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RS34 announced their next game at last weekend's Mebius-hosted Fushigi na Game event in Shinbashi: Illvelo Swamp Happy Together, a new, easier-to-play and "happier" take on Illvelo Swamp that promises a streamlined game system (including the ability to switch between different doll types) and a shift to a straightforward stage-by-stage structure that should run the gamut from beginner-tailored stages to stages meant to challenge returning Swamp players, on top of difficulty and scoring tweaks. They're also adding a (non-frivolous) story mode due to fan demand, with character conversations between stages and in-game conditions that'll allow the player to adjust the difficulty.
(The title isn't supposed to suggest multiplayer, if that's your inference: I think they just wanted to abbreviate to "SHT', the lesser-seen JP acronym for "shooting game".)
The digital version will be sold as a standalone, and they're also doing a physical double-pack with Illvelo Swamp—that game was already double-packed with Radirgy Swag, and I would presume they're doing it again so they can bring the new double-pack overseas without one half of it being contractually anchored to a dead boutique publisher.
RS34 also shared some of the results from a survey they conducted in late 2022, which helped to determine the direction of both SHT and the upcoming Radirgy 2, out next month in Japan (rundown below):
The age range of the respondents—a certain CESA survey from 2016 apparently concluded that most STG players were in the 50~59 age bracket, so the dev's happy their results skew relatively young.
Two-thirds of respondents said they'd prefer a traditional, no-fuss arcade-stick-and-buttons-esque control scheme to Illvelo Swamp's twin-stick scheme; the dev felt content with a 33% hit rate.
This graph shows how the respondents first became familiar with RS34; ~70% of the respondents seem to have discovered them post-Milestone, which the dev feels is crucial. (I'm personally surprised Karous: The Beast of Re:Eden had such pull...)
On the respondents' desire for sequels: Karous was the winner, but requests for a brand-new game weren't that far behind, which has obviously buoyed the dev's desire to make something original. They also mention that Chaos Field is particularly popular overseas and was also a relatively high seller during the Milestone era... whether that will translate into anything substantial, given that the lineage of that game is somewhat separate to all the games that came after, and RS34's antipathy towards doing anything directly with older Milestone stuff in general, is still up in the air. (It also seems way out of their current budget.)
The most-requested new features for Illvelo Swamp included new stages/bosses and an original story, hence the direction of SHT. (Only one vote for an EN option... thx for your service, @mojilove)
Respondents' favourite elements of Illvelo Swamp included the comfortable controls, difficulty sweet spot, music and setting; seeing 50+% approval for controls was enough to convince the dev to continue pursuing the twin-stick direction with Radirgy 2.
