Warning Forever is a Windows-only, downloadable 2D shooter written by Hikoza Ohkubo of Hikware software. You pilot a tiny green ship with a single versatile weapon and must face off against a constant stream of bosses. No stages, no obstacles, no power-ups, just epic fights with massive enemy ships. And the surprising thing is they learn from your patterns and fight back. Yikes.
The graphically sparse top-down shooter is easy to pick up and play. You have only one weapon and don't have to be concerned with different enemies, items or other distractions. It's just you and the boss. You can control the spread and direction of your gun with a simple button press which allows you to move about the screen and keep your guns pointed at the baddie.
Rather than learning a boss' pattern and eventually circumventing it, the bosses learn your patterns and try to conquer you. It isn't as apparent in the beginning of the game, but several battles in you'll notice they seem a little too smart for their (or your) own good. In order to prevail you have to switch your strategy and learn your own habits. For example, if you defeat a boss by destroying the sides first, the next boss will have better armor on the sides. If a certain boss weapon seems to destroy your ship more often, future enemies will have more of them and use them more often. Before each battle an info screen pops up with some general info about each boss. Look it over, check out the boss ship's construction, then start hacking away.
The default mode of play in Warning Forever starts at 180 seconds and slowly counts down. Each time your ship is destroyed you lose 20 seconds. For every boss you defeat, you gain 30 seconds. When the time reaches zero, it's game over. This is the most balanced mode and should be the one you start out with to get a feel for the game. Other modes include sudden death, a linear timed mode, and a more traditional three lives mode.
Analysis: The idea of bosses evolving to combat your tactics is kind of scary. It really shifts your attention away from the game's design and onto your strategies. You won't notice anything until seven or eight bosses into the game, but then the difficulty ramps up and you can tell a marked difference in how the bosses are constructed. It's a subtle nod to player-centric video gaming that Will Wright must approve of.
The rest of the game has a minimalistic look and feel to it, a stripped-down shooter of sorts. I like the idea of no power-ups or hundreds of swarming enemies. Less frantic button smashing, more thoughtful planning and analysis. It's almost puzzle-like, but you're still dodging bullets and avoiding laser beams.
Warning Forever is available as a free download for Windows-based PCs. Click, and enjoy.
I thought I didnt like these sort of games, but I've changed I guess :)
It reminds me of some other kind-of-space-shooters from a short while back, they were nice too.
This is a similiar game in the sense that you face off against a string of changing bosses.
Indeed, that whole site is full of great 2D shooters, particularly Tumiki Fighters.
This sounds very cool even though I'll probably dislike losing to the powered up opponents. Does the game have any ability to develop counter-strategies (like, different movement or shooting patterns to counteract player movement and shooting patterns), or is it all based on the attributes (shielding/types of weapons/power of weapons)? If it's only the latter, it will still probably be fun, but if there's enough of the former too I will love it dearly. Now if only someone would make a first-person shooter like this....
The game is really smart, the bosses are so flexible.
the aiming, however, is terrible.
Ahhhhhh..... It's a great idea, it's just frustrating to execute.
I really liked this game. The best way to play, in my opinion, is to play through until you lose then watch a friend start a new game and do the same. The differences in stategy and the game's reaction is really obvious when you can compare two fights.
The boss weapons are explosive enough to keep you interested and the simplicity of your weapons really makes you think. Great game JohnB.
I really liked this game
But I really think that the only thing the computer learned from me that if you shoot alot of lazers
I die
I now recant my earlier statment about the aiming.
Also, this game was pathetically easy to hack, so much so that I'd have to call it open source. It's really easy to give yourself both infinite lives and time.
But after trying it, I gotta tell ya... it's a lot less fun. After level 20 all the bosses are pretty much all the same.
So I'm not going to post a how-to. Have fun trying, though.
I remember this game! It really is almost entirely based on what side of the boss you attack -- and if you get good at using the aimy thing on your laser that side becomes pretty much arbitrary, so it'll just end up with a random one and then that'n will grow the most because it's a bigger target and you're attacking it more of the time.
There's a thing on the website labelled "the evolution flow" that shows all the different possible later forms for the boss to take. I only ever got a rough idea of what the different symbols on it meant. Does anyone know? And can anyone tell me how to successfully get it to turn into the Ise-One?
Fun game. On the basic game settings (180 seconds to start with, +30 seconds after each level), I tend to get to level 11 or 12 before running out of time. The bosses get so huge and hard to dodge since they'll start rotating and trapping you against the edges. Either the Phoenix or Double Asura usually end up finishing me off.
Something I didn't realize at the beginning was that on the long, skinny wings, you can focus fire near the base of it to take out the whole wing at once. The wider firing arc also seems to be decent at disarming the turrets and cannons.
Usually when I find downloadable games, they do not run on my machine smoothly, whatsoever. However, this ran almost too well (it was so fast that often the bosses outmaneuvered me before I got my bearings).
It's a great game, lots of fun to see how far you can get and how the bosses evolve. Plus, destroying them is definitely gratifying!
Nice find with that "evolutionary flow" chart, SquashMonster.
I've gotten both the Apocylipse and Infinity models, But how do you attack the Pure-Heart so that it forms defense (Hammer-Head and Big Magnum)? I can only get it to make more attack appendages.
Fun, smooth game and worth the dled if you like this genre. :D I like the fact that you can break the ships down in seconds by destroying the 'joints'. With their were more weapons :P
I found the aiming frustrating at times, and you end up being destroyed by some stray shot that you cant see because of your own shower of shot. Little stuff.
As the game progressed, the front of the ship grew so long that it reached the end of the screen, and I couldn't get on the other side without going up and around.
I had seen this game earlier, but I have forgetten where. Thanks for getting me addicted to this game again :)
fctd
You need to be using the alternate weapon (hit the D key). This lets you fire from any angle. Then the way the boss grows is under your control: by concentrating your fire you can make it grow long or wide, or try and keep it even.
Things that have an effect:
- which side you fire at
- whether you pick off parts from the edges, or go for the inner part to blow whole limbs at once (more points this way)
- whether you knock weapons off first or go for the part it's attached to.
For the biggest points, you want to destroy the core while it has as many extra bits attached to it as possible. But that's difficult because the boss's offensive power is in those bits.
See if you can see all the evolutionary forms.
If you fancy posting your Warning Forever hiscores on the Web, I've got an easy way to do it: http://www.ladle.demon.co.uk/misc/wf.html
My scores are OK, but you otaku can do better I'm sure.
Mine doesn't spend too much on defense, which is quite interesting. Perhaps I'm not accurate enough. It does, however, build vertically because I spent a lot of time in the earlier levels shooting up; it wants to move me out of my usual hiding space and force me to shoot sideways!
Wide arcs are also good at dispatching missiles.
After playing this, I have to say that it is indeed quite good. My bosses also tend to build vertically, which is annoying because aiming is a bit of a pain (even though it's very, very handy the way it's set up) and so makes it hard to deal with needing to change my angle (since I like being able to shoot and move more than simply move).
Tons of fun! Games like this (and believe it or not, plasma pong) make me miss the early days of video gaming.
I didn't use the alternate weapon much until the ships started getting so long I had to move to a side and fire from there. Figuring out the rotating seemed a little odd to me. Can't you turn without actually moving your ship?
Also, how do you adjust the focus/spread of your fire?
You control the spread of your fire by moving as well. Forwards (the direction you're currently aiming) increases the spread, and backwards (away from where you are aiming) decreases it. Beware, though, as if you move too far forward, your aim will reverse direction (though this can be useful when/if the bosses start motoring towards you).
There does not seem to be a way to turn the aim without moving, which is an understandably annoying state of affairs. At least you can keep the angle and spread while you're shooting and moving.
I've tried this game a long time ago, but don't remember ever getting that far. Now thanks to you reminding me about it, I've wasted the whole day doing nothing but playing WF. :p
Okay. I give up. I feel Greedy not telling this to anyone... I'm sure a lot of you have figured this out but here ya go:
Getting Both Infinite Lives AND Time:
1. Go to the folder that you installed WF into.
2. Find the file named "wf.ini" (no quotes).
3. Then right click on it and choose "open with," and then choose notepad from the window that comes up.
4. Find the entry that says "CustomStartTimer=" and change the number there to a zero (if it's already a zero, leave it).
5. Find the entry that says "CustomStartPlayer=" and change that value to 1000.
6. Save the file and then close it.
That's all you have to do. Just start the program and you'll have enough lives that it's almost impossable to run out, and the timer will count upwards, not down.
Have fun =)
Thanks DerekW. After 300 lives and 65 levels the AI is used exclusively to make up new names and to shoot you in the face with purple stuff :\
Has anybody figure out how to trigger the different evolutions?
For example:
If you attack the front first you usually get the pointy front bosses(muramasa, pheonix, berserker). The attributes matrix usually leans heavily towards the front.
I have tried attacking the back first for the first few stages and was able to get scorpion (pointy rear).
Does anybody know what kind of strategy triggers the wings or the domes? The domes seem to spawn if you can get the boss to priorities defense. I have yet to figure out what strategy triggers that though.
My bosses also tends to priorities search, but have weak cores and generators. I have no idea how those a triggered and the effects they have on the evolution.
I've figured out all the ways to get the different intermediate mutations including Ise-one.
The mutations all depend on the first 5 or 6 levels.
For the front and back extentions, attack the front and back appendage points at the start of each level to trigger the later bosses to extend these points. These bosses have the attacker moniker.
For wing extentions, hit the side appendage points at the start of a level to get those to extend. These bosses have the wider moniker
You must avoid hitting what you do not intend to grow at the start of a level. You can always come back and clean it up later.
For the evolution of armour parts (round extentions in the evolution map), you must get the boss to improve the defense attribute within the first 5 levels. To do that you have to attack its weapons really really close. By close I mean the flames of the muzzle of you ship should be touching his guns. Eventually you'll get a boss called "The Armour". This boss you can get to evolve to either Berserker, Hekatoncheir, Big Magnum, or Hammer Head, dependent on where you attack the rest of its parts.
At about lvl 8 or 9, these armoured bosses will start spinning as one of its tactics, which can be quite fun to fight.
Now, to get the Ise-one, you must continue the in-close fighting on the Armour boss. If you're able to take out most of his weapons using in-close fighting the next boss that spawns will be "Double Armour". It is possible to get this at level 4 but you can also get it at level 5. After that, bosses with the moniker "attacker" or "wider" should come up and close off the Ise-one evolution path.
I usually get Ise-one at around level 11 or 12. This boss spins noticably faster than the other armour bosses. Try to burrow right to the core and then fire against the direction of the spin to take out each quadrant at a time.
Other tips:
There are some body parts that fire like the core if you take out the weapon that is on it or if it is a part of a larger appendage. Finish these off first if you don't want a mess on the screen.
So, after playing this during work for a good while, I notice I keep getting the phoenix, or variations there of. And I think the phoenix has a high front and rear, but my search gets quite high as well.
Does anyone know how to get the defence up or the core or the generator? those seem to be hard for me to get up...
I'm not sure about defense, but it seems like finishing off the bosses quick and without dying increases it.
Actually, to modify all game variables, use the up arrow at game start to get to options, then move down to the game type settings. Here you can set when you get extra players, countdown or untimed, how many lives, etc. You can also add your own background music too.
Hah, I submitted this one :D. I've had it for like, 2 years and forgot about it...
Diary of a fighter pilot:
When I started I met a ship named the Giga-Beamed Hammerhead Hell.
It went downhill from there.
The only "ultimate" form I've been able to reach is the Ise-One, while doing five minutes attack. I used five minutes because it requires nigh-kamikaze tactics to get the armor plating required. Then I found out that the ultimate forms STILL don't finish the game when I met the ise-one with penta-forces.
In any other evolution path, I simply don't have enough time, and no matter what path I take, the bosses just carpet the screen in ammo and it becomes impossible to dodge. If I regain 30 seconds per battle but it takes 40 seconds to defeat a boss, plus death penalties, it seems that it's impossible to get enough time to play 25 levels or so. So, any tips from the pros?
I only have reached to the 13th, it's a fantastic and very addictive game, and games only last 5-8 minutes.
The aiming system is a little difficult to master, but once you have done it, all is easier.
Highly recommended.
What is with all of thw Windows-only games as of late? Bah!!
I got to 12, all i found at that point was phoenix and asura, tho i did find one with yellow armor. It gets to the point where I give my entire focus to dodging fire. It helps if I never, ever get hit by the blue cannons.
Oh, and "force" is the ship's moving, and ramming.
Does anyone know what it means when it starts glowing yellow? I was fighting one of the Infinity variants with a pointy thing out in front. The pointy part (just the tip) started glowing yellow. Any idea why?
no,
but i wanna know, too.
ignore my last post,
the glowing parts are temporarly invinceble.
Argh, I just can't seem to get Ohkubo's games working! When I run Warning Forever, an error box pops up and says: Direct Draw 7 then a bunch of nonsense! I have directx 9, so the direct draw SHOULDN'T be a problem, suggestions anyone?
this game isnt too hard if you realize that you can kill the boss in the same way every time, regardless of how big it is or what type it is
the main joints (about 4-6 of them regardless of how big the ship is) are ur targets, destroy them to take out the ship quickly, once you blow off a large piece of it, thats now a safe spot because of less fire on you, so use that spot to take out other joints
keep in mind, this sucks out the fun of the game, cause it gets extremely repetitive, especially if the ship rotates in such a way that screms "shoot my joints in a spot where i cant hit you"
that way requires little skill to get scores of 40 million and above with 999 seconds
I wonder if this game has an actual END? Like, (and this is the only thing i hate about it) whatever I do, wherever I attack from, that darned infinity comes out! But, my point is, if I manage to defeat its hundred variations, what happens?
i still cant figure out how to get bgm....
bgm is by getting a .wav file, putting it in the folder, and renaming it bgm.wav. all there is to it
*oh, and this game NEVER ends. NEVER. once you hit the highest evolutions, they'll just add more weapons that hit you. =(
Here's how to get the Pure Heart's forms.
First, you need to understand how to grow parts.
To get Wide, you need to get horizontal extensions.
To get Attack, you need vertical extensions.
To get Armor, you need to attack the guns in close combat.
Now the parts that will be created:
Wide top = Wings
Wide bottom = Arms
Attack top = Buster
Attack bottom = Striker
Armor top = Tornado
Armor bottom = Defender
Now the evolution flow.
Pure Heart = The first ship, and the base and foundation of the rest of the ships.
Intial forms:
W=Wide, A=Attack, M=Armor
Pure Heart + Top part + Bottom part
PH+W+W=Double Wider
PH+W+A=Wide Attacker
PH+W+M=Wide Armor
PH+A+W=Attack Wider
PH+A+A=Double Armor
PH+A+M=Attack Armor
PH+M+W=Armored Wider
PH+M+A=Armored Attacker
PH+M+M=Double Armor
Evolution 1 forms
Double Wider > Wing Arms
Wide Attacker > Wing Striker
Wide Armor > Wing Defender
Attack Wider > Buster Arms
Double Attacker > Buster Striker
Attack Armor > Buster Defender
Armored Wider > Tornado Arms
Armored Attacker > Tornado Striker
Double Armor > Tornado Defender
Evolution 2 forms
Wing Arms > Asura
Wing Striker > Pheonix
Wing Defender > Hammerhead
Buster Arms > Scorpion
Buster Striker > Muramasa
Buster Defender > Big Magnum
Tornado Arms > Hekatoncheir
Tornado Striker > Berserker
Tornado Defender > ISE-ONE*
Evolution 3 forms
Asura, Pheonix, Scorpion, Muramasa > Infinity
Hammerhead, Big Magnum > Catastrophe
Hekatoncheir, Berserker > Armageddon
*ISE-ONE no longer evolves into a third form.
"The boss is your top student. He learns from your lessons, and makes better of them. The only solution: live with it. It is also your pokemon that evolves on how you train it."
GOOD LUCK.
:( no mac version?
I wanted to like this game. I honestley did. But my hopes were crushed by the atrocious aiming. It doesn't work AT ALL. It would have been SO much better had there been even just the option of doing it with the mouse, but nope.
Heya! Heard about this game forever ago, but finally tried it. I totally LOVE IT! Can't say much more than what's already been said, but I have a question. Does anybody know what this is written in?
Another thing that is not mentioned here, the player gets a higher score if they destroy the boss when it still has a large number of sections left. Not only does this give the player higher score, it stops the next boss being expanded in all directions.
It sounded like an awesome game. But I played through it twice, and it seemed to evolve randomly, nothing to do with how I played against it.
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