Caravan Angel

Controls Arrow Keys to move X for spread shot Z for focus fire Rules As the name implies, Caravan Angel is inspired by the caravan modes of many PC Engine/TG-16 shmups. The focus is on using speed, precision, and memorization to rack up large scores. The game only ends when the timer runs out, or when the player hits zero lives. If the boss is beaten before the timer runs out, the game loops back around to the beginning, allowing more time to score. Power-ups spawn whenever a wave is destroyed with no enemies escaping. They stay on the screen indefinitely and can be collected at the player's convenience. Which power-up spawns depends on what the player needs in that moment. [8x8] Upgrades player weapons [8x8] Grants an extra life [8x8] Increases score by 1000 Influences Nothing under the sun is truly original, so I'm going to use this section to talk about all the stuff that was bouncing around my head during the sporadic 6 month development of Caravan Angel. Games The most obvious influence is Fantazy Zone. I grew up after the heyday of Sega and as a result never played any of the Sega classics. During a phase of playing these new-to-me classics, I found Fantazy Zone and immediately fell in love with the gameplay style and art. I wanted to make my own. Problem was, uh, I didn't really like the game loop, so I had to go elsewhere for more inspiration. Through the Youtuber Shmup Junkie I found the stacked shmup catalog on the PC Engine and got a bit obsessed. I adored the caravan modes in many of these games, where the difficulty was a bit lower, but the scoring potential was raised. A score attack game seemed much more doable as someone new to the genre, especially if I stuck to a fairly linear scoring curve. Fav game on the PC Engine is Soldier Blade. Basic, I know. Art All the enemies are inspired by the woodcut art of demons popular in the 1700s-1800s. The art is filled with funny little guys. With much of it, you can tell they just drew a guy they don't like as a weird frog creature. I definitely cute-ified them a good bit too. Music I had two songs by Thy Slaughter bouncing around in my head for pretty much the entire development. Thy Slaughter is the side project of PC Music alum A.G. Cook and Finn Keane where they mix some fantasy lyrics and 70s rock allusions into their usual hyperpop shenanigans. The way the songs are structured tickle my brain, taking simple lyrics and loops in the front half and abruptly transitioning them into rowdy noise and chopped rhythms in the second half. I tried (emphasis on "tried") to do the same in my own music. Credits I followed along with the LazyDevs basic shmup tutorial to make Caravan Angel, albeit with heavy modifications and additions. All art, music, sound, and code not originally in the tutorial was made by me. No AI was used. Users on the LazyDevs discord helped heavily with code review, playtesting, and guidance. Big thanks to Druid Ignacy, Washburnello, Kevin, Martin G, and the rest of the community for letting me bounce ideas off ya'll.