven't spent much time fine tuning color adjustments on the TV itself though, but I did play the Switch version of Outrun that M2 remade for the system and pixels really pop on the screen. With the high black levels this tv offers, colors are well defined and it looks glorious.

Do you offer any scanline filters in the game besides crt mode? I've been playing around with Reshade and have added some Retroarch scanline shaders that makes some old school looking PC games really stand out.

 

[Faenrir]

No...only those in the crt mode.
Can't really use shaders in my engine...i'd love to have the same kind as in Sonic Mania, that crt filter is perfect imo

And cool, can't wait to see the pics

 

[00_Zer0]

What graphics API are you using with this game? Opengl or a certain version of DirectX?

 

[alabtrosMyster]

Nice! It doesn't look like a bullet hell shooter!

 

[Faenrir]

Nice! It doesn't look like a bullet hell shooter!

Indeed it isn't. It has some parts in the boss fights where there are more bullets than in the rest of the game but very far from the amount you'd get in a bullet hell.
And it makes sense since the game also doesn't have tiny ant hitboxes (but they're not too big either, you can get through shots when you've mastered the movement ).

 

[reptilex]

Doesn't look ANYTHING like the amazing Tyrian, please don't compare if it can't follow-up, I'm already putting this game in the trash for both graphics, design, sound and realisation.

 

[zcaa0g]

Doesn't look ANYTHING like the amazing Tyrian, please don't compare if it can't follow-up, I'm already putting this game in the trash for both graphics, design, sound and realisation.

So how do you really feel?

Anyone remember Baryon?

 

[teezzy]

I have an affinity for sprite based non-bullet hell shmups

thank you for bringing this to my attention

 

[Razvedka]

HOLY SHIT YES! TYRIAN IS MY JAM!

My brother even made remixes of the OST. Btw, definitely check out the original music it's amazing! The guy who composed it iirc wasn't even a composer.

God I love TYRIAN.

 

[SlimeGooGoo]

.

 

[Faenrir]

Mixed feelings about the visuals. Space looks good, but ground levels look uninteresting. Character design is also not good.

Wonder what makes you say that.
I feel like the ground levels visuals is the strongest...
The 4th sector has rain and fog effects, animated tentacles and lots of variations on the background...

Also...character design, not good ?
Space wizard, Space Dragon, Rogue AI...the bosses are all incredible, imo. The graphic artist did an insane job on the bosses.

To each their own, i guess. I'm really proud how it turned out visually ^^

I have an affinity for sprite based non-bullet hell shmups

thank you for bringing this to my attention

Cool there's a free demo too so you can try it to get a feel for the game.

HOLY SHIT YES! TYRIAN US MY JAM!

My brother even made remixes of the OST. Btw, definitely check out the original music it's amazing! The guy who composed it iirc wasn't even a composer.

God I love TYRIAN.

Well it's not a carbon copy of Tyrian though, less levels but more focused, gameplay is more like traditional shmups (but you can get by with more skillups and better equipment if it's too hard).
Definitely inspired by it, though, especially in the items looks and feel and concept for the inventory/equipment system.
It's also inspired by Xenon 2 (item shop), Raiden, Truxton and Donpachi for gameplay and visuals, and a lot of other things here or there.

Anyway, thanks all for the support ! Really appreciate it.