Lunacy Star Music

Posted by Taizen Chisou on Aug. 14, 2011, 6:03 p.m.

This is the fully updated (save for two) sountrack to my bullet-hell shooter, Lunacy Star.

Download

I'm seeking comments on how it is, and stuff.

If you want to play the actual game, download here.

Read the ReadMe file on how to play!!

Comments

Castypher 12 years, 8 months ago

Oh, hey, another Touhou player.

I have mixed feelings about the game. While I think a lot of the graphical effects were great, there were a lot that looked pretty bad too. I didn't try out all of the shot and bomb types, but the default bomb was very boring.

- Bullet patterns were nice and gave the game a more authentic feel than a lot of GM bullet hells I've seen.

- In-game music needs a lot of work. Sounds too MIDI-ish with no instruments.

Most of all, my complaint is graphical consistency. If I weren't so busy right now, I'd be giving it another go. Oh, and deathbombing.

To the idiot box, I give the idiot ball.

⑨

Taizen Chisou 12 years, 8 months ago

Please go through the midi file folder and listen to the remainder of the tracks~ :<

The one I uploaded, actually.

The demo zip only contains the songs up to that point.

And yeah, I'm not too satisfied with the Gear Axis bomb :P

The second one looks much cooler.

Thank you for playing, though! I'll keep this in mind as we work to finish it.

Castypher 12 years, 8 months ago

The problem with MIDIs is that they don't sound the same on every computer, so it's hard to convey the feel you had in mind during composition. I don't have a lot of time to listen to all the songs you have, but I can say that for the most part, you could probably do with more instruments because they sound just a bit empty. But then again, I'm no MIDI critic. I can, however, test bullet hells pretty well.

More notes for you and/or your team:

- Hitbox is hardly visible

- I got further on Lunatic than Standard with little issue

- Many bullet patterns are too fast and impossible to maneuver through

- Sounds drown out the music

- You use the speed dodging part of bullet hell a lot, but there is very little emphasis on focused movement and precision

- Some of your patterns are not friendly to older computers

Keep it up. I may not be able to help much with the music, but I do like playtesting this genre.

Taizen Chisou 12 years, 8 months ago

Thanks. I've recieved these complaints many times before :V

As for the music, I'm just a little peeved that people only listen to the first and second stage themes, and then completely ignore other tracks like Extra Stage or the 3rd Stage or the Extra Boss or the 6th Boss :/

Castypher 12 years, 8 months ago

Probably because I'm pampered by Touhou music. If you absolutely have to use MIDIs, then try to make the songs a little more catchy. They seem a little more like repeated sequences right now. And if you can in any way afford to pick up a decent synthesizer, I'd highly recommend it. The tracks have potential otherwise.

I know it's tough to hear when you spent a lot of time coming up with the music, but you also asked for comments.

Taizen Chisou 12 years, 8 months ago

I don't have to, but they're the best approach, performance-and-size wise.

WAV files would take too much space and too long to load, while MP3s would probably chug up the processing power that really should be going into bullet handling :(

Castypher 12 years, 8 months ago

Oh, of course they're a good approach in those regards. But it seems like you want music to be a big part of the game. If that's really the case, then just forfeit size, to an extent. More people have decent connections these days. As far as processing power, music loading is mostly handled while the game loads, unless you add externally, in which case there'd be a brief pause on slower computers. On top of that, GMFMOD doesn't have any pauses when it loops.

I wouldn't worry much about performance. Keep your tracks, but put one into MP3 format and give it a try. I haven't lost processing speed whenever I've played music. Just make sure you handle your bullets well, too.