Blue Revolver

BLUE REVOLVER

Box art

Developer:	Stellar Circle
Music:	Qygen Hagane Exemia
Program:	danbo
Art:	woof Comic-Z
Release date:	October 2016

BLUE REVOLVER is a vertically scrolling shoot-em-up developed by Stellar Circle in 2016 for Windows, Mac and Linux. It plays like a CAVE/Raizing hybrid, with strong emphasis on fast patterns and resource management. It is wholly designed to be a forgiving, beginner-friendly game that can serve as a "stepping stone" into the genre.

A large-scale rebalance of the game, BLUE REVOLVER DOUBLE ACTION, has been announced but is currently still in development with no ETA.

Gameplay Overview

BLUE REVOLVER is a three-button game (with an optional autofire button), with 2 playable pilots (Mae and Val) featuring 3 shot types and 4 special weapons each, for a total of 24 unique combinations.

Controls

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• Z (Tap) / C (Hold): Fires the device's primary weapon in unfocused mode.
• Z (Hold): Fires the device's primary weapon in focused mode.
• X: Fires the device's special weapon.
• V: Fires the device's bomb.
• P: Pauses the game.

Characters/Weapons

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There are two playable characters, Mae and Val. Each character has three selectable shot types and four special weapons. The exact functionality of each character's shot type does vary, but there is a general theme:

Shot Types

• Narrow/Power: Straight-forward firing that is consistently powerful and ideal for small targets.
• Wide: Wide-spread firing, weak at range but tends to consistently lock down the whole playfield. Damage potential on par with Narrow if most shots connect.
• Variable: Moves with the player when unfocused, and holds position when focused. Both Variable types have generally more damage than they should have due to a design blunder, and often offer higher DPS than Narrow/Power.

Special Weapons

All special weapons run off the same internal ammo gauge system. Players have 100 ammo, which is replenished via ammo pickups.

• Plasma Lancer (Mae): A fast-firing lancer weapon which pierces enemies. While easy and flexible to use, it does lack raw power. Uses 2 ammo per shot.
• Hyper Laser (Mae): A slow-charging, thick laser which offers massive damage potential. High ammo consumption. Uses 6 ammo per second for roughly the first second of firing, and 18 ammo per second afterwards.
• Vortex Barrier (Mae): A circle of solid projectiles which deal close-range damage and block enemy shots for defense. High ammo consumption and inflexible but can deal lots of damage in the right situation. Uses 3 ammo per projectile (13 projectiles), and 4.6 ammo per second to maintain the barrier afterwards.
• Cluster Missile (Mae): A slow missile which creates a lingering damage field on impact. Accuracy and finesse is required, but offers tremendous scoring potential. Uses 10 ammo per shot.
• Arc Caster (Val): A fast-firing arc weapon which automatically seeks out enemies. Extremely easy to use, but lacking in raw power. Uses 5 ammo per shot.
• Hyper Laser (Val): A single-shot beam with long recovery time. Deals splash damage at the point of impact. Excellent for sweeping the playfield, but it is hard to control ammo consumption. Uses 10 ammo per shot.
• Stasis Field (Val): A circular field projected directly in front of the player. Sucks kinetic energy from bullets, slowing them down and eventually cancelling them - the stored energy is launched around the player on release. Uses more and more ammo to maintain the field over time, going from 0 to 7.2 ammo per second - uses 10 ammo to discharge.
• Cluster Missile (Val): A slow missile which creates a lingering damage field on impact. Val's version is tuned for a larger area of effect over raw power. Uses 10 ammo per shot.

See Blue_Revolver/Damage_Comparison for a comparison of damage values and efficiency between most special weapons.

Bombs

Bombs are uniform among both characters - a short-range projectile is projected in front of the player, dealing decent damage to anything in its vicinity. Bombs also convert all enemy bullets on screen into ammo pickup items, grant 6 seconds of invulnerability and reset any applicable chain timer. They also count as special weapons for the purposes of scoring (see Flourish section).

BLUE REVOLVER has a 3-frame counterbomb window. When the player is hit, an internal "about to die" timer is set for 3 frames. If the player uses a bomb during this period, their death will be cancelled. (This includes the frame the player was hit on.)

Items

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• Ammo Pickup items are dropped by ground enemies and resupply ships. Bombs also convert bullets into Ammo Pickup items. Each item replenishes 2% of the ammo meter, or gives 2,000 score if the ammo meter is full. Resupply ships drop 30 ammo items, for 60% ammo in total.
• Bomb items restore one bomb or grant 50,000 score if the player has the maximum amount of bombs.
• 1-UP items grant an extra life.

Rank/Difficulty

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An early boss phase at Rank Level 1.

The same boss phase at Rank Level 5. Dangerous!

BLUE REVOLVER uses a rank system for two of the three difficulty modes. Rank is divided into five "Rank Levels" (RL) based on an internal variable. The Rank Level only affects enemy and boss bullet patterns - enemy health and other such things are not affected at all. Rank is not intended to be something the player must manage, rather it simply eases up on the player after a death for a short while.

• Normal mode is the game's novice mode and locks Rank to the first 2 Rank Levels. Normal mode also features Autobomb - however, it is a rather punishing version of
• Hyper mode is for shmup warriors and allows rank to go through all 5 Rank Levels.
• Parallel mode is for wizards and locks rank to Rank Level 5 at all times.

Each difficulty setting also has its own extend system. Parallel mode is therefore actually more plentiful with resources if the player can keep pace with scoring, and can handle the Rank Level being locked to 5.

Normal	5,000,000	10,000,000	20,000,000	30,000,000
Hyper	5,000,000	15,000,000	25,000,000	50,000,000
Parallel	EVERY 15,000,000	...	...	...

Rank typically increases with scoring and additionally has a per-frame increase depending on the current stage. Firing the special weapon also increases rank, though only to a small degree. Bombing is entirely rank-neutral. Rank decreases on player death - for Rank Levels 1-3, the player's rank variable is halved on death, and for Rank Levels 4-5, rank is reset to Rank Level 3 on death.

Hyper Mode "Rank Drain"

There is an additional rank mechanic applicable only to Hyper mode. At Rank Level 5, the rank variable is immediately set to a high value and drains passively over time. Scoring actions, per-frame rank increase and special weapon rank increase do not apply at this point. The passive drain is per-frame and is increased as the player loses lives. Once the rank is drained back down to the Rank Level 5 breakpoint, rank is reset to Rank Level 4. Therefore, high-performing Hyper mode players will see a constant see-saw between Rank Levels 4 and 5.

RL5 drain sets the internal rank variable of 200,000, and the breakpoint to go back to RL4 is 140,000. Per-frame rank drain is 10 under normal circumstances, 16 if the player has 1 or 2 lives remaining, and 32 if the player has no lives remaining. Therefore, it will take 100 seconds to go back to Rank Level 4 under normal circumstances, 62.5 seconds at 1 or 2 lives remaining, and 31.25 seconds at zero lives remaining.

Scoring

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There are two primary scoring mechanics in BLUE REVOLVER - Flourish, and Break.

Flourish

Each enemy in BLUE REVOLVER has a point value that is granted on death. This point value varies depending on the enemy and generally becomes higher at the later stages.

Additionally, destroying enemies fills a chain meter. The chain meter takes roughly 3 seconds to drain if nothing is happening, and maxes out at 8 hits. Building a chain on its own does not provide any scoring benefit - rather, the player must destroy enemies with the Special Weapon in order to get value out of their chain. Enemies generate point items on destruction with a special weapon according to the following multiplier table:

Hit	Point Value Multiplier
8	64x
6-7	32x
4-5	16x
1-3	8x

However, firing the Special Weapon engages Flourish Mode - which locks the chain value and forces the timer to drain from a hidden maximum value. It takes 4 seconds to finish Flourish Mode generally, but it can be extended a little if many enemies are destroyed.

Therefore, the basic scoring strategy is to build up an 8-hit chain on weak, poor enemies, then use Special Weapons to cash in by powerful, lucrative enemies, and keep repeating that process while being as efficient with ammo as possible.

Bombs, uniquely, reset the chain timer to maximum both inside and outside of Flourish Mode.

"Zero Flourish"

One interesting quirk in the scoring system is that Flourish Mode cannot be activated when a chain is not active. Three of the special weapons are notably able to exploit this - Val's Hyper Laser and both variants of the Cluster Missile. Some other weapons can exploit it to a small degree, but these weapons have long uptimes and large potential areas of effect, making them ideal. Because they only trigger Flourish Mode on firing and not while they're destroying enemies, the player can activate the special weapon at a zero or 1-hit chain and use it to both increase the chain and generate score items.

Zero Flourish becomes an increasingly more lucrative trick in the later stages, where the popcorn enemies the player would typically simply use to build a chain have increased point value - but it does require some self-control.

Break Bonuses

Break bonuses are static point bonuses awarded for fulfilling specific conditions. Typically, these conditions are during midbosses and bosses (destroy both wings of the Stage 1 midboss in quick succession, for example) - but there are a few in-stage break bonuses like destroying over 80% of an enemy rush.

A Break Guide can be found both in-game and on the official game website: http://bluerevolvergame.com/breakguide/

Other Scoring Mechanics

Boss phases cancel all bullets on screen when they are cleared, and this follows the same logic as enemy destruction with a special weapon - ie, point items are generated in their place. The base value of each bullet is fairly low (100 points on the last boss, therefore 800 points per bullet cancelled), but in the few cases where a chain can be built up and a lot of bullets cancelled, they will receive the 64x value multiplier.

There are notably no mechanics in BLUE REVOLVER that reward the player for holding on to resources - no stage/game clear bonuses for lives/bombs remaining, etc.

Strategy

See Blue Revolver/Strategy for stage maps, enemy and boss descriptions, walkthroughs, and advanced play strategies.

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General Tips

• Taking a hit intentionally here and there is highly encouraged by the game systems. On death, rank is decreased outside of Parallel mode, 2 extra bombs are granted without resetting the existing stock, and 50 special ammo is replenished.
• In stages 3 and 5, there are almost no ground targets, meaning the player must rely on deaths and bombs to generate most of their ammo. Players would be wise to ensure they have enough bombs to keep up during, for example, the Stage 3 zako rush break without wasting resources.
• The last boss and TLB will counterbomb the player outside of Normal mode. Their invulnerability period lasts half a second longer than that of the player and their counterbomb prevents ammo from being generated.
• Almost all special weapons fire straight upwards by design, requiring the player to at least pass through the most dangerous areas of the playfield. The most notable exception is the Arc Caster, which can often be used from across the screen.

Story

BLUE REVOLVER takes place in an Earth-like world where magic has a code-like structure. Using scripting and various forms of technology, reality can be manipulated to the user's will - however, irresponsible use of this power creates hazardous "junk data". Stringent safety laws are enforced by groups of Technicians, and one such group is called "Blue Revolver".

Recently, a massive data anomaly has been sighted in the mountains - the work of a relatively gifted but flawed magic user called Mae. Blue Revolver set out to investigate this anomaly and hopefully curtail it.

Version Differences

• v1.01: Score Info option, readability options (background darkening, alternate bullet colour schemes), bugfixes.
• v1.02: Fixed the stage 2 boss instagibbing the player during Boss Rush mode.
• v1.05: Achievements.
• v1.1: Replay functionality added, Steam leaderboards, Break Guide, Experimental Weapon, shot type / weapon rebalancing.
• v1.11: Fixed replay desync issues.
• v1.12: Added the DOUBLE ACTION soundtrack by Exemia and Hagane as an in-game option,

Trivia

• BLUE REVOLVER was originally going to be a clone of Muchi Muchi Pork. Then it was going to be a clone of Ketsui. In the end, it ended up being a mix of both - though perhaps a clone of Cyvern, too.
• Despite the variety in bullet visuals, all bullets in BLUE REVOLVER share the same hitbox size of 2 pixels by 2 pixels. This is incidentally the same size as the player's hitbox.
• All shot types have a different default player speed, however their focused speed is always the same for the sake of consistency.
• While probably impossible to actually achieve, if the player can score 100 septillion points, they will be granted an extend every frame the game is running due to inelegant programming.
• Blue Revolver has no boss timeout mechanic outside of midbosses and the TLB. One or two boss phases are milkable to a degree, but the rewards are very low and it is very hard to avoid damage being done to the boss.
• "DSP" is among the various phrases censored by the game's highscore system.
• The Stage 3 boss and several attack craft flying out of the midboss on destruction is a shameless reference to Battle Garegga.

References & Contributors

1. Technical information supplied via code inspection. danbo did this.