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WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM A SHMUP
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ShortStar
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CloseI've been injured a few weeks and I've done nothing but play R-Type and Gradius. Now that I'm able to move around again I made my own ShMUP engine in about 3 hours. I've made other ShMUPZ in my life, but I think this is the shockingly best. So I was thinking about making it into a full game.
What do you like about ShMUPZ? Crazy challenge requiring pin point accuracy or cool and fun weapons or anything else?
What do you like about ShMUPZ? Crazy challenge requiring pin point accuracy or cool and fun weapons or anything else?
Avee
5794
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.
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.
Biggamefreak
1799
Oh. I love those games. My favorite Shoot em up series is the Touhou series. I gues I'll take about my favorite Shoot em Up series, the Konami Shoot em ups and then one game I did not like.
Touhou
Each character has a personality, a power and a music theme for each character. The bullets fly in amazing patterns and the different attacks match the character's theme. Each game has a central theme, a neat structure by each location and boss. There is interesting progression in reaching your final destination in each game.
The game's theme can can transferred to different genres and work gracefully. The games are still crazy, and bullets fly everywhere. The dialogue is enigmatic and fun. Most of the elements of the game are rooted from mythology or everyday objects that fit the personalities of the characters. The girls are cute too. Explore a beautiful world, but everyone in the world are insane.
Konami Shoot em ups (Lifeforce, Stinger, Gradius, Parodius, Sexy Parodius)- Some levels are slow and some are fast. Getting the new power ups are always fun and useful. The space theme is cool. My ship and the enemies are clear and crisp. The powers are useful in different scenarios. (I usually stick with the laser,) and I get to travel in different environments. Choosing which powerups to use can be as important as my flying abilities. Also there are not many other games where one can say, "I shot an Tanuki's nether regions to exploit a weakness."
Castle of Shikigami- The game can be too easy or too hard. The size of a playable character was a rectangle (too big) The dialogue was bland and felt like place-holder dialogue."I was the 4th stage boss in the last game!" The themes were stereotypical and has long and drawn out dialogue. Dialogue between the stages slowed down the game. (Touhou is quick in progressing dialouge, but since the dialogue is always fun, I would gladly listen to more)
I'm sorry that my transitions are bad. I decided to let my love for Shoot em ups spill on to this post.
Touhou
Each character has a personality, a power and a music theme for each character. The bullets fly in amazing patterns and the different attacks match the character's theme. Each game has a central theme, a neat structure by each location and boss. There is interesting progression in reaching your final destination in each game.
The game's theme can can transferred to different genres and work gracefully. The games are still crazy, and bullets fly everywhere. The dialogue is enigmatic and fun. Most of the elements of the game are rooted from mythology or everyday objects that fit the personalities of the characters. The girls are cute too. Explore a beautiful world, but everyone in the world are insane.
Konami Shoot em ups (Lifeforce, Stinger, Gradius, Parodius, Sexy Parodius)- Some levels are slow and some are fast. Getting the new power ups are always fun and useful. The space theme is cool. My ship and the enemies are clear and crisp. The powers are useful in different scenarios. (I usually stick with the laser,) and I get to travel in different environments. Choosing which powerups to use can be as important as my flying abilities. Also there are not many other games where one can say, "I shot an Tanuki's nether regions to exploit a weakness."
Castle of Shikigami- The game can be too easy or too hard. The size of a playable character was a rectangle (too big) The dialogue was bland and felt like place-holder dialogue."I was the 4th stage boss in the last game!" The themes were stereotypical and has long and drawn out dialogue. Dialogue between the stages slowed down the game. (Touhou is quick in progressing dialouge, but since the dialogue is always fun, I would gladly listen to more)
I'm sorry that my transitions are bad. I decided to let my love for Shoot em ups spill on to this post.
I implamented a HP system. Your ship takes damage based on how big the object was that hit you. So if you get hit by a pebble it does 5 damage and if you get hit by a boulder it does 80 damage and your ship has 100 HP. I guess to really amp up the RPG there could be levels and attributes and gunpower vs defense. Oh and poison too. I've also got 2 levels of a charge shot. It is rougher than R-Type's charge shot.
About consumables, I was thinking about a Gradius system annnnnndddd.... something where you collect items as they fly by and use a key to use them and another key to cycle through them. Like you can have antidote / screen destroyer / temporary speed boost / temporary immunity and then cycle through and use the one you want.
If I had any kind of plot or characters they would appear in the first section of a level. Like the easy part of the level so you could hear yammering without it being distracting, such as when Gradius has the start of the level there are brief waves of enemies instead of all out chaos.
Difficulties would mean bullets, but that's a bridge I'll cross when I get to it. Perhaps difficulty could come in the way of fuel and ammo. Sure you are awesome and great at killing things, but now you need to get your fuel and ammo without shooting it. Easy wouldn't have fuel or ammo or it would deplete less than on hard. Medium wouldn't have destructable fuel and ammo pickups but hard would leave you out of luck... or I'd just make a toggle in the preferences :-)
About consumables, I was thinking about a Gradius system annnnnndddd.... something where you collect items as they fly by and use a key to use them and another key to cycle through them. Like you can have antidote / screen destroyer / temporary speed boost / temporary immunity and then cycle through and use the one you want.
If I had any kind of plot or characters they would appear in the first section of a level. Like the easy part of the level so you could hear yammering without it being distracting, such as when Gradius has the start of the level there are brief waves of enemies instead of all out chaos.
Difficulties would mean bullets, but that's a bridge I'll cross when I get to it. Perhaps difficulty could come in the way of fuel and ammo. Sure you are awesome and great at killing things, but now you need to get your fuel and ammo without shooting it. Easy wouldn't have fuel or ammo or it would deplete less than on hard. Medium wouldn't have destructable fuel and ammo pickups but hard would leave you out of luck... or I'd just make a toggle in the preferences :-)
WonderPup
50
I liked how you could change your ship's speed in Phalanx. That was very useful depending on how many bullets you had coming in or how treacherous the area was to navigate obstacle-wise.
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.
You know, I have always wanted to play a shmup with a rich background story with exciting progression. I'm sure it already exists, but of the many I've played I haven't really seen it.
Plus, sequels rock.
Plus, sequels rock.
Avee
5794
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'd hope the invincibility would be there if it places you right at the moment of impact. I just quickly implamented a 1 second invincibility upon impact of anything. That might change. I was thinking about making preferences so you can chose 1 hit deaths or use HP.
I also made walls that randomly come at you and you need to shoot through them. So far all of the enemy 'blocks' that fly your way are randomly generated and their speed and size are random as well.
As for gripping characters and story... Star Fox.
I also made walls that randomly come at you and you need to shoot through them. So far all of the enemy 'blocks' that fly your way are randomly generated and their speed and size are random as well.
As for gripping characters and story... Star Fox.
hima
4237
I love shmup with a good scoring system. By good scoring system, I mean the following
- High risk high gain
- If my score is low, I know where I can improve or what did I do wrong
- No, or very few, luck involve
I don't like memorization-based scoring system like Dodonpachi though. All combo-system games are pretty much pretty boring to me, since it's too much memorization.
Some good example of scoring system that I enjoy are Death Smiles, ESPGaluda2, Homura, Twilight Refrain, Samidare, etc.
- High risk high gain
- If my score is low, I know where I can improve or what did I do wrong
- No, or very few, luck involve
I don't like memorization-based scoring system like Dodonpachi though. All combo-system games are pretty much pretty boring to me, since it's too much memorization.
Some good example of scoring system that I enjoy are Death Smiles, ESPGaluda2, Homura, Twilight Refrain, Samidare, etc.
So far mine has skill... random flying enemies of random sizes of random placement of random speeds. So the scoring system turns into (100 - enemy.size) * enemy.speed * (player._x - enemy._x) * (100 - bullet.size) So smaller enemies get more points, faster enemies get more points, further the range gets more points, smaller your bullets are get more points. Then there is another multiplier if you kill more than 1 enemy with 1 bullet. So if a normal bullet lances 2 enemies it means more points than a super charged bullet lancing 10 enemies.
Fun weapons! Weapon choices! Options!
If you have a story, it should be told in short, skippable cutscenes.
If you have a story, it should be told in short, skippable cutscenes.
Overload
0
Not dying in one hit. Something like in Lords of Thunder, or UN Squadron. Did anyone mention upgrading your ship?
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