Ideas for a new shooter?

[Eltrotraw]

I've been playing around with a program called Game Maker recently, and my most recent work on it was called Ikaradius - a sort of a parody hybrid of Ikaruga and Gradius(although it was influenced more by Ikaruga). If you want you can message me over AIM for a quick demo of it, I'm slow on email.

When/if I finish the project, I'm thinking of starting a new freebased project with no "borrowed" gimmicks, but it's hard to think of anything new.

Any ideas?

[ForteMP3]

What you may want to consider is ideas that haven't been done very often in shmups, or even try to come up with something new, or at least somewhat new. While I'm currently working on Cavadius, I do have an original shmup in the planning phase that I'd LOVE to work on in the future. I'll be putting a post up about it shortly.

Anyway, just try a brainstorming session. Think of stuff, anything you can, even if it seems crazy, and type/write it. This is how I ended up coming up with Reflexion. While it's only a concept on paper right now, I think this could really go somewhere.

[Zweihander]

how about a system where if you power up, the enemies' bullet rate goes up? basically, challenge is dictated by how much one wishes to powergame. to balance it out and make it worth powering up: on-screen enemy bullets act as score multipliers. (the bullets don't disappear when the enemy dies; they naturally scroll offscreen. simply, if there's, say, 658 enemy bullets onscreen, the score is x658.) this would definitely work well as a bullet-harvest shmup. ^.^
EDIT: oh yeah, an on-screen multiplier counter would also be useful. ^^;

however, for this type of system to work smoothly, power-ups would have to scroll offscreen, and a Gradius-style power-up bar would come in handy. say you choose a Speed-up. the enemies fire out a few more bullets than usual. But say you choose something like Laser or Option (or an original-named equivalent thereof), they go apeshit on you. Suppose one wants to wait til clearing a particular wave of enemies before powering up? the choice is theirs! ^_^

i know you don't want to use 'borrowed' gimmicks, but things like Gradius's power-up system are tried and true. your choice though, if you have something different in mind. just an idea. ^.^ i would love to be a beta tester for whatever your final product is, just for future reference.

GOOD LUCK TO YOU!

[Shatterhand]

I thought this was called "Rank" and it had been used since Xevious was released in 1982... ?



Nah, just kidding, I can see your idea is a little more complex than just rank. Bullet Philarmonica Orchestra does something like that, instead you don't shoot... so the rank goes up by the time you stay alive, and the bigger the rank, more points is awarded for the "tricks" you can do.


And in many games, the most powered-up you are, more bullets the enemies will shoot at you. But normally this doesn't affect the score directly.

[Zweihander]

And in many games, the most powered-up you are, more bullets the enemies will shoot at you. But normally this doesn't affect the score directly.

Heh, i noticed something like that in Espgaluda... or am i just paranoid? o_O;;

and Psyvariar 2 bugged me with it's adapting difficulty; hell, i loved getting thrown into Hard mode, i could almost always handle it if i could get it, but DAMN is it insulting to be put on easy mode... :/ (considering if you get knocked down to Easy, you might as well reset, especially if playing with the Buzz type)

Having spent 5 hours of my time on Chaos Field, I could relate it to the "chaos mode" in the game; only instead of suddenly raping you with bizarre patterns, the bullet output would simply increase by:

A) slight increments, if you level up on, say, Speed or Missile; things that give you slight advantages.
B) larger increments, if you level up to Laser or Double; something not necessary but would normally give you an edge.
C) double, if you buy an Option; "hey, you practically have an extra invincible phantom ship, you can handle it".

also note that i used Gradius terms; hell, you could call the laser upgrade a "BFG" for all i care. ;D whatever you do, Electrotraw, make something for score-maniacs! Just think... in less than a year from now, your game could have it's own thread on the high score forum.