Techno Sylph is a very, very obscure freeware shoot em up that's surprisingly great.
Here's the download:
http://www.nona.dti.ne.jp/~kbz/soft00.html (second link)
The game does fully work on Hourglass but until I get an working XP machine, I won't be TASing it, as Hourglass is incredibly unstable on Win7. If anyone wants to try out TASing this game, feel free. In the meantime, I'll explain the game, as more of a memento for myself (this will be effectively the first explaination of the game, as there is none apart from the mlanual), and finally my goals in the TAS:
Gameplay
This is the game. Pretty standard stuff. This game is unique in that it follows a rather unique level-up ship progression, which causes routing to be extremely complex. So, what's happening in the picture?
1. The first three bars are very important, as they are strongly related to the energy progression. This blue bar is the
shot strength bar: it will affect the strength of your shot. It has eight states: I'll refer to them as s1 to s8. Here's what they do:
s1 is the lowest strength possible. It shoots a volley of two bolts every 18 frames, and uses close to no energy on all ships. This strength is relevant only when you desesperatly need to kill a ship for score without needing the strengh of s2.
s2 is one of the best strengths: it doubles your firerate, while only slightly increasing energy consuption. As such, it fires a volley of two bolts every 9 frames. It is effectively the most important strength in high score runs, as it allows you to kill every single wave without much effort while still filling up energy at a reasonable pace, thanks to its very low energy cost.
s3 has the same fire rate as s2, but every other volley has the bullets fired sideways, while using a little bit more energy. Useless, and only usable when needing to kill ennemies that s2 can't reach (this happens in a few areas.)
s4 is the same thing as s3, but uses more energy. Cool.
s5 is where energy consumptions massively spikes: the energy refill can barely keep up with the consumption of the strength. It is justified, firing a volley every 4 frames! in the pattern of 1 left bolt > 2 bolts > 1 left bolt > 2 sideways bolts then repeat. Used for killing strong enemies and bosses if no Multi-As are avaible.
s6 shoots at the same speed as s5, but follows the pattern of 1 right bolt > 2 bolts > 1 right bolt > 2 sideways bolts. This brings up the real utility of this.
s7 and s8 respectively are the big energy drainers, and usually not used due to their very limited use. s7 has the pattern of 2 bolts > 2 bolts > 1 right bolt > 2 sideways bolts at the same firerate, giving a very slight damage increase for a ton of energy consumption.
s8 is even more irrelevant: 2 bolts > 2 bolts > 2 right bolt > 2 sideways bolts. Very small damage increase, not worth it.
2. Energy bar. The most important information in the run. It recharges automatically: however, shooting will cause it to recharge slower, or in big energy consumption cases, decrease. Orange is the current energy you have, yellow is your MAX limit. This limit can be increased by half a block by getting a MAX drop from big enemies (reactors in wave 1-7, robots in 8+.), but is decreased by a block for every upgrade you get, down to one block. Bombs take a full block of energy to shoot (X), or in the case of a upgrade, use all your energy down to one block left.
3. This is the upgrade bar. It correlates directly with the list of upgrades (6.). To get an upgrade, you must first have the bar correlating for the upgrade you want, moving it upwards as your selected upgrade moves. Afterwards, have an energy bar that's at least up to the height of the pink bar, wait for your energy to fill up to the pink bar, then use a bomb. You will do an upgrade bomb, dependant on how much energy you used for the upgrade (the most powerful are the highest tiers), lose one full block of max energy, and gain that upgrade once, filling one of the slots.
4. Upgrade slots. Certain upgrades can be gotten multiple times, or have to be used multiple times to fulfill their function (see Evolution). Once an upgrade has been used, a slot in that corresponding line turns blue. Once the entierety of slots are blue for that upgrade, it can no longer be used, and will no longer create upgrade bombs.
5. Your ship, in the process of exploding in this case. Multi 1/2 follow the ship a la Gradius.
6. List of upgrades avaible for this ship. Changes for each ship, from slot 1 (lowest) to slot 8. The important ones are:
Puppy
Slot 6: Evolution (1)
Slot 7: 5000 points (6)
Sylph-01
Slot 7: Evolution (2)
Slot 8: 10000 points (8)
Genesis
Slot 3: Multi-A (8)
Slot 5: 20000 points (5)
Slot 7: Evolution (1)
Some explainations:
- Evolution, when fully filled, allows your ship to evolve in this pattern:
Puppy > Sylph > Sylph-2/E-Freet/Genesis > Sylph-2/E-Freet/Genesis etc.
This upgrade opens up a portal for your possible evolutions at the end of the area when filled. When you reach the final tier, you can evolve again into any ship of the final tier, including the ship you currently own! This is an evolution loop, and its main advantage (evolving into the same ship) is that all your upgrade slots are lost, allowing for more XX point spam. Note that later ships take longer to fill up energy, but both your current energy and energy bar are not lost in the transfer, allowing for some exploits.
- XX points give the number of points specified upon upgrading. You can use them a limited number of times, at after which the only option is to evolve or evolve loop to free up the slots.
- Multi-A is a follower that follows your movement a la Gradius and shoots at the same speed, no matter what your currrent strength. This is useful because Multi-A becomes extremely useful in low strengths to gain energy quicker, making up most of your damage. Genesis has up to 8! Multi-A slots, although I'll only be using one most of the time.
As stated above, the game relies massively on energy, which makes routing extremely complex. I'm aiming to do an 'maximum score' TAS, which follows the pattern Puppy > Sylph > Genesis then evolution loop Genesis to spam 20 000 points, which is the most effective method of making points in the entire game: each evolution loop yields around 105 000 points this way (20k points*5 + enemies), a huge number of points in a game where enemies give 10-100 points. This does leave the problem of bosses, but the two bosses in the game can be done very easily with only base shot and bombs without missing, so not having a nicely upgraded ship isn't a detriment. Essentially:
Area 00] Get max energy, Evolution, 5000 points (we can fit in a 5k points, due to the evolution only applying after the area ends. Evolve into Sylph.
Area 01] Evolution*2, 10 000 points. Evolve into Genesis.
Area 02+] 20 000 points*5, Evolution (get Multi-A if needed). Evolve loop into Genesis, repeat.
This would estimate the total score at around 400 000, and is the most energy efficient method of making points.
