Do's and Don'ts of a Good Shmup

[elvis]

Don't worry, it's an in-joke relating to subtle visual accuracy of arcade ports to home systems...

Subtle? The difference between nice, clear, unfiltered and progressive 240 line modes versus horrible, flickering, fuzzy, blurry, headache-inducing interlaced 480 line modes is "subtle" to you?

If it hurts my eyes to sit infront of a game for 15 minutes, then there's a good chance the maximum play time I'll put into that game is 15 minutes. A human being's eyes are a pretty damned integral part of the whole input/output system as a whole.

[magnum opus]

And I don't think there is any good reason not to use mouse control in addition to all other forms of control. Infact it's completely idiotic not to do so on the PC, simply because a lot of people like to use the mouse for games. If you don't want to use the mouse you don't have to...

the problem is a mouse is analog and keyboards, gamepads, arcade sticks are digital.
which means on a mouse you either
A move as fast as the mouse moves, which if designed with this speed in mind disadvantages the digital users
or
B move at a fixed speed, fine for digital users feel's floaty with a mouse.

although i could see if the game includes something that slows you down (ddp laser for instance) it might be interesting to essential remove that from mouse play and when you move fast normal shot but moving slow enough triggers the laser.

not that i'd recommend that just a stray thought.

so yeah basically analog control is a no go for pretty damn near all of us.

[nexic]

B move at a fixed speed, fine for digital users feel's floaty with a mouse.

For this game I would be going for option B as I'm mainly trying to cater for keyboard/gamepad users. I just think having mouse control as a backup is a good idea. I personally enjoy playing with the mouse, even in games where it feel 'floaty' as you described.

[howmuchkeefe]

I always thought it would be cool for there to be a mouse based shmup that actually incorporated the movement capabilities of the mouse into its game system, and simulated inertia.

Say, you're piloting a dragonfly or a hummingbird: Sure, you can dart from one edge of the screen to the other, but the game won't let you fire unless you're moving within certain velocity parameters; faster than that, and your firing becomes unfocused; faster still, and you can't fire at all. The faster you move, the longer it takes for your character to regain their balance, and be able to fire again. If a developer wanted to be strict, it might even be possible to shake your character off of his mount- which would count as dying, of course.

I think I mentioned this idea before here and someone linked to a game that I couldn't get to work, so maybe a game like this has already been made. Even if that's the case, I'd sure like to see more of them.

[Blade]

I always thought it would be cool for there to be a mouse based shmup that actually incorporated the movement capabilities of the mouse into its game system, and simulated inertia.

Say, you're piloting a dragonfly or a hummingbird: Sure, you can dart from one edge of the screen to the other, but the game won't let you fire unless you're moving within certain velocity parameters; faster than that, and your firing becomes unfocused; faster still, and you can't fire at all. The faster you move, the longer it takes for your character to regain their balance, and be able to fire again. If a developer wanted to be strict, it might even be possible to shake your character off of his mount- which would count as dying, of course.

I think I mentioned this idea before here and someone linked to a game that I couldn't get to work, so maybe a game like this has already been made. Even if that's the case, I'd sure like to see more of them.

That reminds me of something I played on the Atari 2600 back in the day, a helicopter shmup that changed directional movement from left or right on the scroll...it was really hard for me to control.

[Gopher's Ambition]

# XX. Don't make cool special weapons, then force the player not to use them at all in order to obtain maximum score. The weapon should be a part of the game, since weapons make up a great deal of the variety of a shooter.

If you absolutely must give bonuses, give bonuses for smart usage of the weapon, rather than just not using it.

[FRO]

That reminds me of something I played on the Atari 2600 back in the day, a helicopter shmup that changed directional movement from left or right on the scroll...it was really hard for me to control.

Sounds like Activision's Chopper Command.

[BulletMagnet]

This reminds me a bit of my ill-fated "Commandments" thread from way back when...better luck this time, hopefully.

[Zweihander]

Oh and

19. Let the player know WHERE your hitbox is, ESPECIALLY when the shmup is one of those buzzing games. Shiki made it right with its ingenious little shining dot, while the hitbox-dot in the Touhou games looks like a bullet itself (boring) - - and please don`t make a ship design where its near impossible to determine the hitbox to begin with, but that CHANGES over time (Psyvariar - I still don`t know where the hitbox is and its so annoying I stop playing it altogether - and the ship spin which makes it even harder). In older games, its usually a very logical position - either the little cockpit (or "head" - Raizing), or the ship center (DDP again)

Psyvariar 1? I know the Complete Edition pack has a code where you can turn on hit boxes (for everything-- including bullets and enemies) using controller 2. see gamefaqs.