shmups.system11.org

I'm done. Peace.

Peace out froggy ^_^

I'll be taking my leave too

@masterfrog

The game's ok, it's pretty competent for the most part. I have a personal hatred for graphical infidelity (rotating, scaling, transparency) graphics, but besides, it looked ok for a retro-styled meteor defense remake.

If I had to point out some things I didn't like, then uh.

Gameplay could use more things to do. For an experimental shmup it's both an idea that is really old (Missile Command) and also less fun to play when it really only requires paying attention to one dimension of movement, with a total of 2 directions and a firing button that is best always held down and faded into subconsciousness. Enemies don't do much, even bosses. As long as you're trailing under one, you're good. That and some enemies aren't really possible to hit. It feels like it's a crapshoot whether the default angled bullets will hit an asteroid or if it will slip through and at times you have to rely on the fact that it must.

Also back to graphics, when playing it, I thought it'd be nice if it had more going on. Maybe the background could have parallax scrolling to convey more motion feedback? Maybe it could actually progress horizontally to convey a sense of progress. With the screen remaining so static, for so long, it was really losing a lot of energy very quickly, in what was already relatively uninvolved play.

Overall, I think it's an ok little game, better suited for quiet passage of time, I think it could work well as a handheld app.

Skipping perfectly valid points and questions from the opposing side just because of an insult here or there, is the opposite of intelligent or constructive discussion. It might make the discussion hurtful to your feelings, it might make it more entertaining to others, but it in no way discredits the arguments that come with them.

This happens quite often, but I'm sure that in your case too it's just an escape ladder away from difficulty.

"im not gonna respond to you if you hurt my feelings!!!"

*has a dozen posts in a thread dedicated to belittling everyone*

I pity the guy. Had he come to the forums asking earnestly "Hey guys, why do you like this genre that's apparently so outdated?" rather than stating "Shmups are shit, here's why" he might have learned something. As it is, it was just time spent in an unconstructive way for all parties involved.

Yeah.

but I got the feeling that this might not have been a matter of approach after all, since he seemed to be stuck with the latter option.

WE NEED UBER BUT FOR SHMUPS

#DISRUPT SHMUPS

FREEK EVIN

No love for moomins?

Swinging this back to the dev side -

Being very generous and assuming the OP is actually being genuine here, this is the kind of bile you USE to craft the game you want out of a mass of ones you dislike. That's the magic of negative inspiration. Put it to work, just bitching doesn't do you any good (especially in this peculiarly aggressive and confrontational manner.)

You can even prove your criticisms' validity by actually utilizing them to make something excellent - then it definitely doesn't matter whether you perfectly measure up to established genre dogma or whatever.

Hey,

Shmup genre is not dead.
I have been with Vortex Attack to so many fairs (about 20) and people really really enjoy these games, they just are not used to the genre anymore. I don't want to spam at all so I will not post any videos of lots of people having great time with Vortex Attack in fairs, but you can google it if you like

So... if they enjoy them ... what's the problem?
They are all arcade, and arcade games can be finished in just about 1h if you are good enough, and nowadays sales are based in the gameplay hours.
Have you ever wondered why darius cs has over a hundred levels? Doesn't matter if they are all extremelly similar, the fact is that it is feeding gameplay hours, again, that's all it matters now.
But guess what? Indies passionate about shmups will keep making new ones, regardles if they are sellable or not.

Cheers!

i don’t know if i arrived here too late, as i'm seeing some people leaving and etc.

what i think is that we really need to ask developers to surprise us, asking them to be like Oohara Yuuma, Kenta Cho, Tetsuya Mizuguchi, etc., perhaps asking them to surprise us more than these ones did.

and as developers, perhaps we might ask ourselves exactly the same thing, we really need to think totally out of the box, there is still a lot to be done in the shmup genre - i'm seeing that, even after some decades, the shmups history is still in the very beginning

It looks like the conversation in this thread is pretty much over. But I'll just add that the original post made me laugh because I thought it was being satirical. I was thinking, "it's refreshing to have someone with a sense of humor." But ya, if the guy was being serious, there is probably a better venue to dismiss shmups as a genre than the shmups forum. Maybe he should try an RPG forum or something?

Ah damn looks like this is over! I wish I saw this earlier! I actually had exactly the same problem with shmups and that's why I've spent the last few years making a shmup with RPG elements, to add some depth to the basic vertical shooter gameplay. So many shmups have awesome gameplay - it's just the depth they lack. (That's a problem with many genres today actually I guess.) But also, as everyone here points out, that lack of depth is just a problem for some people - each to their own. Some of the best games in the world are super simple. And just slapping on some 'depth' elements (more complex scoring, RPG character progression, non linear game progression, etc) doesn't necessarily improve a game. The whole thing needs to be thought through and designed carefully so that all those different elements integrate. I'm still not sure if I got it right; here's hoping!

Anybody interested in checking out the game, it's called Cosmonator; basically a shmup with lots of RPG elements (spells, special abilities, tons of upgrades etc). I've created a post in this site with some info about the production progress also, but anyway here's a link to the free demo for anyone who's interested in checking it out:

https://bourbontank.itch.io/cosmonator

The full game is on steam, in Early Access. If you're into shmups but you think they could use some added depth, like the frogmaster here - particularly in terms of RPG style player progression - well, you'll probably like it, because that's exactly what it addresses.

I would say that for most shmups the depth comes from the scoring system. It can get pretty in depth if you are min-maxing stuff like where to use resources and which routes to take etc.

There are some shmups that have some RPG like elements, Radiant Silvergun for example, the way it upgrades the weapons the more you use them.

IMO it all depends what you want to focus on as a game developer. There is a reason why Cave removed power-ups from their last couple of games, and before that removed power-loss at death. It lets them focus on the scoring aspect more as well as go more all out from the get go, since the player is already fully powered up.

The question should always be what any given feature adds to the game, does picking up items that do nothing but power up your shot (as in not switch to different shots like in R-Type) add anything to a bullet-hell style shmup (or other sub-genres too, in Fire Lancer we also don't have power-ups for example) where the focus is on scoring? I would say that in most cases it probably does not.

When it comes to RPG like systems, and even if they are as simple as the weapon selection in Axelay, the question is in which way the different weapons add to the game, and you have to make sure that there is not a combo of weapons that will be the best in most, if not all, cases. Because if that is the case you made extra work for yourself which does add very little to the game. You do not want to add content for the sake of content. Same with depth just for the same of it.

Just my 2 cents.

I agree.

Also, there is something to be said for a simple game which requires skill and maneuvering with a quantifiable score to gauge performance against others. Like Viewpoint, or R-type, or UN squadron etc. A lot of the latest generation of games require less skill and feel more like you are moving something through a bad movie. And once the movie ends, there is little reason to play it again.