Preview: Duality ZF
Is there anyone who doesn’t like shooter games? I mean, shooters have been around since the golden age of gaming. I know that I’ve loved them from the very beginning, no matter how hard they can get (I’m looking at you R-Type & Axelay). So, how do you take a classic genre that’s been pretty much beat to death & refresh it so it feels like new again? I wouldn’t have been able to tell you a until about 2 months ago when I ran across Jason & Matthew Doucette, creators of Duality ZF.
Duality ZF is a colorful top-down shmup (shoot-em up) with a twist, built on the XNA platform. Basically, each player controls dual ships, utilizing both thumb sticks to move around. I say ‘each player’ because the game will support 4 players. Doing the math……carry the 1…….times 3………that EIGHT ships on screen at the same time! Chaotic bliss if you ask me! But, if that’s too much for you, the option is there to play with just one ship. In addition to the obvious on-screen shooter joy, these guys have done a lot under the hood that doesn’t happen with a lot of the mainstream titles. Their philosophy (and this is straight off their site) is “Give the power to the player. The game’s difficulty should arise from enemy strength, not player weakness.” With that approach to the game right from the start, the twin brothers have worked very hard at making the ship controls perfect. The fighter speed is optimized to within .1 pixels per frame. Basically, instead of punishing the player by changing speeds & such to adjust the difficulty, they made the ship controls perfect throughout that game. To crank the difficulty, they made the adjustments to the enemies. This way, the win/lose scenario falls directly on the players skill, not due to poor controls.
Speaking of difficulty, the game has a neat twist on that too. You will have 32 levels of play with 6 different game modes. As you play, the game will adjust it’s difficulty on the fly to match your play style. Nothing new there, right? Well, just to make sure the best of the best have a good time to, Duality ZF will offer unlimited unlockable difficulty modes. Yep. Unlimited. So even the greatest of shmup players will have a challenging opportunity with this. Remember, it isn’t about punishing you to make things harder, it’s about making the enemies harder/smarter. So this will purely test your skill. UPDATE: Matt was generous enough to give my article here a read & offered a few corrections to some of the details (yes, King or not, I make mistakes 
) He said:
- there’s 32 "stages" in weapon power ups and 8 "stages" in terms of game stages or levels to complete to finish the game
- the game doesn’t adjust difficulty on the fly, but difficulty selection screen will show you your best efforts on various difficulties to make it really easy to pick the one you should play
So, I guess the next question is if I’ve played it yet. Unfortunately, no. The game has slipped it’s initial release date & is currently scheduled for this summer. After what I have seen on it though, I say, guys, take all the time you need. The though of how many calculations the game will have to do with a potential of 8 fighters on screen, all of which shooting 4 lasers/bullets plus the various enemies & such makes me dizzy. I’m excited for this title so don’t mind waiting for it to be right. I’m sure I left some more details out, so look for my review as soon as it launches. Until then, here’s a small taste of what’s to come with the most recent trailer. Look for the Duality ZF to launch hopefully this summer as an XBL Community Game for 400MP!
Oh neat, is this the one that guy was discussing on junkies? (He was the dev, I think).
Yep, the one & the same. & that would be ‘guys’. Twin brothers, Matt & Jason. Game really does look amazing though. Can’t wait to get my hands on it!
Thanks for the amazing write up. I was truly impressed with it!
Oh, I see. Great looking game, guys! Can tell you put a lot of work into it!