Vengeance Hunters (Beat 'em Up) for the Neo Geo

[promking]

Agreed. I had a lot of fun with games like Streets of Rage 4 doing that. Also I apologize if I was coming off as an asshole. I was doing a more Drive-by observation on the condition of the cab.

A Neo geo forum member coming off like an asshole?

 

[Fritz]

The game really doesn't present that badly for being what it is. Go look at some of the other new Neo Geo projects also listed in News and Rumors to see what a bad homebrew looks like, see Operation: KILLMEISTER. Or you can go with cropped down 4:3 releases like Final Vendetta and trash Visco Pixelheart re-releases.

 

[amerika]

I'm really looking forward to getting my copy. I was an early buyer and hoping to get the RED cart variant! I just sent an email out to your team to check for any updates.
-Salvatore

All of our updates are posted in Discord and Twitter if you're talking about basic updates on game related stuff. If you're wanting to know if you got a red version of the cart, and you said you were early, you definitely got it.

 

[Neo Alec]

I just preordered. Damn it.

 

[Tarma]

I just preordered. Damn it.

lol... just how much dough you got tied up in homebrew at the moment??!!

 

[Neo Alec]

lol... just how much dough you got tied up in homebrew at the moment??!!

 

[Tarma]

View attachment 72637

Isn't that photo the dude who's still waiting for his first run copy of Last Hope?

 

[amerika]

I just preordered. Damn it.

Haha, got'em! Oh, BTW, we decided to delay the game by at least 6 years to add 37 more levels, 10 more playable characters and fully voice acted cut scenes totaling about 3 hours of run time. I always wanted to be a movie director! But you'll get your game eventually, I swear!!

Also, that skeleton is me waiting on the second run of Paprium (ordered 2019 IIRC) and TurboKid from Kickstarter.

 

[Neo Alec]

The thing with these undumped games running on custom carts is that you never know what parts are actually a neo game or what parts (if any) of the processing is offloaded onto some fpga on the cart, effectively using the neo as a just a video-out device.

I disagree with this. @amerika, what say you?

 

[amerika]

I disagree with this. @amerika, what say you?

God, I wish we were using that haha. It would mean we could have essentially a SuperFX chip built for Neo-Geo to make up for it's lack of base processor speed, it's lack of rotation and it's issues with performant scaling.

Our cart will have a very small FPGA/arm, and some code for the game will be offloaded to those. But it's entirely for security and not to do some wizardry the Neo-Geo can't do. To my knowledge, I believe that is how the undumped carts all work. Paprium does the same thing too.

 

[NeoCverA]

God, I wish we were using that haha. It would mean we could have essentially a SuperFX chip built for Neo-Geo to make up for it's lack of base processor speed, it's lack of rotation and it's issues with performant scaling.

Our cart will have a very small FPGA/arm, and some code for the game will be offloaded to those. But it's entirely for security and not to do some wizardry the Neo-Geo can't do. To my knowledge, I believe that is how the undumped carts all work. Paprium does the same thing too.

Sounds like no digital version on the horizon.

 

[amerika]

Sounds like no digital version on the horizon.

We (the team) has talked about this a few times publicly. If we decide to do a ROM, it will be an encrypted ROM locked to the NeoSD/NeoSD Pro. At least for the foreseeable future.

We don't have a timeline on that and it probably won't be soon. But that is how it will go down if/when we decide. I know that isn't the best solution for everyone, but at least we have some an option for some people rather than simply locking it down to cart only.

 

[Salvio007]

We (the team) has talked about this a few times publicly. If we decide to do a ROM, it will be an encrypted ROM locked to the NeoSD/NeoSD Pro. At least for the foreseeable future.

We don't have a timeline on that and it probably won't be soon. But that is how it will go down if/when we decide. I know that isn't the best solution for everyone, but at least we have some an option for some people rather than simply locking it down to cart only.

To be honest, I would have rather have preferred this game to be locked only for AES/MSV and have the optional locked ROM for NeoSD rather than having it available on PC, PS and Switch ports.
That makes me question myself for buying the expensive NG port and it also drops the actual value of my cart...
it's just not exciting seeing the $500 game I bought being played on a switch for $20 down the line lmao

 

[amerika]

Some would prefer the game stay locked to carts for various reasons. Others want fully open ROM files so they can play on the platforms they prefer to play on and/or lower costs. Others want modern console conveniences and image clarity.

At some point you just have to pick a path and hope that enough people are happy with the game and the release platforms while at the same time you can get a good enough fiscal response to keep on going. We've learned that every facet of game creation requires a lot of those decisions. It's a bit of a mental grind as you know you won't please everyone. We just have to be OK with that and move forward. It ain't easy, but we're doing what we can and we appreciate you guys and your comments. Even if some of them aren't the easiest to read, it's all good info IMO.

 

[HellioN]

I already have the romz.

 

[NeoCverA]

Some would prefer the game stay locked to carts for various reasons. Others want fully open ROM files so they can play on the platforms they prefer to play on and/or lower costs. Others want modern console conveniences and image clarity.

At some point you just have to pick a path and hope that enough people are happy with the game and the release platforms while at the same time you can get a good enough fiscal response to keep on going. We've learned that every facet of game creation requires a lot of those decisions. It's a bit of a mental grind as you know you won't please everyone. We just have to be OK with that and move forward. It ain't easy, but we're doing what we can and we appreciate you guys and your comments. Even if some of them aren't the easiest to read, it's all good info IMO.

Well the fucks in here are a bunch of salty cunts, go against the grain for the sake of feeling alive.

We have a lot of platforms now that weren’t around years ago when the other guys were releasing/ lol announcing their games like MiSTer and pocket fpga, NEOSD, Darksoft etc. all of which would require a digital version in order to enjoy the game on both emulated/real hardware respectively.

I’m eager to see what direction you all decide to go.

 

[Ukyo]

i'm in for the red MVS cart. just placed my order; looks solid guys.

 

[KGRAMR]

The game is now playable from start to finished but the team will be giving the polishing touches to the multiplayer conponent.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1779377821191680021

 

[Neo Alec]

Is it just me, or does the movement look a bit floaty? A lot of brawlers are like this, but the blows kind of feel like they're going through the enemies, rather than really connecting. The proper feel for one of these games seems like it can be hard to dial in.

 

[Salvio007]

Awesome - so for those interested, it looks like the file will be available for neoSD Pro

 

[amerika]

Is it just me, or does the movement look a bit floaty? A lot of brawlers are like this, but the blows kind of feel like they're going through the enemies, rather than really connecting. The proper feel for one of these games seems like it can be hard to dial in.

The design is intentional. Many beat'em'ups try to both make hits look and feel like there is a ton of weight behind hits via hit stop, freeze frames and lots of recovery among other techniques. This slows down the game play in order to provide that sense of weight. Which is not a bad thing, but in VH I wanted to go a different route and make the game feel really good when you give it inputs. So you can control jump height, arc, turn around mid-air, dash in any direction, cancel out of a lot of moves into other moves. My design philosophy was, "if you think you can do it, you probably can". Within reason of course.

Think 2D Bayonetta/DMC/Marvel vs Capcom when it comes to input responsiveness and animations canceling and you got an idea of what I've gone for in game play. I've had a few tough critics play the game so far and all I can hope is that your reaction to playing is similar to theirs.

 

[amerika]

The game is now playable from start to finished but the team will be giving the polishing touches to the multiplayer conponent.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1779377821191680021

We are actually polishing everything, including multiplayer. Still have more cut scenes to add both in-game and out. More music to add. I'm re-doing all the waves to make them a lot more fun (enemies drop in or jump out rather than simply walk in). I am adding in a new feature I'll be showing off in a future video to these waves. I just got easy/medium/hard dialed in a bit last week but it still needs tweaking. Balancing in general, some missing soundFX, gotta redo some voices. There is a couple of game play animation cancels I want to dial in a bit more. It's still quite the list, but we're getting there!

 

[Neo Alec]

The design is intentional. Many beat'em'ups try to both make hits look and feel like there is a ton of weight behind hits via hit stop, freeze frames and lots of recovery among other techniques. This slows down the game play in order to provide that sense of weight. Which is not a bad thing, but in VH I wanted to go a different route and make the game feel really good when you give it inputs. So you can control jump height, arc, turn around mid-air, dash in any direction, cancel out of a lot of moves into other moves. My design philosophy was, "if you think you can do it, you probably can". Within reason of course.

Think 2D Bayonetta/DMC/Marvel vs Capcom when it comes to input responsiveness and animations canceling and you got an idea of what I've gone for in game play. I've had a few tough critics play the game so far and all I can hope is that your reaction to playing is similar to theirs.

Thanks for all the detailed information. I've already pre-ordered and look forward to experiencing it for myself.

 

[promking]

Awesome - so for those interested, it looks like the file will be available for neoSD Pro

Should work on NeoSD or just the pro?

 

[amerika]

Should work on NeoSD or just the pro?

Every gamedev who can devs on a flash cart of some type while developing their game until they can no longer do so (if they start exceeding the capabilities of the cart). So this is common and not an indicator of final availability. You gotta test real hardware somehow and burning chips constantly to test a new build isn't my idea of a fun time!

However, we are targeting hardware very similar to the NeoSD for our cartridge platform. And we have discussed publicly in quite a few places that at some point in the future (probably distant though) the game might be available to purchase and then load onto a NeoSD or NeoSD Pro for a cheaper price than the cartridge version. But we have not fully decided on doing that or have a time frame to give We have so many things in flux that could change the equation. But in an effort to be transparent and pass along current info, that is what I have for y'all.