"Haru, the Mothership Callisto deployed a protective barrier over the moon - if we don't remove it in time, Operation Surge will fail. You need to infiltrate the mothership and destroy the core from within."
"Where's my ship"
Inspired by titles like Crimson Clover and Cho Ren Sha, this caravan-styled shmup has two fast and punchy stages that emphasize close quarters and highscoring. Each stage challenges the player in different ways, both designed to be quick and "in your face", with short runtimes and a demanding, run-ending final boss.
X: Shoot
Z: Hold to start locking beams and slowdown, Release to send them to the locked targets.
Arrow Keys: Move
Enter/P: Menu
This game features a lock-on system that doubles as a focus speed (slower ship speed). When in close proximity of enemies, you can press [Z] to start locking seeking missiles (to a maximum of 8) and send them when you release the button press, returning to your normal speed.
There is three types of weapons: Rapid Fire (RFIRE), Laser (LASER), and Rocket (ROCKT). Each has a different playstyle, and deals with problems in different ways. These spawn regularly throughout the level.
A shield mechanic is also present. At the start of the game, you have a shield that blocks one hit, protecting your extends (EXTN) which are your extra lives. If you lose it, you can rebuild your shield by picking up energy spheres that spawn in capsules through out the level or are dropped by specific enemies.
Extends can be earned at specific scores values.
Killing enemies grants you a multiplier to your score. There is a bar at the bottom of the screen that indicates its duration. To increase it, deal damage to other targets. Holding your Lock-On slows down the bar, increasing its duration.
Getting hit while having shields does not drop your multiplier, but getting hit while having no shields does.
Killing enemies with your Lock-On Beams, (or shortly after they are hit by them), the multiplier is doubled for that enemy.
Getting "Energy Spheres" while having shields grants score multiplicatively based on the number of spheres picked up while having shields (up to 8). Getting hit resets resets the count.
Killing enemies fast makes the next formation appear faster, which is important to keep the multiplier up.
You can quickly restart the run by pressing pause and selecting the "Quick Restart" option.
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If you enjoyed the game, consider supporting me by purchasing it on itch!
https://lokistriker.itch.io/exterra
Dude HELL YEAH , so excited for this-
lets GO .
Will update when i have a score I'm not ashamed to post
Was really looking forward to this since the early teases in the channels, super excited about the release!
Tackled retro on a first few tries with around 4mil point, now to try and actually beat modern, which looks like pure madness for me.
Amazing shmup entry your already stacked catalogue!
Amazing! Plays very smoothly, dodging all the bullet hell is really fun. I dont think i will beat modern haha.
I still have to figure out when to use the lock on missiles so they make sense.
Congrats on the release! That's a one cool game. Nice graphics, great music and I do realise it's a bullet hell shooter, but I wish it had an easy mode or something for more casual players. It feels like the number of things happening on screen at any point in any mode is way beyond what I'm able to process. Maybe I'm just too slow and should stay away from the game :)
@lastofavari I think what you mention is fair, and I dont think its about speed or reaction time either.
The balance of a shmup's difficulty has to be based on "legacy skill" (the skill of playing games of same genre/mechanics), which leads to them being hard to non-shmup players. Skill, being relative to each person, makes hitting the right balance of "expected player skill" and "game challenge" to be impossible to do for every player (even every shmup player). "Retro" is an attempt to have a moderately more accessible mode to newer players (while still being challenging to score for shmup players), but even then, it presupposes some degree of legacy skill. In this way, the game may still feel inaccessible even in "Retro" if your previous experience with shmup has been short or sporadic, but many people report it as the "easy - first time clear" mode, since they have way more experience with the genre.
With that said: Im not sure if I want to commit to a "easy mode", but I'll consider something like a "practice mode", already using the resources within the game to either practice the whole stage, or individual "waves" of enemies. I think this could be good and a good resource for players who want to learn the game step by step instead of being asked to hit the ground running (and fall every time). I think this second option of "practicing individual waves" might be easier to implement, but certainly that would be for a bigger update.
Ty for the feedback!
Man! Just 40,000 below 4 million on Retro! This is the kind of stuff that makes me want to learn how to program.
What is the actual title? Is it Ex Terra, Ex-Terra, or ExTerra???
The official title of the game is EX TERRA, which means "from Earth"
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