New-ish Schmup on the horizon.

[Smartbomb]

1993 Space Machine is a real retro shmup to appear in the coming spring. With a long development history it began its journey on the Amiga where it was pixelated and composed. Sadly it was never finished then, but now it's being brought to modern systems. It was just recently Greenlighted for Steam. Here's the page: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/f ... =190812780

[Pretas]

Looks like yet another sub-mediocre Amiga Euroshmup to throw on the pile.

[cave hermit]

Man that's a harsh response

[ptoing]

It looks like it probably is accurate though :/

[Xyga]

Schmup.

[CStarFlare]

Looks like yet another sub-mediocre Amiga Euroshmup to throw on the pile.

I just love the idea that a long-lost unreleased shmup will see the light of day.

Will probably give it a spin.

[Lord Satori]

Schmup.

[system11]

Working link:

http://www.1993game.com/

Zero chance of me trying it but that's because I don't do PC. Would have played on the Amiga if it had existed.

[Sly Cherry Chunks]

Looks like yet another sub-mediocre Amiga Euroshmup to throw on the pile.

You said more or less the same thing last time this was posted. Are you a spambot?

Check out the old thread for the actual CU Amiga preview from 1993 and the odd story of why this never got finished.

[Kollision]

I agree with system11 but for a slightly different reason.
In this day and age new shmups should reflect the technology of today, unless they're developed and released for the hardware they're supposed to run on.

In all honesty, I must be kinda jaded.

[Doctor Butler]

I saw it was on Steam.

Then I saw a lifebar.

Get this shit out of here.

[Smartbomb]

Can you please explain why this would be shit? And why is a life bar such a big no no? I regard myself as a shmup fan and I love some so called Euroshmups like Xenon II. I just find an attitude like that pathetic. Does everything has to fit the exact same mould?

[Captain]

I like games like these. They're Euroshmups in a pure sense, they have the same style, but can be genuinely fun.

[ptoing]

Can you please explain why this would be shit? And why is a life bar such a big no no? I regard myself as a shmup fan and I love some so called Euroshmups like Xenon II. I just find an attitude like that pathetic. Does everything has to fit the exact same mould?

Pretty much all of the shmups on Amiga (Xenon II included) are very badly designed. To give an example, in Xenon II you can go backwards? Why is that in there? Because you can actually fly into dead ends. And then you have to fly back really really slowly. And this is annoying as fuck and it does not matter that it will only happen to you once per dead end, it is poor design.

Lifebars are not bad in general, but they can encourage bad design. If you make a shmup where it is 1 hit death then you need to design things in a way that everything can be dodged or otherwise avoided with the tools the player is given. If you got health you can be very lax in your pattern design and there can be unavoidable spam because, hey, you don't necessarily die from it.

[DMC]

4 player co-op must be very messy.

[system11]

Pretty much all of the shmups on Amiga (Xenon II included) are very badly designed.

Do you mean badly designed, or simply not like Japanese games? I actually liked the dead ends in Xenon II, it was a great game honestly. Lots of fun and truly ridiculous weaponry. A lot of the 'euroshmup OMG' stuff is pure elitism mixed with different tastes. No they're not as refined a product as Japanese ones, but as playable games many succeeded quite well. The approach in Japan by this point was heavily based on competitive score setting, but in Europe on the home computer scene it was more about just having fun - and that's why you can't approach them in the same way as Japanese titles.

Honestly my favourite Amiga shmup wasn't the famed Apidya, which was an excellent game. For me it was X-Out. It was amazing, played well, looked nice, sounded better. You can build your loadout and weapon positions before levels by placing them on a grid, even now I don't know of a game giving quite as much freedom. Bosses were a let-down in places. I'd still play it now if I had a way that wasn't suffering Amiga emulation.

[Elaphe]

It looks like crap but I would play this game for a while if:
-I remember to download it
-It's free or the torrent/download is easy to find and download
-the download size is not big
-the game doesn't require installing
-the game doesn't require any extra files/installations
-it runs at 60 fps without hiccups not tearing

[cave hermit]

It looks like crap but I would play this game for a while if:
-I remember to download it
-It's free or the torrent/download is easy to find and download
-the download size is not big
-the game doesn't require installing
-the game doesn't require any extra files/installations
-it runs at 60 fps without hiccups not tearing

I'm sorry, but you sound like such a self entitled prick right now it's not even funny.

[Xyga]

A lot of the 'euroshmup OMG' stuff is pure elitism mixed with different tastes. No they're not as refined a product as Japanese ones, but as playable games many succeeded quite well. The approach in Japan by this point was heavily based on competitive score setting, but in Europe on the home computer scene it was more about just having fun - and that's why you can't approach them in the same way as Japanese titles.

Don't know for sure but I think just like many members here I fell in love with shmups after playing the Japanese bred ones, although I already played the home computer 'space shooters' we had over there.
The 1990 transition/turnpoint pretty much made it clear which side of the planet produced the superior games, and I don't feel it was just about 'fun' vs. 'score' or anything like that, most of the Japanese production was superior about everything.
Well at least in my eyes it was.

Now of course there are good things in defense of 'euroshmups' (sorry to use the term), but I often have that feeling some people come here excited to present the games they have seen on Steam or are themselves developing for X platform... while completely ignoring that very important fact: Japanese shmups have been ruling the genre for decades, and shmups fans and communities are massively dedicated to those.

I don't mean to be contemptuous or sarcastic here but, hey guys, seriously, if you are not aware of what and who the 'shmups subculture' is made of for the most part, or if you have missed those past 25-ish years, don't come and sound so offended that people don't give a very warm welcome to those, say, 'western'-styled and developped shooters.
Just look at the 'most popular shmups of all time' polls here, the stats and polls of other shmup communities reflect the same interests.

When I read the comments on Steam I have that feeling I am reading from a crowd that when mentioning 'retro games' has never seen or heard about anything past the 80's-early90's western home computers games, and I don't blame them or anyone for that !
It's just that, you know, it's like meeting a guy from San Marino saying "What ? Italy ? Where is that ? Never heard 'bout that country".

[Kollision]

Can you please explain why this would be shit? And why is a life bar such a big no no? I regard myself as a shmup fan and I love some so called Euroshmups like Xenon II.

nuff said

[ptoing]

Pretty much all of the shmups on Amiga (Xenon II included) are very badly designed.

Do you mean badly designed, or simply not like Japanese games? I actually liked the dead ends in Xenon II, it was a great game honestly. Lots of fun and truly ridiculous weaponry. A lot of the 'euroshmup OMG' stuff is pure elitism mixed with different tastes. No they're not as refined a product as Japanese ones, but as playable games many succeeded quite well. The approach in Japan by this point was heavily based on competitive score setting, but in Europe on the home computer scene it was more about just having fun - and that's why you can't approach them in the same way as Japanese titles.

Honestly my favourite Amiga shmup wasn't the famed Apidya, which was an excellent game. For me it was X-Out. It was amazing, played well, looked nice, sounded better. You can build your loadout and weapon positions before levels by placing them on a grid, even now I don't know of a game giving quite as much freedom. Bosses were a let-down in places. I'd still play it now if I had a way that wasn't suffering Amiga emulation.

I grew up with an Amiga, and I played quite a few shmups on it. I always preferred Battle Squadron and S.W.I.V.
I would agree that it comes down to taste, but a lot of those so called Euro-shmups are just nowhere near as tight in overall level design and what have you than their Japanese counterparts. Xenon II certainly is not among the worst offenders, neither is X-Out, which I also quite enjoyed, especially for the art in that case.

I am sure there are people who will enjoy 1993, but I doubt it will be tighter designed than most if any of the Amiga shmups already out there.

BTW, if you wanna play Amiga games you should simply get an Amiga, they are not hard to come by, at least not in Europe. Very frequent and quite cheap on Ebay.

[Sly Cherry Chunks]

Spot on post from system11.

Xenon II is a good game but was terribly overhyped by the gaming press back in the day, making it an easy target for people who want to sound clever on the Internet.

X-Out plays great in WinUAE.

[Pretas]

Never met anyone who had a specific affinity for Euroshmup design that wasn't grounded in a rose-tinted, nostalgic attachment to the Western home computer gaming scenes of the eighties and nineties. It must be incredibly rare that someone tries out a game like Katakis or Project X for the first time in an emulator and becomes enamored with it that way. On the other hand, tons of people have become devotees of Konami, Psikyo, Raizing, Irem, etc. STGs without having ever experienced them in their heyday or in an arcade setting.

A telling quote from the founder of this site:

I must be really rose-tinted today, but I seem to remember getting loads of fun out of Menace and Blood Money back in the Amiga days - cue shattering of pink spectacles as the frustration floods back. Soon after I got Megadrive and japanese shmups like Thunderforce III just blew me away...

[320x240]

To a great extent this is a question of arcade versus home computer and it doesn't help "the home computer side" that there are so many amateurish, half baked projects out there. Even the professional products discussed here have that "tech-demo" vibe to it, which means that, to some extent, you would have had to be there to really appreciate it. So it is also a question of content versus gameplay.

Plus, the British are very guarded about "their" games and the memories they created... It's all about the music innit?

Edited to add that Pretas said it better above.

[Pretas]

It also bears mention that many of the most popular and esteemed action games on classic Western microcomputers - i.e. Renegade for ZX Spectrum, Ghosts 'n Goblins and Katakis for C64, Apidya for Amiga - are either direct ports of Japanese arcade hits, or wear their inspiration from them on their sleeve.

[system11]

To a great extent this is a question of arcade versus home computer and it doesn't help "the home computer side" that there are so many amateurish, half baked projects out there. Even the professional products discussed here have that "tech-demo" vibe to it, which means that, to some extent, you would have had to be there to really appreciate it. So it is also a question of content versus gameplay.

Plus, the British are very guarded about "their" games and the memories they created... It's all about the music innit?

Edited to add that Pretas said it better above.

Actually most of the good Amiga stuff was from Europe, notably Germany and Sweden. Systems prior to that had mostly very tight simple games because frankly there wasn't enough RAM for much else and most of their inspiration was from arcade ports of classic era games. The stuff you guys write off as 'euroshmup' really didn't become an identifiably negative thing until 16bit.

Perhaps learn more about subject matter before shooting straight for the localised barbs.

[320x240]

While most of the famous Euroshmups where made for 16-bit machines, don't forget Sanxion, Io, Armalyte, X-out etc. I got a C64 in the summer of 83 and by the late eighties it was easy enough to recognize certain themes and attitudes among these games, although the term Euroshmup was probably coined later.

You are right, of course, that most Euroshmups where made outside Britain, and especially in Germany.

[Cee]

Looks wank.

[DanMagoo]

Jeez the bad attitude and snobbery on this site sometimes.

The game in question has an interesting history and it looks kinda hectic and hellish in some of the footage. It's been greenlit by the community on Steam, so why not just let people try it for themselves instead of hating?

I don't see why a lifebar mechanic is any more or less stupid than eg a combo timer gauge as part of the game. Or why 3 to 6 autobombs per life > lifebar.

I'd rather hang with the Euroshmuppers from time to time than spend my whole life goose-stepping with the ShmupNazis.

[Pretas]

I don't see why a lifebar mechanic is any more or less stupid than eg a combo timer gauge as part of the game.

Then you're a bit dense, as these mechanics aren't functionally equivalent in the slightest. Apples and oranges.

Or why 3 to 6 autobombs per life > lifebar.

I wasn't aware that anyone was sticking up for DFK's ridiculous number of autobombs granted per life. I thought that Akai Katana and SDOJ's much more reasonable implementations of them were preferred by all.