Anceder

Anceder is a VR arcade shoot-them-up (shmup). Available on Oculus Go, GearVR, Rift and SteamVR.
Dive in the arcade shmup.
A lot of action is awaiting you.
"Insert coin" and jump in the shmup !

What is it ?

Bienvenue in the arcade shoot-them-up (shmup, bullet hell). Choose your ship and try to make the best score.

The "MORE" Update : Now with more bonus, more sounds, more languages (Spanish & Chinese texts), more fun ! The Fury mode is now easier.

Play the five worlds in a row to make a high score.

Some features

- Original musics in HD. Music are level-long (no repetitive loops).
- Normal and hard mode. You will make huge scores in hard mode.
- Try the fury mode for an even faster game.
- Playable with joypad, VR controllers or remote.
- Scores saved worldwide (if connected to the internet). You can set initials to each score to compare with your visiting friends.
- You can play lying in bed (see options menu or pause menu).

Home made

I'm an independent developer, I try to do my best, I do everything by myself, musics, code, objects... I hope you'll enjoy my work.

You can try Anceder for free via the Oculus Store (Go, GearVR or Rift)

You can also buy Anceder on Steam.

You can support my work by making a donation as store sales are not enough to cover everything.

You can get a full game key by making a donation of 5$ or more.

Behind the scene

Why did I make this game ?

Because I love Shmups (shoot-them-up) like Dodonpachi, R-Type, 1943, Insector-X, P47 and so on, and saw there were not any in VR. So I started to think about that.

Instead of seeing the game from above or beside like every shmup, and in VR that would have no sense, I decided to make it like a Pinball (flipper) with a back/up view. Thus, the play area can be huge and the gameplay sticks to the standards of shmups (up/down/left/right, shoot, megabomb).

The golden age of shmups, to me, is 1985-1995, so don't be surprised if the game style reflects these days. And if you run the game 3 times, you'll hear the 8bits version of the main theme. Ok, you can force it by going 2 times to the credits page.

Hardware

• PC with core i5, GTX 970 replaced later by a GTX1060
• iMac 2011 (to make musics and video editing)
• Oculus Rift DK2 and CV1 and later Oculus touch
• Xbox 360 gamepad
• Xbox one gamepad
• Behringer UMC404HD (sound-card)
• T-Bone SC450 replaced later by T-bone SC600 (microphones)
• iiyama monitor Prolite B2783QSU
• Later : Oculus Go
• Router & NAS
• Internet

Software

• Unity
• Blender
• Paint.net
• Affinity Photo & Designer
• GarageBand
• OBS
• iMovie
• VLC
• MonoDevelop then Visual Studio
• FileZilla
• Brackets
• Textedit, notepad, wordpad

History

in the 90's, I used to make some demos and games on Amstrad CPC and Commodore Amiga. After that, I never did anything else around games for the next 15 years, just working and living in this cruel world.
2015, about November I guess, I started to try Unity recommended by Benjamin, a friend I did not see for also almost 15 years ! It appears that Unity was quit simple to use (simple at first sight), so I made a 3D game and released it on the Google Play Store for free. It was more an exercise for me, to see if I could survive all the process from scratch. First contact with 3D objects to me.
2015 Christmas (I guess) Adam, a friend of mine, was moving from his apartment and was not using is Oculus DK2 at the time he kickstarted for. He lent it to me. The craziness started here.

2016/01/19 ordered a "game PC" to enjoy this thing. Tried a lot of things (there were not much things at the time).
2016 long : Started more seriously to learn Unity. Then came the time to learn Blender to make my own 3D objects. Blender led me to some nervous breakdown. But I finally succeeded to handle it.

2017/03/28 on Oculus Store 28 only for Rift, with gamepad only. 3 worlds.
2018/06/17 on Steam for Rift only.
2018/07/11 on Steam with OpenVR to make it work on HTC vive, with gamepad only. After huge optimisations the game runs on the Go /GearVr
2019/01/30 on Oculus Store (free to try). With remote or gamepad. With the progression of VR technologies and progression of my knowledges, I made a lot of updates and optimisations then… -
2019/03/27 new release on Oculus RIFT, new version with IAP so the game is free to try, with gamepad or VR controllers
2019 long : a bunch of updates only accessible on Oculus Store (Rift & Go/GearVR)
2019/10/31 Steam Version updated to reflect all the updates of the Oculus Store versions, with gamepad or VR controllers.
Update are still arriving with optimisations, less bug and new features.
Check Twitter @AncederGame for latest infos

Making a game

Making a game needs a lot of skills, a lot of time and... a lot of tools (see the list somewhere on this page). You need time to make the game, yes, but also a lot of time watching tutorials, conferences, keynotes… There are a lot of other things to consider like making a website, screenshots, record videos, record sounds, manage financial information, get nuts with Oculus/Facebook/Steam support teams.

A big amount of time is of course needed to beta-test everything. As I regularly make updates with new features and optimisations, there are plenty of things to check.

Changing anything can break another thing you did not suspected. Example : sometime you change the shooting routine and discover that the Boss of World 1 does not shoot anymore ! So you search to find why…

Updating tools also break things. Each year Unity is updated with new features, I could stick to an old version but I prefer staying up to date, especially for the Mobile version which can benefit any optimisation of the tool itself.

And for Anceder, the work is doubled as there is a PC and an Android version.

Helping the developer

By chance I have a "real" job beside all of that, Anceder targets people who owns VR stuff and likes arcade games, this is not enough to cover all the costs. Why ?
- It is free to try (except on Steam at this moment), and the full game is less than 8$ in order to be accessible to the most.
- There is no marketing, I don't have the time & money.
- No social network promotion. Don't have time, and limited skills.
- There is no advertisement in the game.

There are many ways to help me keep updating or even make another shmup in the future :

With money :
- By, of course, buying the game.
- If you feel generous, you can donate via Paypal, that helps maintain hardware and sofware up to date. From the beginning and until now, I use my own money, so any help is truly appreciated.
With time :
- By publishing a review. Write something or publish a video, it truly helps & warms my little heart 💛. It is always a pleasure to know what people think of your work.
- By providing feedback : you found something wrong ? Something is annoying ? Could be better ? You have a surprising device on which you can test it ? Tell it !
- By becoming a beta-tester. Warning : this is not as fun as it sounds. You have to play the game each time an update is ready and hunt for bugs or errors. Yes you will see new features before everyone, and you have a better chance to get your idea inserted in the game (if doable).
With talent :
- You are a master of 3D objects ? Master of Unity ? C# ? Optimised shaders ?
- You can make nice low-poly things ? Nice Textures ?
- You make nice Artworks ?
- You are a Social network master ?
- You are a girl with a nice voice & microphone ? (I already do the male voices)
- You master perfectly a language not yet in Anceder ? (I mean with perfect grammar and spelling)

Make a Paypal donation

If your donation is equal or upper than 5€, I will send you a full game key. Don't forget to mention the store on which you want to use it (Oculus Store or Steam). This can be a way for you to try it on another device or enrol a friend to fight your worldwide scores. Please let me 24h to check emails.

Contact

Address:

France, Europe.

Twitter for news:

@AncederGame

E-mail:

cedric@anceder.com

CONTACT