Here’s something a bit different for you. Typically when we hear that a game is using the Unreal Engine to power their game we think of an FPS or third person action/shooter. Makes sense since all the most popular examples of Unreal powered games are of those genres. Today, I’m going to introduce you to Recruits, an Unreal powered top-down shmup.

Typically when I write about browser-based games they turn out to be platformers of some sort. Which if fine. I love platformers! But it does skew browser games in a certain direction that is perhaps not exactly representative as a whole. As such, today’s BGP is Alien Crusader, a shoot ‘em up like you enjoyed back in the the “good ol’ days.”

[DIYGamer correspondent Ken Ellis shares his knowledge of the hit neo-classical SHUMP Jamestown in the latest of our ongoing series of guides and walkthroughs. A reminder that Final Form's title is 50% off on Steam through tomorrow, July 7 at 10 AM Pacific.]

I wrote this up for the people out there smart enough to purchase/play Jamestown, and are now looking to dominate it. As far as shoot-em-ups go, this is one of the best games I have seen in a long time. Most shooters seem to be clones or re-clones of the Raiden series, but Jamestown has gone off on it’s own and done something strange: creating something unique and new, while coming off as familiar as an old hat. For that I am happy.

This walkthrough will be added to heavily in sections over the next few months, and will eventually show you how to get the maximum amount of points and how to get through the trickier levels — as well as being a solid reference for anyone just looking for a general guide.

We begin, though, with a complete run through the first level with a “No-Death” strategy. Without further ado, here is my (still very much WIP) Guide to Jamestown.

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Story

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Jamestown: Legend of the Lost Colony is set in the year 1619, and Europe is in the midst of colonizing the New World, which in this universe is the planet Mars. It follows the tale of Raleigh who has escaped prison in England and travels to the New World to find the lost colony of Roanoke, find out the secret behind its destruction, and clear his name. As he travels he is joined by famous explorer John Smith, the first native born girl on Mars, Virginia, and Virginia’s Father, Joachim, as they all try to stop the allied forces of the Spanish and Martians from destroying the English colonies and changing the future of Mars!

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Controls

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Jamestown offers the use of multiple input devices and three different control types depending on the input device selected.

Keyboard:

Z: Primary Weapon

X: Secondary Weapon

Spacebar: Enter Vaunt mode

Arrow Keys: Movement

Mouse:

Left Button: Primary Weapon

Right Button: Secondary Weapon

Middle Button: Enter Vaunt Mode

Mouse: Movement

Controller:

(Coming Later)

The Primary Weapon is the main weapon type of the ship that is selected for use. These vary depending on the ship.

The Secondary Weapon is a more dynamic weapon that can be used to perform a different attack aside from the Primary Weapon. Each ship has a specific secondary ability with its own strength and weaknesses.

Vaunt Mode is a timed, charged up version of all ship weaponry. It can only be entered when enough gold is collected off dead enemies, and the amount of time in Vaunt can be extended by collecting more gold. When Vaunt mode is entered a shield appears around the ship for three seconds and all weaponry hits for more damage and each enemy is worth double points. Also, while in Vaunt mode the Vaunt button can be pressed again to create a second shorter lasting shield, but doing so immediately ends the Vaunt mode.

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Ships

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Raleigh’s Ship: Beam Ship

The standard ship in the game. It uses a five way spread type gun for its primary gun that covers a large section of the screen in firepower. The secondary gun converts the spread gun into a single focused plasma beam that is more powerful than the primary gun, but causes a loss in maneuverability.

John Smith’s Ship: Wave Ship

Smith’s ship primary gun is a forward shooting bullet gun, and a more powerful wave cannon which fire simultaneously. The secondary use of this weapon is that the wave cannon can be aimed manually and fired in any direction that is desired. Once the secondary gun button is released the wave cannon will remain locked in its last aimed direction until it is moved again. This is also the only ship in the game that can be made to fire backwards.

Virginia’s Ship: Charged Shot Ship

Virginia’s Ship primary gun in a forward shooting bullet gun. The secondary gun is a ball of rolling plasma that is charged before it is fired. When fired the ball of plasma will roll slowly forward and do continual damage to anything in its way until it roll off screen. The charge shot can be fired at multiple size levels, with the largest shot dealing the most damage, but taking the longest to reach charge wise. Also, the longer a plasma ball is on screen the slower it rolls. The charge shop is the only weapon that will go through walls and other obstacles.

Joachim’s Ship: Bomber Ship

Joachim’s Ship primary gun a single line of bullets that shoot straight forward. The secondary gun ability of this ship is that is causes each bullet on screen to explode like a bomb, causing more damage than they normally would in a splash area.

Story Mode (All chapter walkthroughs explained hence force describe each chapter at “Legendary” difficulty, as “Legendary” difficulty is the minimum difficulty at which the game can be completed.)

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Chapter: 1- WAR ON THE EASTERN FRONTIER

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(This Chapter 1 guide will get you through it without a single death.)

Ship used: Beam Ship

As soon at the Chapter 1 begins start stay at the bottom of the screen and begin shooting your primary weapon down the dirt road. Once your ship passes the four armed scarecrow, a line of cannon crawler enemies will appear. Remain at the bottom of the screen and move to the right. A double line of cannon crawlers will appear moving down the dirt road once and start firing at you. Maintain a contestant rate of fire with your primary weapon to make quick work of the crawlers, then move forward and collect the gold that they dropped on the road. Once the gold is collected, move back down to the bottom of the screen and to the far left and fire at the line of cannon crawlers moving through the corn field and collect and gold that is dropped. You should have at this point collected enough gold to use your Vaunt ability, but you should wait to use it.

When the large farm equipment moves past the center of the screen move back down and to the right of the screen to engage some more cannon crawlers, then use your Vaunt ability when you reach them. Kill these cannon crawlers and the others on the dirt road, collecting any gold you find in order to maintain your Vaunt. Eventually a pink jelly shooter will appear on the far right of the screen. Move toward it and stay toward the bottom of the screen. As you move closer the screen will reveal that is a group of four jelly-shooters and an electro jelly. A small group of drillers will also appear near the center of the screen, but will fire once and jump away if not destroyed. The electro jelly will shoot three lines of eight bullets in a fan style toward you wait half a second then fire again, and the jelly shooters will fire smaller bursts directly at you. Avoid this by constantly moving down and between the bullet segments. Attempt to destroy all the smaller jelly shooters and leave the electro jelly for last. A good way to do this is to switch to your secondary beam cannon and kill them individually. By doing this will give you a “special” death for the electro jelly, which will increase your awarded points and give you a massive amount of gold. This should refill your vaunt bar back to full which will extend your time in vaunt mode. Immediately switch back to the primary weapon move to the left and take out the small line of cannon crawlers in the center of the screen, then the group of drillers and cannon crawlers on the far right. Around this time a swarm of saucers will start coming out of the tree of the left side of the screen. Move to the center screen and take out as many as you can before they fly off the top of the screen, then move back to the right and destroy the remainder of the cannon crawlers. By this time a canister crab and another group of jellies will appear on the far left of the screen. Move in front of the canister crab and switch to your secondary weapon to kill it before it can shoot at you, then do the same to the jellies making sure to kill the jelly shooters before you kill the electro jelly for the “special” kill to refill your vaunt bar to maximum.

There will be a group of drillers on some cliffs at center screen and a line of cannon crawlers on the far right. Ignore the line of cannon crawlers, and concentrate on the drillers with your primary weapon. As soon as all the drillers are destroyed, a canister crab will appear on the far right. It will start firing two lines of wavy bullets. Wait for this to stop, then move in front of it and take it out with your secondary weapon. After this there will be a new group of drillers on the cliffs which can be destroyed as needed. Eventually a swarm of saucers will move in from the left side of the screen. Shoot at them while moving down and to the left to avoid there bullets, collecting their gold when you are able to. When the saucers are destroyed a canister crab will move in from the top of the screen near you on the right. Get directly in front of it and move to the lowest point on the screen to make sure its lines of curving bullets will not hit you, and then use your secondary weapon to kill it quickly. A group of drillers will appear with a wayward saucer on the roof of the house and a line of cannon crawlers will come in on the far right of the screen. Shoot the drillers down first then the cannon crawlers, collecting as much gold as you can. A group of jellies will appear on the far left of the screen. Quickly move below them and use your secondary weapon to kill the jelly shooters then the electro jelly for the “special” kill. Move up to collect the gold dropped by the jellies and move to the lower center of the screen to kill the canister crab that has appeared. If you moved quickly enough, you should be able to get in between its curved shots and take it out with your secondary weapon. By the time the canister crab is dead another group of jellies will have appears on the far right of the screen along with a new gyro jelly. Continue to use you secondary weapon on all of them.

Once they are dead, continue to fire you secondary weapon as a second gyro jelly will appear and move directly into it. There will be a brief span of nothing for a moment. A tree on the far left will appear, eventually, and a swarm of saucers will emerge from it. Kill them quickly, and move to the center of the screen. A canister crap will appear in front of you, and a group of jellies will appear on the far left. Kill the canister crab with your secondary weapon, and then move to the jellies that have now been joined by some drillers. Move to a position in front of the jellies while avoiding their bullets and kill them with your secondary weapon. While you were killing that group of jellies a second group will have appears on the opposite side of the screen along with some drillers. Take your time and carefully weave through all the enemy fire until you can take out the jellies with your secondary weapon. After a few seconds a larger group of jelly-shooters and a gyro jelly will move in from the right side of the screen. Simply move to the bottom right side of the screen and shoot a constant fire of your secondary weapon, as they will all move right into it for some free kills and gold. Prepare to face the boss…

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Chapter 1 Boss: The Traitor Prince

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Segment 1:

In Section 1 “The Traitor Prince” has multiple attacks, but they are in a specific order. As soon as he appears on screen hit him with your secondary weapon until he starts to move to the left side of the screen. As soon as he starts moving, maneuver yourself to just below the center of the screen. A huge wave of tadpole-like enemies will rain down from the top of the screen, while the boos shoots a large fan spread of bullets directly in front of him (which will have no effect on you if you are in the correct area of the screen) and fire short burst of bullets at you. Simply avoid the bullets the boss throws at you and kill as many enemies as you can and collect their gold to fill your vaunt bar if it is not full yet. When he starts to move back to the center of the screen, throw up your vaunt ability and hit him with your secondary weapon as much as you can. Your vaunt shield will protect you from most of his first wave of bullets, but should be avoided as soon as the shield starts to go down. When his life bar hits the center of the first segment he will start shooting a spray of bullets in a circle around him and short bullets bursts targeted directly at you. Continue to attack him with your secondary weapon and sway your ship left and right of the bottom center of the screen. This should be enough to avoid the attacks, and keep a constant rate of fire on him. This should take his life down to half and start the second segment…

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Segment 2:

As soon as the boss reaches his half life he will move to the center of the screen and fire a large spiral of bullets in every direction and occasionally fire an energy arrow at you. Switch to firing with your primary weapon to increase your maneuverability and stay at the bottom of the screen. Move through the gaps in the bullets and avoid the energy arrow. After a time the boss will release some large gold gears, and start to amass a large clod of bullets. Do not go for the gears, since while they will fill your vaunt bar to max the chances of being hit by his next attack is very high if you chase them. Instead, fire with your primary weapon and move to the right of the boss and then to his left before he fires his clod of bullets. He will fire the bullets where you were and leave you free and clear to continue this back and forth tactic. After the fourth wave of his cloud bullets he will return to his spiral bullet move and repeat his attack pattern from the beginning of Segment 2 until he is dead. If at any time you can get the gold he drop use it and go into vaunt mode, if not don’t chase it.

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End of Chapter 1

The modern shoot-’em-up (shmup) is a genre that has a strong following, with a dark line drawn in the sand for those who can and those who can’t. I recall reading recently that most shmups these days are made for shmup players, rather than give any kind of entrance ability to someone new to the genre.

Enter Kino One, a colorful and accessible shmup that comes from developer iTbGames. It comes racing across the table as an entry-level shmup, easy for those newer to the genre to pick up and feel like they’re accomplishing something. Kino One actually sells itself as a game bundle, adding in several versions of purposefully misspelled arcade classics, like TacMan, Break’n, Spacerocks, Invaders and Ping but in all honesty these additions were completely unnecessary. Kino One stands on its own two feet as an easy-to-pick-up shooter without the need for ancient remakes.

GAMEPLAY

Kino One is a pretty standard top to bottom space shoot ‘em up. The screen remains static on most levels as you’re in space, and the enemies roll your way from the top of the screen. Rather than net you points for each ship you kill, each enemy bursts into a set of colorful stars (that look just like cake sprinkles) each worth a different point value. By collecting as many stars as possible, you’ll net yourself more points. You can earn combos for killing multiple enemies with either a bomb or your charged attack, and overall it’s about netting a high score. I ended the game with around eighteen million points.

The first few levels of Kino One, I played with the keyboard. The option menu doesn’t give you a clear view of what button does what, or even the ability to change it, so it was a rough starting point. You have your standard attack button, your bomb button, and your warp button which can sneak you out of sticky situations. It wasn’t until I switched over to my gamepad that the game became a lot smoother. The entire title has the ability to co-op with another ship, but I played through the title as a lone wolf.

Kino One is simple. It’s broken into five zones of ten waves each, evening out at a total of fifty levels. Each wave has a finite number of enemies, and if you miss any, the wave keeps repeating until you kill everything off. Enemies come in all shapes and sizes and some are much tougher than others.

To keep the enemy ships at bay, the standard attack is pretty weak. But you collect powerups along the way which allow you to charge up your attack beam from level two through four, each taking slightly longer to charge. Once you unleash your charged beam, a wide attack wipes across the screen allowing for easy destruction of any enemies in your way. On the medium setting, a pattern of charge, dodge attack got me most of the way through the game.

Each wave of each zone zooms out slightly, allowing for more enemies on the screen at any given time. This all culminates with the tenth wave in each zone being a boss from the Soldak Empire, a giant spaceship guarded by smaller vessels.

STYLE

The interludes between the levels are some of the strong points in Kino One. Drawn in a bright and appealing comic book style, the game has enjoyable personality and humor.

And in the actual levels, the style is a more formal 3D in 2D space, with the ability to see three dimensions of enemies while remaining on a two dimensional plane. Spaceships crack apart and appear to fall off the screen against some of the bigger enemies.

Your own ship is nothing to write home about, but it packs quite a punch once fully powered up.

STORY

Kino One is the story of a man piloting a spaceship called the Kino One, charged with saving the earth from an alien invasion. Once the invasion is repelled, you chase the enemy to their home territory, slowly working your way up through the upper echelons of the enemy command until the fifth zone where you battle the emperor himself.

Some witty writing makes the game funny, as with humorous self-reflexive details such as a blinking arrow pointing out the “menacing red glowing planet” in the background.

A narrator also creates some self-reflexive humor by making fun of the simple story and the inherent tension built into it.

EVERYTHING ELSE

In the beginning, the soundtrack is an enjoyable element of the game, but as the title progresses it grows increasingly repetitive. It grates on you after a few waves of enemies and by the end of the game I found myself turning the volume down altogether.

In the end I had fun with Kino One and it feels like a good starter shmup for anyone interested in the genre. More and more hardcore shmups keep coming out, so it’s nice to have one that takes itself with a grain of salt.

You can nab Kino One for just $4.99 from the developer’s website. If you’re new or returning to spaceship shoot ‘em ups, I recommend giving it a chance. It’s not going to redefine the genre, but you’ll have fun racking up a high score.

[iTbGames provided DIYgamer with a copy of the title. This in no way affected the outcome of the review.]

Mobile games studio Engineous Games, Inc., the creators of puzzle game Tatomic,  announced today that their new game,  Sketch Nation Shooter, is now available for $0.99 in the App Store. Sketch Nation Shooter blends doodling with shooter games and takes advantage of the iPhone’s camera, and touchscreen to create a game where players turn their own drawings into good guys, bad guys and obstacles in classic shmup battles.

From the press release:

Sketch Nation Shooter is a powerful, easy-to-use tool for users to create their own games, either by taking a picture of their drawings with the iPhone camera or by importing drawings through the photo library. Once imported into the game, users can choose where to place enemies, power-ups and level obstacles and pick weapon patterns using the simple in-game editor. Players who are not in a drawing mood can use the preinstalled art packs or simply download other users’ games.

The social networking features in Sketch Nation Shooter allow players to download games from users across the world, share their own unique games, compare scores with their friends and even rate other users’ games, all through Facebook Connect.

“Sketch Nation Shooter was created to revolutionize the gaming experience. We wanted to give the power back to gamers, allow their imagination to run wild and be game developers regardless of their age or technical abilities,” said Nitzan Wilnai, CEO of Engineous Games. “Aside from creating your own game in just a few minutes, to me, the social features make the game complete. Users will always have new games to download so they will always have something new to play.”

And the Sketch Nation Shooter trailer:

[Source: Vertical Wire, Sketch Nation blog,

Developer Mommy’s Best has announced the release of its high octane action title Shoot 1Up onto Xbox Live via the Indie Games section in the Marketplace.

In Shoot 1 UP you control up to 30 ships, in 2 player co-op that would make 60, as you implement a variety of strategies to choose how to utilize them to destroy your enemies. You replace lost ships by grabbing 1UP’s which instantly turn into ships to add to your “ever-growing armada of destruction.”

The game packs modes for both normal and hardcore gamers as well, so you can play the game on your comfort level.

The titles weighs in at 33MB and goes for the quite excellent price of 80 MS Points ($1). A demo is also available for you penny pincher’s. From the description:

Why play shoot’em ups one ship at a time? Launch them all at once! Unleash an entire armada of ships in Shoot 1UP!

Instead of stowing each 1UP you collect, each new ship becomes playable immediately, resulting in an ever-growing armada of destruction!

With your home world ruined, lead your detached battalion’s charge by destroying the mechanical-tentacle hybrid attack forces responsible for your pain.

- 1UPs INSTANTLY ENTER THE ACTION!

- Command over 30 ships at the SAME TIME!

- 2 Player coop play for over 60 SIMULTANEOUS player ship INSANITY!

- Contract your phalanx to dodge enemy fire, expand your ships to fire the PLASMA AUGER!

- WEAPONS UPGRADE as you collect more ships (Downgrade when you lose them so stay sharp!)

- Sacrifice ships for a BULLET-VAPORIZING BOMB which increases in power the more ships you’ve collected!

- Manic Shooting without all the wailing and gnashing of teeth–NORMAL GAMERS can actually enjoy this!

- Hardcore? Crank up the difficulty and gameplay speed for THUMB-TWISTING manuevers!

Play it NOW on your Xbox 360 on the Indie Games–Buy it for only 80 MS points!

The only thing better than killing zombies is killing alien zombies. PomPom Games will be releasing a zombie game on the PSP (it’s about time). Alien Zombie Death, a shoot-em-up platformer, will see a release to the medium sometime in January and is reportedly going to cost $5.00. With no way back, you are a lone space man who must battle the alien zombies and kill as many as possible before dying.

PomPom Games are known lovers of retro titles and this game seems to reflect on that. With 14 levels of retro-style fun, the game will pit you against a multitude of alien zombies: some fat, some green, some that can fly, etc. To me, a retro platformer/shoot-em-up sounds just about heavenly and by the look of this trailer, there is much promise in Alien Zombie Death for PSP owners.

I’m not generally a big fan of the shoot-’em-up genre, but I played the demo of S.H.M.U.P. when it was released because it was an IGF China finalist, and I was hooked.

Part of is is that the game uses persistent upgrades, which remind me of a game I played a lot in my younger days called Raptor. But it’s also that there’s a Space Invaders vibe. You don’t just have to survive and avoid a blanket of projectiles; you have prevent the onslaught and protect something.

In S.H.M.U.P., you and up to fifteen circle ships defend a line of blocks from oncoming squares, circles and triangles while listening to chip tune music by Bart Klepka and Multifaros.

The game was one of the finalists at the Independent Games Festival at this year’s GDC in China, and it takes a laid back approach to the shoot-’em-up genre. You don’t really control the ships, they just follow your mouse while firing automatically. The only thing you do control are the missiles, which are in limited supply, but once you run out of those you’re limited to a guiding role.

Grab the demo here or hit the jump to read more and watch the trailer.

Escapist Games has announced the release of its claymation shoot ‘em up Platypus onto the Xbox Live Marketplace via the Indie Games section.

The acclaimed title brings addictive gameplay in one or two player action. Defend your home land while grabbing power-ups and other treasure along the way. Embrace the fast pace with 20 stages of endless enemies along with plenty of boss battles.

The game is said to be built from the ground up for co-op so make sure you bring your wing man Maverick. Platypus is available in the Marketplace now for 400 MS Points ($5).