Force Majeure Demo

By: Derek Yu

On: February 7th, 2007

Originally made for the Autofire 2007 Competition, Force Majeure is a work-in-progress arcade shooter from Monokey. But now there’s a one stage demo you can try out! The game sports some pretty gorgeous graphics and really arcadey music. Looks like the visual style was inspired by In the Hunt and Irem arcade games in general.

Other than the great presentation of the game, they’ve added a nice multiplier system that adds more interest to the game. Earn medals and raise your multiplier by dissolving enemy bullets and finishing off enemy fighters at close range. It makes dying totally frustrating if you’re going for a highscore, though. Seriously, I gave my roommate two beatings tonight out of sheer frustration. And that’s pretty sad when your roommate is your grandma!

Posted in Freeware, Previews, Shoot-em-ups, Windows

negative zero

oh Derek, you so crazeh
Tim

hm… probably the ‘enough shooters’ tagline in the about page should be changed. ;)
Home Improvement

I don’t think so, Tim.
crackers

Man that game looks so CPS1.
haowan

I didn’t really enjoy it a great deal. Great graphics, mind. A good achievement! Best of luck to all the entrants.
BenH

I didn’t enjoy it all that much either, but the graphics are definatly top notch.
Personally I think the way your ship slows down when you’re holding down the fire button is pretty annoying. The player shouldn’t be punished for doing something thats constantly required to survive, i.e shooting!
http://www.alembiclabs.com/ Keith

I agree with BenH. For a pretty manic shooter (its not over the top, but feels a bit like Cave games like DonDonPachi), a little faster speed would help. Hell, bullets are flying all over the place and it would be really awesome to be able to go just a little faster to avoid them and snag power-ups.

Other than that, it looks and sounds awesome. Exactly the kind of old school shooter we need now and again.
Derek

Yeah, I agree… the ship moves too slowly. I didn’t even realize it was because I was holding the fire button down.

Still fun, though!
http://www.arsecast.com DrDerekDoctors

I agree with all of you about not enjoying it so much, sadly, but for me it wasn’t the slowing-down thing (which is a dynamic I’ve seen elsewhere and which I don’t mind as there’s a nice risk-reward element to it), but rather the slightly boring enemies and lack of variety. However as far as looks go, it’s super-lovely! Could probably do with a few more animated elements in there as its a little sparse at times but the art that’s there is top-notch and as Derek says, very reminiscent of In The Hunt, et al.
http://16x16.org nenad

I enjoyed playing their older shooter “Loveless”. Judging by that game, the authors are having a good feeling for shooters so I don’t have any doubts they’ll adjust the gameplay just right in the final release. Hopefully that’ll mean toning the “bullet hell” factor down a notch. Please.

Graphics and atmosphere are top-notch although I do feel enemies are a bit too big, leaving you virtually no space to maneuver nicely. Imo one of the key elements of a good shmup is the right balance between physical size of player/enemies/bullets/empty space.
http://www.daikenkai.com/monokey/ junkboy

Hey all, it’s nice to read comments from such an distinguished crowd (no, really). I’ll keep it short and just say that pretty much every issue that has been brought up (speed, variety, difficulty, behaviour, animations, danmaku complex, etc) is on our To Do-list.

Also, Mr. Yu, please don’t abuse your grandma.
BenH

Good to hear!
I’d also like to add that the characters of the game are very nice ;D
http://www.tscreative.net BMcC

If you could somehow incorporate battering the elderly, that would be really great. Thanks.