Zero Base

Zero Base is a 2D horizontal shooter created in RPG Maker 2003 (!) for RMN's 2011 Valedictory Game Drive. The contest's theme was 'Rad Dogs." The game was the first place winner of the contest.

The game is a affectionate throwback/send-up of the 2D shooters of the 80's and 90's, with the introductory sequence reminiscent of the infamous opening of Zero Wing, and most of the game's graphics being rips from Gradius. You play the role of intergalactic space ace RAD DOG, who must destroy the MAD CATS before they take over all of the COOL MUTTS' bases. Aside from this very loose premise, the game otherwise has no story or cutscenes. But that's okay. If you're playing a 2D shooter you're probably only here to shoot things anyway.



Perhaps the most noteworthy and impressive thing about this game is that it exists at all. RPG Maker 2003 is notoriously difficult to re-purpose, with it's lack of scripting support and restrictive grid-based movement. Somehow ,the game's creator, Kazesui, managed to bypass these restrictions entirely to create a fully-functional shooter. This isn't some cobbled-together mess either, everything acts and behaves exactly as you'd expect a good shooter to work. The control is fluent and very responsive, enemy projectiles track your position extremely accurately, there's a score feature, and the game is even nice enough to let you hold down the 'fire' key to rapid fire! Wow!

The game is played as most 2D shooters would. You'll fly progressively to the right and gun down bad guys as you go. You'll dodge projectiles, obstacles, and take on a boss at the end of each of the game's three stages. Destroying enemies will net you power-ups to upgrade your ship. Firing at a power-up will change it's color, and each color corresponds to a different type of weapon, with varying strength, spread, and rate of fire. Collecting multiple power-ups of the same color will increase your weapon power further. Red has the highest damage, green the most coverage, yellow can be fired most rapdily, and blue is a good balance of all three. You may also pick up purple power-ups to increase your ship's speed.

That covers most of the basics. The rest of the game is just learning. Figuring out enemy behavior, which weapons work best in what situations, and how to evade enemy fire in even the most frantic of circumstances just might be enough to see you through this game.

But goddamn is it hard.

Like the games it draws from, Zero Base is vicious and will punish you for even the smallest mistake. Take one hit and you lose a life, and extra lives are very rare. Levels do have checkpoints, but losing a life will generally send you back a considerable distance. What's worse, dying will takes away all your power-ups! Being stuck in the middle of a level with no power-ups is miserable. Fortunately, the game does have some heart- there is a save feature which saves your progress between levels and will even let you select which stage to play. when I died I generally found myself just reloading to get my weapons back than try to get through a level with the default gun.

Now, even though I say the game is hard, I don't necessarily mean that as a fault. It's unforgiving, but the game is actually very fair, and if you play well, you'll prosper. If you die in this game it will always be your own fault. Some segments do require a bit of rote memorization to really succeed, and all require a lot of patience. The bosses, on the other hand, aren't too hard with some practice (if you have the right weapons). But the game is otherwise satisfying to play. It's fun killing things, the graphics and sound effects are great and add to the immersion, and while the game can be frustrating I generally found it to be frustrating in a good way, not a tear-my-hair-out way. I certainly wouldn't have finished this game if I didn't enjoy it. (And yes, I did complete the entire game. Here's a screenshot to prove I made it to level three.)



As a perk of cribbing liberally from 80's game design, Zero Base also features something that has been lost to the mists of time for decades; the cheat code. You can enter a code during play to give yourself extra lives or random weapon upgrades. While a cute feature, I found entering the code during a frantic shooter level to be nearly impossible to do without dying, so the codes exist more as a curiosity than a real gameplay crutch.

So all in all, Zero Base is a very solid game. It's certainly an ambitious one, and I was surprised at how effective the resulting game was. It does everything you'd expect a good shooter to do (including kill you, a lot) and the save feature ensures you'll actually get to play more of the game than the first level, over and over. Give this game a try if you like shooters or are the type to marvel over how someone managed to make something like this in such a backwards engine.