Thank you for picking up Second Legacy. This document is a manual of some sort to give you some valuable insight on how to play the game, without going through the "lore filter", like what you get within the game itself.

Disclaimer: this is a prototype and not a finished game by any means.

TABLE OF CONTENT

  1. INTRODUCTION
  2. STORY
  3. FEATURES OVERVIEW
  4. CONTROLS
  5. BASIC GAME MECHANICS
  6. ADVANCED GAME MECHANICS
  7. SCORING
  8. TRIVIA
Title screenshot

INTRODUCTION

Second Legacy is a homemade vertical scrolling manic shooter, that I've been striving to infuse with my genuine love for those games. It is currently playable on OSX and Windows platforms, but ports to other platforms may eventually happen too.

Second Legacy's game design takes a lot of inspiration from masterpieces by developers such as Compile, CAVE or Treasure, but also from game franchises in completely different genres, by developers such as Platinum Games or From Software.

It currently features a score-attack-oriented gameplay and a single demo stage, with limited and over-reused graphics (a lot of sprite-based animations have yet to be created, and background elements are minimal ). Gameplay-wise, essentials are there, but there is no variety in enemy behaviors, and bullet patterns are basic at best. Music and sound are in pretty good state already, but do not qualify as final either.

Read on below for more details.

STORY

According to stories, the old world was whole. There were continents, bathed in oceans, and clouds in the sky. And there, humanity thrived, taking everything for granted.

Then the gods came. The Fire Curtain fell onto the world. Before long, oceans vaporized into clouds, and continents scattered into drifting pieces of land. The sky became the one ocean.

With the world changed forever, the gods disappeared. Humanity, reduced to a fraction of what it was, was forced to adapt to this new environment to survive. But knowledge, like the world itself, got fragmented and faded into oblivion over time.

Soon, populations were fighting over resources, that had since grown scarce. A mysterious military nation suddenly rose above all others with unmatched firepower. They took settlement after settlement, city after city, only leaving rubble and ashes in their trail.

While the invader forces were on their way to Ixin, a small archipelago hidden within the clouds, a few pilots there were ordered to take off, on experimental aircrafts: Ark Fighters.

Ark selection screenshot

FEATURES OVERVIEW

Player ships are called "arks". 3 models are available:

Very small player ark hitbox, located on the cockpit and roughly of the same size, as commonly done in bullet hell shooters.

"Focused" firing mode: trade ark moving speed in exchange for more firing power. Use it to survive complex bullet patterns and finish strong enemies quicker.

"Bypass fire" mode: trade firing ability in exchange of higher movement speed. Use it to quickly reach enemies located far from your position or help creating wider gaps in enemy attacks.

"Shield-bombs": this is what would usually be called "smart bombs". It is a blast emitted from arks as a defensive mechanism, either manually or automatically, that destroys weak enemies and makes all active bullets vanish.

"EX" mode: this is what would usually be called "hyper" mode in other shoot'em up games. You'll need to gather energy to use it. It enables doubled firepower and scoring a lot more via gold star fragments collection.

CONTROLS

The game can be played on keyboard but most gamepads should be supported and it is the recommended way to play the game, as one can benefit from analog controls for more precise manoeuvers.

If a gamepad is detected when starting the program, a configuration wizard is started and prompts you to map all the required controls on it. Otherwise you can use an XBox360 or DualShock preset, or remap the controls one by one from the options menu. Below are the keyboard controls:

XBox360 preset

XBox360 controller preset

DualShock preset

DualShock controller preset

BASIC GAME MECHANICS

Weapons

Your ark has unlimited ammo. So you can keep firing continuously with no penalty.

You may switch between normal and focused mode while or without firing to control the speed of the ark's movement with precision.

While firing, the focused mode takes away movement speed and yields augmented fire power, and is efficient against slow, heavily armored enemies.

The normal firing mode is more suited against weak and faster enemies.

The bypassed firing mode allows moving very fast from one area of the screen to another, but does not allow the ark firing at the same time. Used in short bursts, it can help creating openings in some enemy bullet swarms, or quickly reach enemies that are far from each other, but maintaining it for too long is risky.

Your ark can store a few shield-bombs. Those are useful to clear up the way when too many enemies surround you and you can't get through the bullets, so make sure to use them before being hit.

Your ark can also engage the EX mode when enough energy has been stored (see the advanced game mechanics section below), which greatly boosts its fire power in both normal and focused modes for a limited period of time, and also allows you reaching bigger scores (see the scoring section below).

Firing a bomb deals moderate damage to all enemies, destroying the weak ones, and cancels all bullets on screen as well.

Vulnerability

By default, when hit by an enemy or a bullet, your ark is damaged, which has a few consequences, among which its losing fire power.

You can reverse the damage by collecting a power-up item from destroyed enemies.

If your ark is hit once again while damaged, by default the auto shield-bomb mechanism is triggered, and protects the ark from destruction as a last resort, at the expense of using up all the shield-bombs you have in stock. Firing a shield-bomb at the right time is a playing skill after all.

If no shield-bomb remains in your stock when the ark is damaged and hit once again, the pilot module is bailed out and the ark explodes.

As often in arcade shooting games, you have a reserve of extra arks. When your ark explodes, another is deployed at the last checkpoint and you can try again from there.

Having no extra ark left when your ark explodes means you'll either have to start the stage over, or trade a certain amount of your score against the chance to redeploy from one of the past checkpoints. If you're able to gain a high enough score, you can in theory restart from past checkpoints as many times as you need. Otherwise, if you still don't feel like giving up, you can restart the stage again and again without limitation - although for now, with a single stage to complete it really is like restarting the game from the very beginning! Also keep in mind that your score will be reset to zero if you choose not to trade.

Bypassing fire in EX mode creates an aura around the ark that makes it impervious to bullets.

Customizing your ark

Ark equipment screenshot

Before starting a mission, after selecting an ark, you can either go with standard equipment, or replace one of the 4 selected pieces of equipment with another among those available.

A notable customization option is to switch between 2 available shield-bomb storage devices. Selecting "DAMAGE GUARD" instead of "LAST RESORT", will trigger automatic shield-bombs purge to protect your ark from damage, and is a good choice if you want to maintain your maximum firepower and prioritize offense over defense. If in the contrary you want to keep your shield-bombs in stock as long as possible and are confident you can repair your ark quickly, the "LAST RESORT" option is a better pick.

Ark inventory screenshot

Unequipping a piece of equipment can also yield some interesting effects, and testing more configurations is advised. For instance if you decide to go without any shield-bomb storage device, your ark's EX tanks size is increased. Or going without "RESONANCE CORE", your ark won't have the ability to engage EX mode, but using the EX mode trigger button when your ark's tanks are full fires a shockwave that behaves a bit like a rechargeable manual shield-bomb.

ADVANCED GAME MECHANICS

Building up EX energy

Destroying enemies with focused firing mode yields blue gems that you have to gather to build-up the energy stored in the EX gauge on the bottom side of the screen.

Destroying enemies in normal mode does not yield any blue gem, but instead their blue gem "potential" is stacks up until a maximum is reached. The EX forecast gauge on the upper side of the screen shows an estimation of how many blue gems can be released by the next enemies destroyed while in focused mode.

Waiting for enough potential to build up before destroying enemies in focused mode to release blue gems can greatly increase their amount and help building up EX energy way faster.

Bigger enemies yield more gems, so a good strategy is to build-up potential destroying small enemies with normal fire, and then collect the benefits by destroying big enemies with focused fire next.

Engaging EX mode

Engaging EX mode can only be done when the EX gauge is full. Once active, the gauge depletes itself over time, and once empty, the EX mode is automatically disengaged.

EX mode is automatically disengaged if your ark is damaged but it is maintained if an auto-shield-bomb is released to protect you, or if you fire one manually.

When EX mode is disengaged following damage to your ark, the leftover energy is lost.

If your ark is hit while EX mode is not engaged and an auto-shield-bomb is released to protect you, the content of the EX gauge remains as-is.

The EX energy gauge is naturally reset if your ark explodes.

EX mode can be disengaged manually by using the EX trigger again before the gauge is almost empty. The remaining energy is released as a massive beam that deals severe damage to enemies.

When EX mode is active, normal firing mode can be used just the same to build-up the blue gems potential.

Notable differences are the focused and bypassed firing modes. When EX mode is active in bypassed firing mode, the ark is surrounded by an aura that makes it impervious to bullets, while in focused firing, gold star fragments are yielded instead of blue gems on enemy destruction. These gold star fragments do not fill the EX gauge with energy, but reward you with lots of points (see the scoring section below).

Overheating enemies

Some enemies (mostly bosses and big enemies) can overheat. When reaching that state, they stop moving and firing to recover, and also take significantly more damage. On top of that, all bullets are cancelled!

Hitting enemies continuously with normal fire or shield-bombs makes it easier for them to overheat. If left alone, they recover over time.

It is good practice to take advantage of an enemy being overheated and quickly close the gap to shoot it with focused fire at point-blank range for as long as possible. This can help making short work of even the tougher enemies.

SCORING

You are awarded with points when destroying enemies, and your "hits" counter (on the upper side of the screen) increases by one unit each time a bullet hits an enemy. This "hits" counter acts as a score multiplier.

Consequently, the more enemies you destroy in a row, the more points you are awarded with.

When facing a boss or midboss, the "hits" counter value won't go up, but is maintained, and decreases rapidly after one second without hits. It is in your best interest to reach such a foe with a high "hits" counter value, and keep landing more hits until its destruction to earn a bigger score.

Points awarded by gold star fragments are multiplied by the "hits" counter as well.

Any "grazed" bullet (getting close enough to your ark but not actually hitting it) earns you a small amount of points as well, that also gets multiplied by your "hits" counter.

There is a difference between manually firing the bomb, and having it automatically fired when you're hit by a bullet or an enemy: in the former case, your "hit" counter is unaffected, but in the latter one, it is reset.

An extend (extra ark) is awarded to you when you reach a given score.

When destroying enemies, your reward (including destruction bounty, blue gems and gold stars amounts) is multiplied by 2 or 4 the closer you are to them. Watch out for the "CLOSE" and "POINTBLANK" labels popping up when you get close enough for these conditions to be fulfilled.

TRIVIA

Second Legacy is the spiritual sequel to a game that does not exist, except in the mind of those who listen to its soundtrack, called Prime Legacy.