Blue Revolver
Contents
( BLUE REVOLVER )
Title screen
| Developer: | Stellar Circle |
|---|---|
| Music: | Qygen Hagane Exemia |
| Program: | danbo |
| Art: | woof Comic-Z |
| Release date: | Arcade: 1996 Sega Saturn: 1998 Playstation 4, Xbox One: 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
- 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.
Unlockable Secrets
If a game features unlockable modes, extras, secrets character etc. such as the Mahou characters in Battle Garegga or Strong Style in DoDonPachi DaiFukkatsu that are relevant to the basic system of a game, put these codes here. Otherwise, omit this section.
Characters/Weapons
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
Plasma Lancer (Mae): A fast-firing lancer weapon which pierces enemies. While easy and flexible to use, it does lack raw power. Hyper Laser (Mae): A slow-charging, thick laser which offers massive damage potential. High ammo consumption. 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. Cluster Missile (Mae): A slow missile which creates a lingering damage field on impact. Accuracy and finesse is required, but offers tremendous scoring potential. Arc Caster (Val): A fast-firing arc weapon which automatically seeks out enemies. Extremely easy to use, but lacking in raw power. 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. 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. 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.
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).
Items
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
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.
Normal mode is the game's novice mode and locks Rank to the first 2 Rank Levels. 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.
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
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.
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.
Strategy
See Blue Revolver/Strategy for stage maps, enemy and boss descriptions, walkthroughs, and advanced play strategies.
Don't die? Or actually do die. Dying grants ammo and bombs which you can turn into an extend.
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 warped 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.
Development History
(in progress)
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.
- 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.
Gallery
See (Blue Revolver/Gallery for our collection of images and scans for the game.
References & Contributors
- Technical information supplied via code inspection. [[User:Danbo|danbo]] did this.
