shmups.system11.org

I know this is something not many gamers would really discuss unless you're talking about shmup strategy, but I'm just wondering about what makes a decent and effective enemy battle pattern, by that I mean, what makes "Popcorn" type enemies and the like still manage to be a threat in some ways, in terms of avoiding the ship's shots, overall effectiveness in attack.

For example: In Gradius V the Orb-like enemies start out by simply flying in straight lines, but then later on begin to loop around and attack by trying to kamikaze crash into the ship, either that or use suicide bullets upon destruction. In some cases it's very difficult to hit all the enemies in those formations, but at the same time, they manage to attack you in such a way that you have to figure out their pattern in order to avoid getting shot down.

Dealing with Enemies in Tight quarters where there isn't much moving room is also something that I'm considering, how to make it so the enemy can be attacked, yet make it so that you'd have to risk the integrity of the ship to do so just for the extra points to your score.

Not to mention effective bullet patterns that can be considered "challenging yet possible"

Of course this not only needs to apply to the "popcorn" types but the other enemies as well and boss movement patterns as well that make for something that can either be defeated in some fashion without being destroyed and also room for plenty of possible points for the player to get "destroyed"

Just something I've been thinking about during Shmup game development.

If you are interested in mechanics you should try siroi danmakuken or what's it called- for the PC. A shmup without goals basically, but with many bullet patterns from different games. Hibitayoke is a similar game, one where mushihimesama-patterns can be found!

how popcorn enemies can be challenging is not a question of algorithm, but of level design. Meaning, you can´t just find a formula for it, but have to experiment a lot with different formations in different order and speed to find out which works best. Expect this process to take up most of your time when developing a shmup.

Almost all bullet patterns are possible to dodge (depending on your hitzone), the question you have to concern yourself with is how challenging you want the game to be at what point and how to achieve that. To judge a pattern´s difficulty, it helps to visualize how much the player has to move to dodge it. For example, any classic 3-way or 5-way shot can be dodged with one motion, even if it is fired in very small intervals. But depending on the angle between shots, if you take a 2nd pattern of the same type doing a crossfire, you can induce quite a bit of hectic already. The trick to make the game interesting is placing baits to make the player take more risks than necessary. That´s why score systems that reward coming close to enemies or grazing bullets have become popular, but a good level design can do so much more than a simple score algorithm.
Bottom line is: there is no way around extensive playtesting if you want your game to be good.