trap15 Shooting Game Tournament '15 (TRP-STGT 2015)

[rjdunlap]

If you guys want to include Shmadow in the tournament I'd be more then happy to provide keys for you guys to compete with it.

[Ikazu-san]

If you guys want to include Shmadow in the tournament I'd be more then happy to provide keys for you guys to compete with it.

Ayyyyyy.
No.

[1up]

those are some long games

8 stages 2 loops = psikyo?
one of those also smell like a konami shooter

[trap15]

All teams and free agents have been assigned. Mission commences in T-1h15m!!

[trap15]

Oh also I lied about week 1 hahaha... 6 stages, 2 loops.

[EmperorIng]

You just want to keep us guessing.

Guess: Daioh Week with a Vengeance

[trap15]

WEEK 1 HAS BEGUN


Sand Scorpion

[trap15]

For those of you looking for a version of MAME with rapid fire and other goodies, check out MAME Plus, which is what I consider to be the end-all be-all version of MAME.

You can get it here: http://www.progettosnaps.net/mameplus/

[trap15]

WEEK 2 HAS BEGUN


DoDonPachi II: Bee Storm

[Krimzon Kitzune]

Got busy with stuff and couldn't submit a score for Sand Scorpion. Does that disqualify me?

[Shepardus]

Unlikely to happen this week, but say we get the technical bonus but that isn't our PB in terms of stage. Can we submit both scores so one counts for the tech bonus and the other counts for the actual stage-score ranking?

[trap15]

@Rushing Beat, go ahead, it'd be ultra retarded for that to disqualify people.

@Shepardus, no, only one submission per-person.

[Legendary Hoamaru]

Sorry guys, holiday schedule pretty much screwed me participating these two weeks. I should be fine for the rest of the tournament though. At least the Black Friday rush wasn't too crazy this year.

[EmperorIng]

Yeah, I'll try to do something tonight but the holidays and meeting friends have thrown a wrench in shmupping. C'est l'vie.

[trap15]

WEEK 3 HAS BEGUN


Strikers 1945

[trap15]

WEEK 4 HAS BEGUN


Zing Zing Zip (1 Loop)

[trap15]

WEEK 5 HAS BEGUN


Gunnail

[trap15]

Final results (see the website for more in-depth information):

Code: Select all

   # |                           Name |  Pts.  | Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4 | Week 5 |
-----|--------------------------------|--------|--------|--------|--------|--------|--------|
  1. |      Quantum Radiation Therapy |    863 |    171 |    173 |    168 |    177 |    174 | 
  2. |            which 2hu wud u fuk |    853 |    165 |    172 |    169 |    171 |    176 | 
  3. |                   Irem Ironics |    826 |    172 |    150 |    167 |    164 |    173 | 
  4. |         Fantastic Night Dreams |    803 |    160 |    156 |    147 |    177 |    163 | 
  5. |                 RNG Masochists |    783 |    171 |    161 |    159 |    152 |    140 | 
  6. |                 Waifu Warriors |    747 |    128 |    147 |    148 |    163 |    161 |
  7. |            INFINITE FLAMINGOES |    744 |    163 |    162 |    153 |    138 |    128 | 
  8. |           Charming Discordance |    674 |    148 |    146 |    166 |    141 |     73 | 
  9. |               Polish Schnitzel |    632 |    133 |    124 |    119 |    132 |    124 | 
 10. |  Larsa's Twerking Extravaganza |    614 |    100 |    133 |    121 |    127 |    133 | 
 11. |                  A Sky of Pins |    608 |    129 |    114 |    123 |    143 |     99 | 
 12. |          Tenhou Unreal Mahjong |    600 |    120 |    119 |    122 |    107 |    132 | 
 13. |            Moshimoshi Futanari |    577 |    128 |    103 |    107 |    106 |    133 | 
 14. |                  Empire Combat |    570 |    144 |    146 |    156 |    124 |      0 | 
 15. |                 Casino Is Dead |    551 |     91 |    107 |    125 |    114 |    114 | 
 16. |              Where is the Barf |    522 |    125 |    143 |    123 |     68 |     63 |
 17. |                    Sons of YGW |    495 |    100 |     85 |    101 |     73 |    136 | 
 18. |                   Tuna Sashimi |    487 |    103 |    114 |    107 |     93 |     70 | 
 19. |                         shmoop |    460 |     93 |     78 |     77 |     93 |    119 | 
 20. |                 TOP PSYVARIARS |    443 |    101 |     55 |    100 |    120 |     67 | 
 21. |                   Black Hearts |    426 |    116 |    111 |     93 |     54 |     52 |
 22. |    YOSO - You Only Shobon Once |    417 |    112 |    136 |    116 |     53 |      0 | 
 23. |       Democratic Dismemberment |    220 |     38 |     43 |     31 |     42 |     66 | 
 24. |                  Great Justice |    199 |     50 |     66 |     44 |     39 |      0 | 
 25. |  B-2 Spirit of Procrastination |    160 |     51 |     32 |     36 |     41 |      0 | 
 26. |      Jerry Ellis Shooting Club |    140 |     43 |     44 |     53 |      0 |      0 | 
 26. |                  Buffet Grease |    140 |     79 |     61 |      0 |      0 |      0 | 
 28. |           Geometric Pigsticker |     93 |     60 |     33 |      0 |      0 |      0 | 
 29. |                   HANDSOME MEN |     64 |     64 |      0 |      0 |      0 |      0 | 
 --- | Plasmolasmo Plasmo Plasmolasmo |      0 |      0 |      0 |      0 |      0 |      0 |

[ProjectAKo]

next time i wont be so lazy

[Eaglet]

*dropping the ball*

I see you're gonna make this into a sacred tradition!

6th place pride for the Warriors of Waifu! Fun was had even though i won't be playing... well, any of the games later on in the future.

[gimebe]

The games were better than I expected, and I had a good time overall.

I didn't like survival being ranked over score (aside from SS and ZZZ, where it didn't really matter). Bee Storm was the only game with a nice scoring system; Strikers would've been more fun if score improvements had value, rather than having to grind against the damn hard second loop or go home (it'd be easier to score 100-200k extra in the first loop than make it further enough into in the 2nd loop to earn a comparable amount of points from it); and Gunnail's suicidal scoring was at odds with survival in a hilarious way.

Sand Scorpion, ZZZ and Gunnail were all pretty bad, but only Sand Scorpion was absolutely revolting with no redeeming qualities. ZZZ clearly hated the player in every way, but it had charming jellybeans to cum on. Gunnail wasn't buried in enormous slowdown, so the programmers at least got something right.




I'd like to see some more variety in kusoge, the shitty trio all shared the classic flavor. They had similar weapon systems, absurd bomb stocks, survival-focused scoring, visuals ranging from mediocre to blinding, unforgettable sound, and fat bullet sponges.

[trap15]

Thanks for the writeup of your opinions! I'd like to see other people post what they thought of the games and the tournament system (stage > score, tech bonuses, team setup, etc.) so I can consider changes for next time (if I bother doing another one, even).

Thanks for playing, have a good rest of the year!

[ProjectAKo]

The games were fine except sand scorpion imo fam. That would've been fine if it didn't hit 75% slowdown

How about a technical bonus each week for whichever team gets the highest score for each plane? Then people would have something to aim for besides just the highest score with the best plane. This would only work for games with multiple planes though.

[KoopaTGR]

Sand Scorpion was an unpolished but kinda fun Raiden clone that was enjoyable. I also liked DDP2, but didn't put enough effort into full runs (too much time practicing!)

Strikers was good too, but the random stage order was a bit of a wall, plus I dicked around too much with the other ships and should have just stuck with the Bf-109 (and maybe played with a savestate containing a fixed order)

Zing Zing Zip was another kusoge. I kind of enjoyed this one as well, but maybe if I got up to stage 5 I'd be ranked higher.

I was proud of clearing GunNail, but I think it was a flawed choice due to the scoring system, so I aimed to just clear the game and not score. It took me about 3 days of playing, as I had spend time with the game a couple months before when the STG Weekly episode came out.

I can understand why some people didn't like GunNail, it feels a lot like Raiden due to the slow ship speed so you have to play carefully, and when you move the stage doesn't scroll until you touch the side of the screen which is a poor design choice.

I wish my teammates had played more for the duration of the tournament. Maybe I'll start my own team next year

In the meantime I'll spend the rest of the year on the original Batsugun and hopefully clear it!

[Heavy Viper]

While Sand Scorpion was a bit bland, I found it enjoyable enough. Zing Zing Zip was probably the only game that I physically didn't want to play any more. I thought the main scoring factor being stage over score was a good idea, though it might be a cool idea to spice it up with some scoring goals next time.

Overall, I really enjoyed my first TRP-STGT! Looking forward to the next one!

next time i wont be so lazy

Pretty sure we could have jumped a rank if I had raised my game D:

[Perikles]

I hope you don't mind that I just post the link to the player standings, trap15: http://daifukkat.su/stgt/2015/players.html. Congratulations to ProjectAKo and Kyper for their first place! I'm very happy that I got third, never would've thought so in advance, didn't spent much time on the games with the exception of Bee Storm, too!

I had a lot of fun with the STGT overall. Of course there was a lot of complaining, that is just as much jest as the actual process of playing is, though, so don't take it that serious. I would've loved to play at least one or even two proper horizontal shooters with terrain and all that (maybe something like Parodius Da! or Gun Hohki) and was surprised that there was no Acrobat Mission to be seen anywhere, but I have to say that the games were fairly varied (if a bit lopsided towards classic shooters, but I'm definitely not complaining about that!) as is. My personal opinions on each of them:


Sand Scorpion is not as terrible as some/most people make it out to be, but it is certainly not even up to mediocre standards. If it were a launch title for the SFC like Super R-Type and Gradius III I'd let the slowdown slide, but for an arcade game in '92 this is unacceptable. Obviously the developers put very little effort into this game (bomb glitch, completely unbalanced second loop, framerate) and it shows. The neat thing about is, however, is the fact that it is fairly inoffensive up until maybe the 2-2 boss. So while it might be not win any prizes it is stupendously painless to play. I really like the sound effect that plays when bulkier enemies explode, that was a neat acoustic motivator to kill stuff!

Bee Storm was really fun I think. I can't give an assessment with any scientific precision since my knowledge of modern games is very limited, but I had quite a bit of joy with it despite all my suckage. Cunning risk-reward system, interesting bosses, splendid presentation. I personally thought that some of the later stages contained enemies that were a bit too resilient for my taste, that just might be my scrubbiness speaking, though. Don't know if I'll ever play it again, nonetheless a swell little game! Forced me out of my comfort zone which was terrifying at first but great in retrospective.

Strikers 1945 belongs in a waste receptacle like every other Psikyo game. Apart from this it's alright I suppose. I have to reluctantly admit that I got minor enjoyment out of it after a while, however ephemeral. Not a huge fan of the second loop at all, however. All kidding aside: not a huge Psikyo fan, unfortunately (?). I love memorizers, but can't get into these games for some reason. I usually have a lot of fun when trying to figure out solutions for problematic spots, yet it always feels like work to me when I'm tinkering on how to beat tough bosses in Psikyo games. Probably (?) not the game's fault I suppose.

Zing Zing Zip is certainly interesting. The annoying voice samples would be enough to ruin every game, but the gameplay is even worse. From stage 5 onwards you'll have to bomb a lot of times since several situations are not meant to be dodged at all. Horrendous, cheap design through and through. Abysmal visibility (chiefly during the fifth boss fight), ungodly unfair tricks (those missile barrages during stage 6!), hair-tearingly frustrating decisions everywhere (popcorn enemies should not be able to ram you if you bombed a second earlier). With a bit of polish it could've been a hidden gem, it's fairly frustrating as it is. I know that people like to call this type of game a "resource 'em up", it feels fairly sloppy nonetheless. It kinda-sorta falls into the same niche as Sand Scorpion in that it's pretty harmless to play for the most parts. It has a brisk pace and a short duration, so you can spam runs, too, which is nice.

Gunnail was extremely painful to play for me. Let me prefix that I do think this game is clearly better than both Sand Scorpion and Zing Zing Zip. I take the view, however, that stage over score was a huge mistake for this game. It's incredibly frustrating to play this game, consecutively earning better scores but not being able to actually benefit from them since you eventually died. Naturally you're going to try for the best possible score which obviously will result in a lot of grisly game overs. The scoring system itself is heavily unbalanced, too. About 2/3 of your score comes from killing the last two bosses on your last life, that's just way too much. Having said that: it is possible to find some goofy ways to earn a mid-scoring ALL without putting that much effort into it (which is what I did since I absolutely hated the fifth stage and boss). So you might say it's not all that maladjusted, it's just quirky.


I for one hope that you're going to continue hosting this event in the future!

[Illyrian]

Firstly, thanks for taking the time and effort to run this Trap15.

I personally think you successfully chose 3-4 games that most people will not be particularly familiar with and despite all the griping that makes things interesting as you are more likely to be learning a new game.

Regarding the specific game choices.

Sand Scorpion: Really cap tbh. Poorly coded and soooooo dull.

Bee Storm was good fun to play for a week. What I liked about this was that to score any kind of points at all you had to embrace the scoring system which meant just getting a 1cc was basically irrelevant.

Strikers was pretty balls, but it led to a relatively interesting discussion about memorisation and bullet speed so that at least is something. It is definitely the easiest of the strikers games in my opinion and that was helpful. If you had picked Strikers II the reaction would have been worse I think.

Zing Zing Zip doesn't even merit discussion.

Gunnail was a good choice in my opinion. Forcing you to play on 1 life made each credit quite tense. The only downside meant at least 50-75 runs through the mind numbingly dull first level with a lot of runs ending on the second level.

It was a fun 5 weeks overall. Next time pick Dimahoo as one of the games!

[Lyv]

Yeah, thanks for running this, trap, and congrats to the winners !

I think the stage>score rankings are a really good idea for the STGT format ; there might be some discussion whether it's suited for things like Gunnail, but in most cases it's fine.
The technical bonus was, imo, not very useful. It makes for a nice goal if you don't plan on playing the game a lot, but the reward (only one point) doesn't seem very well balanced. I support the idea of giving extra reward to those who play different ships (when available), or something similar.

About the games now.

Sand Scorpion was bad, but mostly because of horribly tedious slow-mo boss fights. Could have been worse.

Bee Storm was a fine surprise, probably the game I put the most effort in. The game itself has some flaws, but it's quite nice to play for one week only.

My opinion on Strikers 1945 is probably not of the most unbiased, but whatever. By far the best game of the tournament ; would have put more effort in it if it didn't came right after Bee Storm. I'd say Psikyo games are very well suited for STGT (lots of short levels, emphasis on survival, etc.). It didn't get much love, though...

Zing Zing Zip was some true bottom-of-the-barrel kusoge with no redeeming quality whatsoever.

Gunnail was probably decent, but I didn't play it. Flashing bullets are retarded though.

[Blinge]

Thanks for putting on a good show, Trap!
Well played, fellow warriors.

I felt I underperformed on bee storm; I should be most comfortable with danmaku stuff over the other games, so I didn't do great in week 2. Lame excuse time: I was pretty tired after work that week...

I'm really glad I managed to clear Strikers, that's probably my favourite thing about this STGT, other than beating Despatche (git gud m8)
Strikers had been a real pain in my ass last year.

I've come to realise how hard I find it to improve at games i'm not enjoying.

[Nifty]

Yiss we made it, thanks to our QUANTUM TEAM FORMATION powers

Spoiler

Being a defending champ of the current biggest tourney on the site is a p. cool chrissy present I s'pose Thanks to everybody who got involved, it's always more fun & interesting when there are lots of teams. I generally enjoyed myself, but I do think the game choices came off as a little samier than in the past. Week 2 and to a lesser degree 5 were the only real change-ups. And could there maybe be a hori one of these years?