AVEE'S PROFILE

Well I'm a Capricorn although its description barely fits me. I think I also am a Pisces Rising, which is one of the signs I fit the least. So, meh.

I know I'm a Tiger in Chinese astrology but I don't know about all of its signs' descriptions.

Bloodletting and lobotomy were also of common practice in medicine not too long ago :)

Point is: progress was made.

author=narcodis
A game called Life Force for the NES made sure that when you died, you respawned instantly in the same spot, instead of having to go back to a check point. This is the best way to handle dying in a shmup.

They provided a few seconds of phasing invincibility, I hope? (otherwise you'd get trapped in a death spot :P

I think the Gradius/Nemesis series pretty much nailed the genre gameplay-wise compared to other successful titles.

I believe a few choices regarding the graphical design in Shmups are essential to ensure a positive experience and avoid frustration, cheap deaths, etc.:

1: A wide range of sight and relatively small sprites to maximize quick assessment of situations and reaction time. And pixel movement, of course.

2: Low intensity light effects and limited amount of special effects on screen at a time (i.e. explosions, light barriers, glowing projectiles). This helps noticing what are the damaging objects around your ship and how close/far they are. Otherwise they might blend in with the other special effects or background images.

3: Deadly terrains, screen borders or objects must clearly stand out from the non-damaging background images. The formers should be lighter and look tangible, while the backgrounds should be darker and less detailed.

Regarding the gameplay, I'd like for the player to have control, even if a little, over the appearance and choice of power-ups. Using random chances of appearance or location-predetermined ones aren't the most interesting options.

Players should be able to control their ship's speed often, if not always. Challenges should also sometimes require higher speed, sometimes lower speed to overcome.

Likewise, everything that the player can do should be the best way to overcome a challenge at a certain point (this is true for all games that include Action elements). Even the first level of the weak normal cannon should have its advantages sometime.

Leave out all that is useless. If we don't get some kind of reward for score points, don't include score points.

Personally I'd like to see some innovation in Shmups, and that would be with the addition of RPG elements. Levels, stats, attributes, consumables, cool-downs, etc.
Although it was a horrible game with lots of design flaws, Sigma Star Saga for the GBA had Shmup sections with upgradable ships and attacks. You could take a look at it for inspiration.

R-Type Final also had a wide selection of ships. Of course all of them should have special qualities that make them unique and useful.

Please include some kind of plot, story progression, character development and the likes too, but in limited amounts to avoid having the action drop to zero at any point.

Interactive terrain is nice and breaks the monotony of avoid/shoot enemies (smash rock walls, fly underwater, deactivate electric barriers, etc.)

Difficulty settings are always welcomed too. Differences should be obvious in amount, speed and attack rate of enemies.

Automatic shooting is mandatory. Nobody wants to mash buttons.
The controls should also be limited: the arrow keys to move, one key to shoot, another one to control powerups and a third one to pause the game. Maybe a fourth one for other uses, but more than that would already be too much.

Anyway, I usually really enjoy Shmups but at the same time am very critical about them. The above suggestions are all personal preferences.

What were your sources for this? I'd like to learn more by myself.