Game Type DX: Advanced Abilities and Strategies

 

Game Type DX comes out soon to the Xbox, Switch, and Playstation, therefore I am putting together some basic and more advanced strategies!

Here is the video version:

 

And here is the written version:

Time Pulse 

A lot of shooters have a “super bomb” attack which does enemy damage and wipes bullets from the screen. Game Type DX doesn’t have a regular super bomb, because Game Type DX is pretty weird. 

But … it's good weird.

The Time Pulse is great because it slows down time as you use it. But it does not do enemy damage. It does however allow you cancel bullets, but it requires the use of the Kick Beam to do that. The Kick Beam is useful for killing enemies, since it is powerful, but it is limited because you need to power up the Kick Beam with cash drops. 

Use the Time Pulse. Now shoot enemy bullets with  your Kick Beam.

 

Enemy bullets are turned into cash drops. Suck in cash and get loads of points!

What do the cash drops do? Well, they do a lot of things. 

Cash drops

1. give you points.
2. increase your multiplier.
3. reset your multiplier timer.
4. increase your Kick Beam power.

How do we get cash drops? 

From killing enemies, but also from destroying their shots. We can destroy enemy shots with the Kick Beam while the Time Pulse is active. You simply tap the button to use a Time Pulse, then start shooting the Kick Beam. As you shoot enemy bullets they turn to cash drops AND you can contribute to getting another Time Pulse. 

Chaining Points and Powers 

The is the real power cycle in the game. In the bottom middle of the HUD is an enemy bullet icon, and a number. As you destroy enemy bullets with your Kick Beam during a Time Pulse, this number drops. When it hits 0, you get a new Time Pulse. Chaining this effect is the secret to huge points. Find a spot where there’s lots of enemy bullets, then use the Time Pulse and shoot all the enemy bullets. As you shoot, you’ll possibly get another Time Pulse to keep it going! Eventually you’ll run out of enemy bullets to milk, but this is a great strategy. 

Chaining Method:

1. Use Time Pulse
2. During Time Pulse, shoot Kick Beam at enemy shots. 
3. Destroy so many shots like this, that you gain a new Time Pulse.
4. Allow loads of cash drops to flow toward and gain you points.
   
5. Use another Time Pulse and do it again!
   

Show Me the Bullets

But you need lots of enemy shots to do this! Where are they?

Well, there are three modes to the game. Two of the modes, have hand-designed, static level layouts. Each time you play the levels stay the same. You can memorize the levels in these two modes, and predict where to be each time and improve your score. 

You’ll want to remember where lots of enemies (like the crabs) come out and spray the screen with bullets. And you’ll want to use the Time Pulse here, then shoot all their bullets with your Kick Beam and get tons of cash drops, and points. You can then get another Time Pulse this way, or even a Time Pulse powerup that is sometimes floating around. 

The third game mode has a lot more variety of enemy setups, but is also randomized every time you play! Once you get too good at the hand-made modes, you can try out the “Surprise” mode for more variety. 

No Hoarding

Make sure you use Time Pulses pretty often. You get a new one each time you beat a Loop, and you can get them as a floating powerup. Make sure to catch those powerups! 

A new Time Pulse powerup is floating near the middle of the screen. Grab it!

That's the general idea for the Time Pulse and chaining points. Remember Game Type DX comes out everywhere soon. Here are the store pages: http://mommysbestgames.com/GameTypeDX/index.html

Thanks for playing and happy shooting!

Game Type DX: Basic Abilities and Strategies

 

Ahead of Game Type DX releasing soon on consoles, here is an overview of Hoodie Girl's basic abilities. There's plenty of detail in here, even for players of the original version. Enjoy!

Here is the Video version of the article, for sitting and listening.

 

And here is the readable article version!

 

Slap Shot

As you start the game, your basic attack is called the Slap Shot. It fires forward, and up and down. You can simply hold the button for constant shooting. A lot of the enemies come from the right side of the screen, so your forward shot does the work. But many other enemies come from up/down/behind which is when your back hand is really helpful. 

 

You start able to shoot forward, up and down.

Several enemies are really important to take out quickly. Mainly the cats. The dang cats keep shooting as long as they are on screen. Each Loop of the game, the cats can shoot more. Once you get pretty far into the game, they are a simple enemy, but really nasty. Use your side shots to take them out from all angles. 

Enemies coming in from the bottom are perfect targets for your down shot.

Double Tap

Another feature is to tap the shot button quickly. The benefit is, at the start of the tap, you get double-shots stacked up, not just one bullet but two. It's physically tough to take advantage of this all the time though, since you'll have to keep tapping constantly, but occasionally the extra firepower can help.

Power Up

In the original release, there were no powerups, but now in the DX version there are several types. One of the new powerups is the Gun Up. Each time you grab them, you gain a new angle of shots. This only powers up your Slap Shot. (You cannot power up your Kick Beam.)

Here the Slap Shot is near fully powered.

 

You’ll max out your Slap Shot after a while, which will look like this, with 4 bullets going to the left, and 3 bullets going to right. Try your best to simultaneously line up all these bullets onto actual enemies for maximize efficiency! 

Point-Blank

You don’t get extra points or power from killing things in very close proximity, but what naturally happens is all your forward shots can hit a bit enemy. (Some shmups grant your attacks more power, or you get more points if you point-blank enemies.) So in some ways “point-blanking” does work well, if you can memorize when the big enemies show up. I like to run up quickly on the green SUVs and the Orange symbols and get in some concentrated hits. 

Kick Beam 

The Kick Beam is your mega shot like from other games, but here it is powered by cold, hard cash. You get cash drops from killing enemies. The cash drops do a lot of things, including giving you points, but they also power up your Kick Beam. 

 

Your Kick Beam slows your movement, but gives you a strong forward shot. Plus you get to yell “Parkour”, so that’s just plain fun! 

(Bullet) Slow Down

The Kick Beam is strong, and focused, but another benefit is it slows down enemy bullets in its path. This is great for giving you some space from oncoming attacks. Watch out though because the enemy bullets speed back up after they leave the Kick Beam's area of influence! 

Look closely in the middle,
the pink bullets all bunched up are a result
of the Kick Beam hitting them.

Cash Infusion

Because the Kick Beam is powered by cash drops you’ll often need to stop shooting for just a moment, then keep shooting again. When you stop, all active cash drops start homing towards you. You can chain this nicely by holding shoot, letting off for a split second, then holding shoot again, killing more enemies and powering up your beam with the cash drops that fly at you. 

 

If you stop shooting,
all the active cash swarms toward you and gives you points.

The final, amazing use of the Kick Beam is to turn enemy bullets themselves into cash drops! But we’ll get into that strategy in another post. 

Until then... PARKOUR!!!

You Got Xbox 360 in my Nintendo

Newest Pre-order Spot

Great news! Before the funny story about porting the game to the Switch, I'm happy to say Game Type DX on pre-order right now for the Switch!

 Here's the link to the North American store.

And the linke to the European store.

(And is also on pre-order for Xbox One.)

 

Making a Game For The Wrong Consoles

Game Type was inspired and heavily references the Xbox 360.
When creating the upcoming DX version for it, things got pretty difficult considering we're releasing it for the Nintendo Switch and the Playstation 4 and 5. 

Now the worst possible thing to happen would have been for Nintendo and Sony to simply not allow the game in its present form, or to request a complete overhaul before we could release it. That would have stopped all work for the game. I was happy to create some new content for the DX release, and incorporate each platforms achievement and leaderboard systems. But to redo everything would have not been possible. The great news is, Nintendo and Sony are letting us release it!

However, both Nintendo and Sony sure didn't let our game in easily, or seemingly even understand what the game is about. I guess a "documentary style game about a competing game console" IS a pretty unusual concept!

RGB

Not surprisingly each platform, including the Xbox One, has rules about advertising a competitor's platforms. Plus, you have to adhere to each consoles naming conventions. Our game gets pretty "meta" though, because we have a made-up console in which you are playing the game. That console is called the "MediaBall" and its interface is a direct reference to the Xbox 360. To that end, I would have liked to have use terms such as "Dashboard", and "Game Marketplace" to complete the connection to the Xbox 360. 

"Switch Red" variant dashboard color

 But unfortunately for the Switch and Playstation, those terms and several things were required to be changed or removed. Even the number "360" in one of our fake ads got nixed! We also couldn't use the green color from the Xbox 360 Dashboard. In some ways we did end up with some pretty cool changes. Now each platform has it's own version! The Nintendo Switch version has "Switch Red" for the menu. And the Playstation has their blue for the menu tiles. 

I guess what puzzles me is that the Xbox 360 is completely off the market and not a true direct competitor any more, so it surprised me how much they pushed back on every little thing references it. Maybe it's more a long-standing brand concept than one console. I don't know!

You're on the Naughty List

Here is an incomplete list of things we had to change when adapting to Sony and Nintendo (I can't get too specific with the details as they are very touchy about mentioning their internal rules to the public).

• Can't use term "Dashboard" as this is the Xbox 360's term. I chose "Control Panel".
• Can't use term "Xbox 360". So I chose "Certain Game Rival's console" and made sure to print it in green. :D
• Can't use term "Game Marketplace", so we picked "Game Store". 
• Can't use green menu blocks. Green! Okay, they didn't say can't use green exactly, they just said the menu system looked too close to the Xbox 360. So change it some way.
  That's where the red and blue colors came in.
• Can't show a cartoony controller that is even vaguely like the Xbox 360. So I dropped the other stick.
•  

• 

  Microsoft on the left, Sony on the Right
  

  
   
• Can't say "Control Stick". Um... what? I think that was more of a "must use our term" thing but it made me laugh. 
• Can't say "360" or "Rumble" action. So I went with "720" on the fake ad name and "Deep Tissue action" in the text description.
  
  
  
  
  When you click on the fake controller massage ad, you get these texts.
  
  
  
  

All in all, it really wasn't that bad to make the changes. I think it was just funny how it didn't seem like they noticed what the game was doing or what it was about. But I'm thankful we get to release it on all consoles! 

Release in September

Game Type DX is coming out September 8th!
It's ready for pre-order on Switch and on Xbox One.
(PS4 is tough to get a pre-order for it, but that's a whole other story!)