Recent reviews by Tarkus1971

Well as I now have used this for 20 plus hours time for a review.

Firstly, this is what many, many people have been wanting for a very long time, it knocks the other "Shoot 'Em Up" game makers for six. Why? Simple, ease of use, powerful, you can see your ideas come to life within the editor and instantly, ultra smooth parallax scrolling, very, very fast bullet engine, importing assets is just a case of dragging your sprites, backgrounds etc, into the respective project folder, and as soon as you return to the editor it updates inside the "Game Box" ( the part of the editor that you choose your assets from )

Everything is changeable, bullet patterns, speed, scrolling, I could list them all, but do yourself a favour. If you have a shoot 'em up idea then just make the purchase, you will not regret it.

Oh yes, the devs are always speedy and updates are always just around the corner, to date there have been 5 updates.

I have been using for over 1 year now and have completed my first game. If it wasn't for SHMUP CREATOR this would never have been possible. Check it out here.

https://tarkus1971.itch.io/vektor-byte

If you don't have Shmup Creator yet but are in the market for a fast way to create your own shmup without any coding at all, give this a go, believe me you will not regret it.

Review Update 01:
I have now been using this a lot lately and so far everything is falling into place, all the different editors, particles, weapons, enemies are so well laid out and easy to use. This really is a NO CODE option for all Shoot 'em up creators, 1st class software. Bugs are being fixed, but the bugs are no mega bad anyways. Still no crashes here either. Buy, Buy, Buy.

Best purchase on Steam for a long long time.

Review Update 02:
Nearly 200 hours on this now and I have to say, it is still amazing. Updates are regular and not just bug fixes, new features, additions are being added. The devs are always helpful, and will respond to any queries and will engage with the user. Having a real blast, literally with this. Treat yourself even if you think you "might" want his, I'm sure you will be using it a helluva lot.

Review Update 03:
I have now over 300 hours on this. Firstly all that I said in my previous reviews is still true, but oh my has this software evolved. Now sound effects can have slight pitch variations, so when firing bullets or having explosions going off they can all have slight differences and that really is an awesome feature. Focus mode. This software just gets better and better, if your even just considering buying this, don't hesitate, just do it. The devs are always on hand to offer advice and bug fixes are getting much more rare now as the software is stable and almost bug free.

Great stuff.

Review Update 04:
Now over 500 hours on this now and SHMUP CREATOR just gets better and better. Level linking has been added, so you can link levels in any order, create stories, (I have even created a music player level, so you can listen to all the music in the game.) I now have 4 levels of my project complete, all this in a few weeks, it would of been impossible to achieve that in anything else. Some people say "It's expensive...." well for what you get it isn't at all, well supported (the devs are speedy to reply and too update), super smooth, easy to use, powerful, and NO CODE. Do yourself a favour if you have looked at this and thought "maybe I might get it", Make that purchase, you will not regret it.

Review Update 05:
Now at 676 hours and this software just improves and gets even more slick. Alter pitch for sound effects, Weapon duration now added, even for lasers and plasma. Hide huds for storyboard levels, even create music player screen so players can listen to the game music without playing the game, all do-able with a great set of triggers and events that can be queued up. Need a switch or two to destroy an enemy that is invincible, easy to do. If you don't have this yet and you thought about it, get it now, you won't regret it at all. The devs are constantly updating and engaging with users with is great.

Review Update 06:
Over 1000 hours in actual use and my project "VEKTOR BYTE" is at a stage where I can say it should be completed by May 2023 (I hope) SC still offer the best way to create a SHMUP game, and the updates and fixes are coming thick and fast. The level editor is a joy to use, and sound per waypoint of the enemies is such a unique feature and makes anything you create so much more immersive. Demo of my project here.

https://tarkus1971.itch.io/vektor-byte-level-3-demo

I have been using IFVN for a while now. It is like iFActions AVG mode with a few differences. The program is so far very stable and it's great to have IFVN as a standalone from iFAction if you only need to create Visual Novel / Adventure games.

The engine is quick and seems a lot smoother than the AVG mode in iFAction. The new dialog editor is a lot easier to use too, making it very quick to change the looks and position of the main screen text areas.

Font's can be changed, colours, background images for the text boxes, opacity etc, it's all there.

Logic can be used to determine story outcomes, using variables and conditions, all just click and go. The only typing you really need to do is for the story and dialogue.

No coding is required at all to create a professional looking Visual Novel. All you need to do is create your own assets, music, sound or purchase from the amazing in-built asset store. You can buy music, backgrounds and mods there to create your game.
This is one of the simplest and best thought out Visual Novel creators on steam and is well worth the price, the devs are always quick to respond to any bugs, or problems you might have when using it.

Can I recommend this, 100% yes. Buy it now.

REVIEW UPDATE 01:
The devs have just added some english tutorials on youtube. Check them out, they show the basic and some little more complex things too, I hope there will be more soon.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLI-0F63Y9FwWGyOznhmThBfvr15UfIUFE

Review Update 02:
So far the devs have been busy updating and hopefully soon there will an update released soon. I have been using IFVN a lot to create a visual novel, the program is stable, although there is an issue with slow down which occurs about 40-45 minutes after the program is 1st run, I hope there is a fix for this, it happens in iFAction too. The only workaround is to save what your doing and restart IFVN. No major crashes, the new dialog editor works like a dream and everything seems to be working very well. Fonts are working if you use .ttf and make sure other users have that font installed too. Looking forward to the updates when it arrives. If you need a high quality VN creator, then this is the one to go for.

REVIEW UPDATE 03:
There has been an update to IFVN and as far as I can see all the bugs mentioned by users have been squashed, the big one, the slowdown is fixed. IFVN is now fantastic to work in. Everything is so clear and the interface is well laid out and simple to use. Great work. All it needs now ( hint hint ) is a dark mode theme.

REVIEW UPDATE 04:
So far I have been using IFVN a lot recently, and yes the dialog box would benefit from and scrolling option but if you just make the dialog box a little bit bigger and play with the font style and size you can get a lot of descriptive text in there. The lag and slowdown is now cured. There is no slow down at all. All in all a great piece of software. Looking forward to what any next updates will bring.

REVIEW UPDATE 05:
Other people have reviewed this and said that some of the menus etc are not in English, I have found this not the case in my projects. I was told that when you open a new project, go to the "About" menu and select language and choose "English" that saves the language for your future projects too, but I always do this as a matter of course anyway. As for the devs being quiet, they are only a very, very small team. I hope there will be some more updates to IFVN soon and indeed IFaction too. Both are very solid programs and I have experienced no crashes to the desktop.

I purchased this recently and so far I am impressed in the program. There are only 3 english video tutorials on youtube, but they are pretty good, I hope there will be a few more soon. The different modes are ACT ( platform - shooter games ) ARPG ( RPG style games and adventure ) and AVG ( Visual Novel ) The later is OK but I think the devs are still adding more to it, It would be great to see a dedicated SHOOT EM UP mode to allow horizontal and vertical shoot em ups to be made, this might be possible in the ACT mode, I am not sure.

A true isometric mode would be very welcome also, to create games like the old ultimate classics Knightlore or Vortex game's "Highway Encounter"

The program is very stable and the menus and windows are clearly laid out.

Overall if you want to create any type of platform game, RPG or VN then this is the one to buy, the devs are still adding things and I can't wait for the next update. Also as a side note, I was interested in selling assets to the in built store system and so far the help I have got puts most big devs to shame. Well done to the devs on this, they are clearly wanting to create something very good here. Keep it up.

Never used any video editing software before, and this looked easy to use, and YES simple to use and yet very, very powerful. The suite has some things I have not used yet, audio and video converters, but I am sure they work great.

The video editor has a clean interface, fast to use, easy to add fades, transitions etc, and it renders the final video in a reasonable time, just over an hour for a 35 minute full HD .mp4 which contained a lot of fades and transitions and audio tracks.

I can recommend Movavi Video Suite 18 highly. Great program indeed. Nice work devs.

Fantastic, works with Foobar 2000 music player, and integrates really well with everything i have tried it with.

Really restores the real dynamics of the music.

I did have problems with this I have no idea why, but after a FULL re-format and re-install of Windows 10, it seems to work again....... I just hope it keeps working now, as this is an awesome audio enhancer.

Looks good, but unfortunately this DLC seems to be quite unstable, I am getting random crashes, on both my machines. 001 is great but this DLC, needs a little work work I feel.

Asking for refund.

Retro antiques, cool DLC full of really old antiques. Great detail and fully PBR. Amazing for the price.

If your project needs some medical gear, this pack is for you. Great textures, high detail and so many 1st rate assets. Buy Buy Buy.

What a great little DLC, lots of stuff here to build up the atmosphere in you project. Amazing detail in the PBR textures too. If you use GameGuru this is a must have.

Fantastic DLC, lots of great PBR textures. This will enable you to build some seriously massive underground areas for your GameGuru project. First class assets.