INTRODUCTION:
What is SideLine? As per Ghegs's website
http://sideline.ghegs.com:
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SideLine is a 2D side-scrolling shooter for DOS computers, created in the mid-90's by a Taiwanese group called EMAG (Electronic Music and Animated Graphics, also GAME backwards). EMAG was born when a group of people, some of them students in Taiwan's National Chiao Tung University, gathered together and pursued their dream of creating games. Most members had never developed games nor run a company before, so they learned by doing. SideLine was their first game but it sold poorly and soon EMAG was barely able to remain active, only supported by its later games 3DCop/ADCop and BonBon Paradise, both light gun games. Soon most members left and established a new company, and EMAG closed soon after, having created only three games.
Some time after SideLine's original 1996 release it received a very limited western release in Poland. A company called Union Systems localized the game with Mirage Software publishing it. The print run was only 3000 (or possibly as little as 1500) copies. Though the companies contacted other publishers hoping to release it elsewhere as well, nobody was interested. The Sony Playstation was released just a short while earlier and mainstream gaming had little interest in the "old-fashioned" 2D shooting games that were so prevalent in the Super Nintendo and Megadrive/Genesis days. The game was left to obscurity, known only to few.
16 years after the game was first released a Spanish online blog Retro Maniac Magazine wrote an article about the game's demo version, leaving many wondering if the game's full version would ever surface. Some months after that the Polish release was indeed found and many gamers were finally able to try the game out for the first time. A recent interview to the same online blog sheds a bit more light into EMAG's story. The company also has an official Facebook group now.
In October of 2013 we received permission from the game's producer Jiun-Ming "Jimmy" Hwang to distribute SideLine's original version as long as no profit is made for it. We hope you enjoy it as much as we have.
Thanks to Ghegs, this fantastic Taiwanese game has been made available to play for free. Arguably the best shmup ever made for MS-DOS without any of the lifebar shenanigans or inertia of the commonly known Raptor, Tyrian 2000, and Stargunner, SideLine feels very much like it's been designed with arcade-style play in mind. Featuring instant full invulnerability bombs and a 3 hit shield (both of which protect against terrain collision), full 2 player local simultaneous mode (the Windows 95 version may have also supported networked multiplayer according to the files, an unusual rarity), a wide variety of weapons and missiles, it's a game that has a massive amount of attention to detail with amazing production quality. It's truly a shame it went unknown for so long since it's really not exaggerating to say it's by far the best shmup that was ever made for MS-DOS.
Featuring 3 difficulty modes with 8 levels, it's a lengthy and detailed game that hits the perfect balance of difficult but fair in its Normal difficulty. If there's a complaint to be made about the game, it's that Hard difficulty, instead of simply increasing bullet density or changing enemy patterns, actually seems to significantly up enemy health to the point where some stuff can get quite damage spongy and difficult to kill in a timely fashion. It's quite a bit trickier to avoid being overwhelmed by enemy waves in Hard difficulty.
Currently the only place it's available is on Ghegs's website. Hopefully additional MS-DOS archival sites will start hosting the game to get the game the attention it deserves. The important thing to know when attempting to get the game run is that it's finicky about the memory settings in DOSBox's config file:Quote:
And if you're running the game for the first time, be sure to change the last line from "main" to "snddsetup" to set the sound settings, then change it back to "main" afterwards. If you want to create your own .conf file, be sure to use the "core=normal" setting, as using "auto" or "dynamic" will make the game prone to crashing. And remember to disable the xms, ems and umb settings.
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HOW TO PLAY:
SideLine is a 3 button shmup, with the fire button featuring full autofire, a bomb button that activates instantly and provides a short window of full invulnerability, and a button to adjust the direction your two gunpods are firing (you need to first collect gunpod items), similar to how you adjust your gunpods in Battle Garegga.
There are a total of 8 levels, with multiple score-based extra lives as well as at least two extra life items (that are currently known). Secret items, usually for score such as hamburgers, hot dogs, bones, meat on a bone, etc, are uncovered by shooting. Your shots will appear to be hitting something invisible, and will eventually uncover the item. Homing missiles can help you locate hidden items as they can and will target hidden items if hiding nearby.
The hitbox appears to be slightly smaller than the size of the ship sprite. It's larger than a bullet hell shmup is for instance, but the game is still quite a bit more forgiving than something like Darius since your bombs and shield both will absorb terrain damage and not just enemy bullets. If you get stuck behind a wall or solid object, you can often bomb your way through to safety.
When your ship is destroyed, you respawn without gunpods, without secondary weapons, and with your current primary weapon lowered by one weapon level.
Note that after beating the game, even if you used continues, the game loops again. SideLine appears to infinitely loop, with each loop increasing enemy bullet speeds.
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ITEMS:
Items are uncovered in coloured pods that you shoot to reveal a specific item type (primary weapon, secondary weapon, bomb), or hidden score items and 1ups you reveal by shooting them while they're hidden to reveal them. You'll also often find primary weapons, secondary weapons, and gunpods floating around freely for pickup.
Shootable orbs appear in three flavours with a different colour marking in the middle: Red ones carry a randomly cycling primary weapon, green ones carry a randomly cycling secondary weapon, and orange ones contain bombs. The bombs found in an orange item carrier will be replaced by a gunpod item if you've died and don't currently have two gunpods. Enemies that drop bombs when destroyed appear to follow the same rule, dropping gunpods instead if you have less than 2.
To power up a primary or secondary weapon, pick up the same colour/letter continuously. You know you're maxed out when picking it up again gives you bonus points. Switching weapons to another type does not increase current power level.
Bomb: A large B icon. These appear quite frequently with multiples often in a single level. You can carry up to 7 at once. In some cases levels will drop tons of these, such as level 3 where it's easy to max out. Bombs do a bit of damage to the entire screen, clear enemy projectiles, and give you full invulnerability for a short period (that ends a second or so after the blast ring disappears). This includes invulnerability against collisions against terrain or enemies. Note that there's a slight delay where you're vulnerable before you can bomb again, so if you're in the middle of solid terrain when your bomb invulnerability runs out you're taking at least one hit to your shields before you can bomb again.
Shield: A large glowing grey orb of energy. Can absorb 3 hits before dissipating, including terrain damage, with a split second of invulnerability when you're hit. These appear pretty frequently except for on the final level. Note that having an active shield does NOT increase your hitbox size. Some games like Gradius V actually make your shield have a separate hitbox from your ship, and the larger your shield the bigger the hitbox, but in SideLine the glowing aura around your ship only indicates how many hits your shield can take. It doesn't increase your ship's hitbox size at all.
Primary Weapon: An orb surrounded by sparkles. These determine what your main gun is firing as well as what your gunpods are firing. The colour indicates what the current weapon is. Not all weapon orbs will cycle automatically bouncing around the screen and there are some that always appear and stay a guaranteed colour until they go offscreen. The ones that cycle go in this order, with a random start colour: Red, Blue, Teal, Silver, Brown, Orange (see PRIMARY WEAPONS section for details on each).
Secondary Weapon: An orb with a letter inside of it. These essentially let you fire missiles in addition to your main gun. None of the missiles are particularly powerful compared to your main guns, but they're not entirely useless either. Letter indicates what the current weapon is. Not all weapon orbs will cycle automatically bouncing around the screen and there are some that always appear and stay a guaranteed letter until they go offscreen. The ones that cycle go in this order, with a random start letter: M, H, T, V, X, O (see SECONDARY WEAPONS section for details on each).
Gunpod: A little spinning grey gunpod. Collect it and one appears above your ship, then the next one below. Gun pods add extra shots to your ship, and also absorb enemy attacks, making them very useful. There's three different shot types they use, determined by what colour primary weapon you currently have
You also have a button that cycles through different gunpod formations: both firing straight forward, both firing straight backwards, both firing front and back as they hover up and down in the middle of your ship, a freely adjustable firing mode where they move forward and backwards according to your movement, and one where they both continuously rotate around your ship as a shield, firing erratically.
1UP (Extra Life): Not counting the ones you get for score, there's three of these in the game that I know of. The first is early on in stage 3 inside of a structure just above some lava that you either need to use a couple bombs to safely get in and out of, or take a couple shield hits. Stay low on the level against the lava until you find it.
In stage 7 (the junk processing facility) early on there's a raised section where there's a couple of small indentations in the ground leading to small pits. The second 1UP is hidden at the bottom right of the second pit.
The third 1UP is hiding immediately above one of the conveyor belts in Stage 7, at the section before the final boss.
The final 1UP is in Stage 8 at the bottom of the screen immediately before entering the final boss chamber.
More 1UPs may exist elsewhere. They appear to reappear when looping the game. Scoring 1UPS appear frequently until you hit 1.5 million, and then appear to be earned ever 1 million after that (which is a significant gap, you'll essentially get 1 score-based 1UP per loop at that point).
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PRIMARY WEAPONS (listed in cycle order):
Note: Both primary and secondary weapons appear to max out after you power them up 5 times.Red: Your default weapon, and arguably the best general-purpose weapon in the game when you're learning the game. As you get better you'll learn where specific, situational weapon picks can be more helpful. Starts out as a thin, basic rapid shot, upgrades to a wide spreadshot. Great damage when hitting with all the projectiles, possibly the strongest attack in the game in that case. Note that there are some smaller bosses where it's harder to hit reliably with all the shots, and some enemies with unusually positioned weakspots that require attacking from an angle or directly above or below, so while it's not a universally good weapon, it'll handle the vast majority of enemies in the game.
Gunpods fire rapid shots that fire straight forward (same as Orange weapon). Probably the best gunpod shot since it's simple and very effective both for adding frontal damage or aiming it behind you to take out incoming enemies from the rear.
Blue: A piercing laser attack. Eventually upgrades to a constant 8 way shot that fills that covers the screen with lasers. Damage isn't huge and it's not ideal on most bosses due to bosses having a fairly small hitbox, but it's still surprisingly capable of dealing with many stages due to the sheer screen coverage. If you use this be aware you're significantly compromised if you get killed, since there is a big power drop from the max level to the next level down. At max level you fire 8 way shots, but dying and losing a power level causes you to fire 4 shots alternating in a + and an X pattern, meaning you only hit enemies in front with every other shot and get no chances at hitting with 2 adjacent lasers together.
Damage is pretty substantial if you manage to hit with multiple lasers at once. It's extremely difficult to do so though, as you need to pretty much be at point blank range on a large target. Bombing can allow you to get inside an enemy and fire at them from within, but the short bomb duration doesn't generally make it safe to do so. The Brown weapon's missiles are still the better raw damage, difficult to use weapon of the game, but the Blue weapon's ability to pierce through enemies while flooding the screen in all directions is quite effective. Lasers cannot pierce solid terrain, and some enemy parts also block lasers such as the bodies of the boss mechs at the end of stage 5 and before the final boss.
The blue lasers are bad at uncovering shootable items such as 1ups, which seem to be uncovered based on # of hits and not necessarily damage.
Gunpods are the worst in the game (same as Silver weapon), firing blue spinning projectiles that travel forward a short distance, stop for a split second, then launch in the direction of a nearby enemy. They're very weak and have accuracy issues, making them relatively worthless compared to the main weapons your ship fires.
Teal: Upgrades to a rotating ring of 5 orbs plus a small, weak 3 way shot from the front of your ship (like a weaker version of Red's spreadshot). The orbs themselves deal enormous damage if they're contacting an enemy at close range (you do have to get dangerously close to do this though), but don't provide as much in defense as what you might expect. The orbs don't destroy normal bullets, and there are some fast enemies that try to ram you that have enough health to rush through a full orb ring from behind. Still, when you get comfortable with where you can use the ring for attacking at close range behind you, or above and below, it can be a very useful weapon in a variety of situations.
Gunpods fire bright teal crescent slicing projectiles (same as with Brown weapon). They have limited homing and move slowly, making them fairly useless at long range, but pack an incredible punch and deal good damage when at close range where you're hitting rapidly with them.
Silver: Fires lasers with long "tails" that turn at 90 degree angles to hit enemies above and below as well as to your rear. An easy to use weapon that's helpful for sweeping weaker enemies or ones that hide behind walls. The shots also have a piercing effect when they kill enemies, and will keep travelling through whatever they've destroyed. Performs decently in stages but try not to use it against bosses since its damage leaves something to be desired. You have far better choices against the bosses of this game.
Gunpods are the worst in the game (same as Blue weapon), firing blue spinning projectiles that travel forward a short distance, stop for a split second, then launch in the direction of a nearby enemy. They're very weak and have accuracy issues, making them relatively worthless compared to the main weapons your ship fires.
Brown:
This weapon is intended for experts, as it is extremely unusual and difficult to use effectively, however it is also very powerful when you know what you're doing with it. When you press and hold the fire button, giant missiles are slowly released (up to 2 at a time onscreen?). The missiles travel a short distance where they'll explode in a large multi-hit blast on anything close range, but if they don't hit anything nearby then after going a certain distance they suddenly turn dark, phasing through all solid objects until they reach the right-side edge of the screen and explode there, or you release the shot button which cause them to explode immediately wherever they are. Essentially, you can use this weapon 4 ways:
1) Tap the shot button quickly, causing blasts at close range. Not recommended usually unless you can get safely close to a boss.
2) Hold the shot button while close enough to hit with the missiles before they phase out (somewhat risky if you accidentally move far enough away from the enemy).
3) Hold the shot button and release to make phased missiles explode when they're underneath enemies, either by visually confirming the missile positions, or by getting in a timing rhythm.
4) Hold the shot button down until they explode to hit enemies positioned at the far right of the screen. Only really works on a few bosses that sit at the screen's edge.
The blasts are large, score multiple hits, do great damage on targets, and are the same whether or not the missiles are unphased or phased when they explode. It's a highly unorthodox weapon that's very powerful and comes with a slow but decent damage gunpod and allows you to do trick shots through terrain as well as ignore shielding on bosses that have smaller weakpoints or like to use debris to protect themselves. However, it's also very difficult to get the hang of and the one weapon in the game you absolutely can't just run around holding the shot button to use it effectively.
Gunpods fire bright teal crescent slicing projectiles (same as with Teal weapon). They have limited homing and move slowly, making them fairly useless at long range, but pack a punch and deal good damage when at close range where you're hitting rapidly with them.
Orange: Fires a concentrated series of energy waves. Upgrades to become wider, roughly the same vertical height as your ship. Deals good damage at long range and even more damage at close range where the waves fire without any gaps between them due to their onscreen projectile limit. It's quite a thin weapon though, so you have to move around a lot to deal with enemies, and the Red weapon actually deals more damage if you're able to get into pointblank ranges. This is my go-to weapon for most bosses because of its ability to deal direct, concentrated damage both at long range and close range. It's also good in other situations too where you need raw power but need an easier to handle weapon to focus on dodging than Brown's unusual missiles.
Gunpods fire rapid shots that fire straight forward (same as Red weapon). Probably the best gunpod shot since it's simple and very effective both for adding frontal damage or aiming it behind you to take out incoming enemies from the rear.
Estimated relative weapon damage when at max shot power from 1-10, 1 being weakest and 10 being strongest (assumes you have two gunpods firing forward with all shots hitting a target):Brown, close range to pointblank, hitting with missiles and gunpods (slow target) - 10
Cyan, pointblank on large target with several orbs connecting with target at once - 9
Red, pointblank, all 5 shots hitting (this is rarely possible to do safely) - 8.5
Orange, pointblank - 8
Blue, hitting with 2 lasers on large target (very difficult to do on most bosses) - 8
Red, hitting with 3 of 5 streams - 7
Brown, long range (assuming you're accurate with the detonations) - 7
Orange, long range - 6.5
Silver, close range - 6
Blue, long range - 5
Silver, long range - 4
Red, long range, single stream + gunpods hitting - 3
Cyan, long range, single stream + gunpods hitting occasionally - 2
This is just an estimate based on personal experience. Note that some enemies move quickly or have shielded portions that can drastically effect the damage you can deal. The Brown phase missile weapon doesn't as expected in the high speed section of stage 3 where the large enemies don't take all the close range hits, the Blue laser deals mediocre single target damage but gets good kill times on weaker enemies and often can hit enemies other weapons cannot due to positioning, so potential damage can be higher with it at times.
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SECONDARY WEAPONS / MISSLES (listed in cycle order):
M: Straight firing missiles. Upgrades to fire multiple missiles in a wide spread straight forward. Like all the secondary weapons, the damage isn't great, but it still helps and is a good choice for bosses. Because they cover a wide area with each volley, they're helpful for sections with shootable bullets (such as when dealing with the spiky enemies that teleport in to attack).
H: Homing missiles. Upgrades eventually fire 3 missiles at a time, but the missiles are launched tightly together so usually all of them converge on the same target. Damage is low, but they will target nearby hidden shootable items, helping you locate them.
T: Twin travelling missiles. Fires a pair of missiles up and down that then travels along the ceiling and ground, similar to Gradius-style missiles. There's some levels with spots where this can be pretty useful for taking out turret-type enemies! One of my fave missile type weapons, they're very versatile.
V: Straight firing missiles. Only fires two when maxed out instead of M's six total, but more damage is packed into each missile. Ideal for squeezing out a big of damage against a lot of bosses where it's all about direct offense.
X: Decoy parachute bombs. Instead of being intended for direct offense, these actually drop straight down with a kind of parachute attached. They'll damage targets directly below you but the real benefit is the shots actually confuse enemies into targeting them instead of you, which can help when dealing with enemies that like to fire directly aimed shots. Enemies always try to shoot aimed shots at the nearest one. These can be really helpful for keeping enemies distracted, but not all enemies fire aimed shots at you, so it's not always going to be useful.
O: Twin missiles that fire up and down, but unlike T they explode on contact. Appears to deal more damage than T, but less versatile. There aren't a huge number of situations where things above and below you are attacking you that you can't handle with your primary weapon or gunpods, so I've never been super fond of these.