A few questions on development.

[UnidentifiedPhantasm]

Hi my name is UnidentifiedPhantasm, i am looking to create a bullet hell game with an inspiration on the gameplay of the Touhou series.

1-I plan to have a gimick that coincides with the story of the game, i am thinking of a system where at certain times wheater you like it or not, you will have to aproach the bullets, in order to survive but i don't know how i should go about implementing it

2-How do i transfer art from a paper or tablet to the computer

3- Creating the backgrounds for the game

4- Overall scripting

All the help is much appreciated, as the game progresses i will reveal more details about it, such as the story playable characters, the gimick and more.

[Shepardus]

Regarding #1, many games do reward you to some extent for playing aggressively and point-blanking enemies, such as Ketsui and Crimzon Clover. I'm not sure how many incorporate it into survival beyond doing more damage at close range or bullet patterns being safest near the enemies (lol Icicle Fall), but those alone are enough to get good players to play aggressively (because as well all know only scrubs hang around at the bottom of the screen all the time). Most Touhou games also reward players for grazing bullets with extra score, and in Fairy Wars it can directly help with survival since it charges your ice meter faster (there's a similar mechanic in Dodonpachi II: Bee Storm if you play Energy mode). Mars Matrix and Giga Wing encourage you to use their respective shield mechanics and run into bullets to reflect them for score.

For #2, get a scanner if you want to transfer art from paper to a computer. You're probably going to better off doing the art digitally to begin with, though. To transfer from a tablet to a computer, I'm sure you can find a way (USB cable? email yourself? upload to Dropbox?).

You're going to have to be more specific with your last two questions for anyone to be able to help you.

[UnidentifiedPhantasm]

Regarding #1, many games do reward you to some extent for playing aggressively and point-blanking enemies, such as Ketsui and Crimzon Clover. I'm not sure how many incorporate it into survival beyond doing more damage at close range or bullet patterns being safest near the enemies (lol Icicle Fall), but those alone are enough to get good players to play aggressively (because as well all know only scrubs hang around at the bottom of the screen all the time). Most Touhou games also reward players for grazing bullets with extra score, and in Fairy Wars it can directly help with survival since it charges your ice meter faster (there's a similar mechanic in Dodonpachi II: Bee Storm if you play Energy mode). Mars Matrix and Giga Wing encourage you to use their respective shield mechanics and run into bullets to reflect them for score.

For #2, get a scanner if you want to transfer art from paper to a computer. You're probably going to better off doing the art digitally to begin with, though. To transfer from a tablet to a computer, I'm sure you can find a way (USB cable? email yourself? upload to Dropbox?).

You're going to have to be more specific with your last two questions for anyone to be able to help you.

1- I will try to incorporate grazing into the game, but the gimick will be different, for one in Touhou games, you only graze for points, and in Legacy of the Lunatic Kingdom, it helps tremendously with getting lives and bombs. I am thinking the gimick will have 2 versions, heat and cold, for cold, you need to get close to the bullets to provide heat, or else, you will lose a life, or get slower at avoiding bullets. There will be a meter for temperature. I still don't know about heat.

3- The backgrounds like how to make backgrounds like in a touhou game, stage and spellcard.

[trap15]

Learn to 3D model, learn how to render a 3D scene, learn how to manipulate a 3D scene, learn how to do shader effects.

[UnidentifiedPhantasm]

Learn to 3D model, learn how to render a 3D scene, learn how to manipulate a 3D scene, learn how to do shader effects.

It's a 2D vertical shooter, like Touhou Project.

[trap15]

Touhou backgrounds are 3D.

[Lord Satori]

Not for the PC-98 they weren't.

[n0rtygames]

Hi my name is UnidentifiedPhantasm

Hello UnidentifiedPhantasm! Welcome to shmups forum

i am looking to create a bullet hell game with an inspiration on the gameplay of the Touhou series.

Great! The genre needs more shmups of all varieties. Pull this off well and people might really enjoy your game.

1-I plan to have a gimick that coincides with the story of the game, i am thinking of a system where at certain times wheater you like it or not, you will have to aproach the bullets, in order to survive but i don't know how i should go about implementing it

Fascinating! The Touhou games have grazing in them. Look in to grazing. I highly recommend creating a game with an energy bomb that replenishes while you graze. Not only will this be hours of fun for you, but it might become something of an obscure cult classic for entirely different reasons than what you expect. Look no further than such masterpieces as DDP : Bee Storm for how to execute this to brilliant effect!

2-How do i transfer art from a paper or tablet to the computer

For this, you will require either a graphics tablet which is already plugged in to your computer, or a scanner. With a scanner, you must place the art face down on the scanner bed and then use the software provided with your scanner to scan in the image and transfer it to your computer. If it's a graphics tablet, it's usually a case of simply hitting "save"!

3- Creating the backgrounds for the game

Backgrounds can take a long time, but in the case of Touhou - you don't need to worry! Most people don't really play touhou for the backgrounds, they just watch on 240p videos and say "Wow! Is he cheating?"

Seriously though - as Trap said, learn to 3d model because a lot of Touhou games now use 3d assets.

4- Overall scripting

You should basically learn a programming language, either by teaching yourself or attending some sort of course. I recommend the self taught approach as you can have way more fun this way.

All the help is much appreciated, as the game progresses i will reveal more details about it, such as the story playable characters, the gimick and more.

I really look forward to it, but let's be honest - if you've made an account on a particularly niche shmup forum asking how you transfer graphics from a tablet to your computer when it's already plugged in to your computer...



(the implication being that this is obviously a troll post)

[Kaiser]

Well, shall we begin with that you never should ask how to do everything in terms of game development, because you aren't going to learn everything and most importantly no tutorials on internet will teach you how to do game design.

I do find it weird that you ask how to transfer files from a tablet to a PC, you can google up the model of your tablet and FIND A MANUAL FOR IT and read in the manual how to transfer from a tablet to a PC but the question is, WHY WOULD YOU NEED the manual for a tablet if you are actually using the tablet thus unless by some strange bizarre reason you aren't trolling us, legimitately had drawn things and never transferred them to PC.

Now! Here's the game dev course I endured!

1. I learned a programming/scripting language.
2. I learned how to do basic pixel art.
3. I learned to click buttons on my enviroment interface.

So I learned those things and thought I learned all I needed, in reality I learned nothing and could do nothing. Not feeling scared yet? Well, try to learn those 3 things THEN TRY to make a game out of it, even a prototype. And the course continues!

4. I spent hours, days, weeks trying to do anything.
5. I kept getting angry because I was at the point where I started making the game.

Countless failed attempts to do a game, so much wasted time and here I was, on the verge of quitting, because I was getting nowhere even with the tools I had (in this case, BPzeBanshee's Warbird/GMOSSE templates which were already EASY MODE templates to begin with so that made it even more painful).

You see, the problem is not that I kept failing, but because I kept learning nothing from my failures, I kept coming up with things that were completely shit because I JUST WANTED TO MAKE A GAME LIKE EVERYONE ELSE. Then it hit me, that game design is not a car race, there is no competition ahead or behind you, you don't race to do things first.

So I played shmups, payed attention to how they work, how they play, all the nuances and the staples of the genre, generally you want to take the best ideas and put your spin on them, however here's a catch. You can't do anything without experimenting, experimenting leads to failures, no matter how skilled you are, game design is ALL ABOUT FAILING over and over and over, the moment you step into game design you already failed.

So what do you do? Keep failing! But actually learning what you could do better with each time you fail and game design is an endless stream of fails you can learn from, mainly yours but you can learn from mistakes of others too.

Now let's assume after months of breaking your head, you have a prototype working, with graphics barely resembling what you want, with gameplay mechanics sort of there, you show it to others and go like HEY GUYS I MADE A GAME MY FIRST GAME, then you face the harsh reality, nobody likes it, the potential's not there, you will be offended, you will be hurt, you will be angry AND YOU WILL be throwing rage tantrums like a kid, because it is natural for the first few times this happens. Don't believe me? Here's few more course steps that happened to me:

6. I made a working prototype/demo, put it out there, it was called terrible and amateur
7. I was angry because I had to go back to the drawing board (or just rage not doing so) and see where I went wrong and I believed I didn't ever go wrong

So what's the solution to make people like your game? PUT IN ACTUAL DAMN EFFORT, you don't make games to just put them out, you make games you would like to enjoy and for others as well but no matter how perfect your game is, somebody out there will hate it. I kept repeating steps 6 and 7 (infact I still can be triggered this way) because no matter what I did, I kept going wrong, I kept NOT DOING THINGS properly.

And putting in actual effort is not something you just do, it's HARD WORK that lasts months even years, it's very close to being Sisyphus's work, it is harsh and unrewarding, nobody will give you the leeway. You will not be rich, you will not be popular, your game WILL NOT BE A CULT CLASSIC, face that reality son as it will not go away.

You will tell me I am a hypocrite because some games sell millions of bucks, it's all hard work, luck and real world knowledge like business all combined. You cannot put the real world out of the equation in game design, it is there, game design depends on it.

And i'm talking solo work right now, don't get me started on team projects, i'll simply say that nobody will tag with you if you cannot provide a quality product and prove to them that you can actually finish it and make it even better.

Back to what I was saying, I kept repeating steps 6 and 7, as my first game (Zenodyne) was largely criticized because it was half assed and it suffered from the FIRST GAME syndrome, eventually I threw my anger again and move to step 8.

8. I actually listened to feedback (note: not everything is right for your game from the feedback, be careful) and fixed my game
9. Gave it to people to test and gather feedback.

I kept repeating steps 8 and 9, kept improving my game, kept working on it, KEPT spending weeks/months on it and sweating like a mad man. And then I released the game, I was happy but there were so many things wrong with this game that I wish I did better second time around, which I am doing with Zenohell!

And you would think that I would not go through this course again. Here's the harsh reality, it repeats with each new game, it never goes away, the only thing that changes is that you set the bar higher, if not you then your customers and fans will, I am going through the same cycle with Zenohell and I will with any game I make in the future, what does change is the quality, depending on your efforts, it will be either worse or better. You need to aim for BETTER, and the kind of better where people in general will agree that despite it's flaws your new game is better even by 1%. But you should keep aiming higher and higher, push it to the limits.

If you aren't willing to go the distance, don't bother! Don't suffer the trauma! Don't suffer the harsh reality! Find an another hobby or cry in a corner that the world is bad because it doesn't like your game.

Ending this rant, I want to thank a certain shmup dev who put me through this course and keeps reminding me of how things really are in game design, so I don't get carried away. If you are reading this bud, you are still a c**t !

ALSO DEAR OP I HOPE YOU AREN'T JUST A TROLL because they are not uncommon.

[n0rtygames]

If you aren't willing to go the distance, don't bother!

"If you're going to try, go all the way. Otherwise don't even start...."

[UnidentifiedPhantasm]

This isn't a troll post. I am legitimatly creating a videogame here. Also is Cubase SX 3 good for making Touhou style music?

[Shepardus]

Anything's fine provided you can learn to use it well. I've heard that ZUN himself uses Cubase SX so it should work fine, no idea if he uses a particular soundfont or something though.

[UnidentifiedPhantasm]

Well, i have drawn on papper, the stage 1,3,4,5,6 bosses as well as the extra boss and the main characters. Only the stage 1 boss, has been drawn with different emotions though, i even have her defeated pose already. For the soundtrack, i will try to replicate the zun pets and use them accordingly in the music, where they match and stuff, but , aquatic instruments will be introduced post stage 2, making for a nice change of pace. I have so many ideas for this series, i am going to start slow with the 1st in order to create a quality danmaku game.

The gimick is this:

Throught the stages, enemies will have different auras around them, when you shoot the red ones you will gain heat, shoot blue you get cold.

When you´re freezing, your speed while moving is slowed down in unfocused and focused mode so it can be dangerous to avoid danmaku that way. While affected by the heat, the enemies will shoot bullets a little bit faster than usual.

What do you guys think of the gimick?

[Shepardus]

There's a reason developers rarely, if ever, do speedup/speed-down powerups anymore despite being really common in the 80s, and that's because most shmup players loathe them for taking away their sense of control over their movements. Having a variable speed out of the control of the player makes precise movements difficult in a frustrating way, as it's not necessarily "slower is harder, faster is easier," and to many it feels more like the fault of the game when you get hit because you were moving at the wrong speed. Bullet speedup/slowdown is fine, that's basically a rank system (which is pretty common across all sorts of shmups), but I doubt changing the player's move speed would be received well.

Also plz, zunpets are only tolerable because ZUN writes such great melodies with them. Proceed with caution.

[UnidentifiedPhantasm]

Actually it would be better just changing bullet speed, instead of character speed. The speed ups and down won't be nearly as much as it sounds though.

Yeah, Zun , usually uses the Zun pets, in pretty cool areas of the music, ( the last occultism, kobito of the shinning needle, etc... ) and that adds to the charm of the music and a lot of fan music usually overuses the zun pets.

[n0rtygames]

This isn't a troll post. I am legitimatly creating a videogame here. Also is Cubase SX 3 good for making Touhou style music?

Okay, my apologies - we get a lot of troll posts and you can perhaps see why I would interpret that as "how do I use a scanner". If you're really wondering about the process of getting things from paper to in game assets I think maybe start with narrowing your questions down a bit. What part are you stuck on exactly?

It's hard to answer your questions really since they're vague as hell and you're essentially asking how to do everything.

If you had a particular art style in mind, you might find that an artist would be able to give you insight in to their own personal workflow for instance. Pixel art? Vector art? Hand painted? Renders??

Same for actually developing your game, if you're new to programming then there's lots of advice seasoned programmers could give you (which you might find to be along the lines of 'first, make pong, tron, breakout and pacman')

Yes you can use whatever tools you like but you need to have an objective in mind and making games can be a very long process indeed.

[MintyTheCat]

Hello UnidentifiedPhantasm,

first of all I would ask yourself which area(s) you are most suited/interested in wrt Game development:

1. Conceptual Art
2. Pixel Art/Animation/Spriting
3. Level design
4. Game Testing
5. Gamecode development
6. Utility development
7. Musician/FX

You may also find other roles such as marketing and promotion and presentation roles in addition to the roles above.

Most people will not carry out every role alone so you will need to form or join a team.

I would recommend that you read a couple of books about Game development too - e.g. understand what a Game Development Document is.
Then work out if this is what you fancy getting involved with or not.

I have seen many people in software particularly try to achieve too much in a short time. Instead, I would advise you to concentrate on taking small but sure steps and to try things out. You can have a great deal of fun along the way.

Please take all my suggestions with the understanding that I am not a professional Game Developer but a Software Developer with an interest in Shmups.

Cheers,

Minty.

[UnidentifiedPhantasm]

Hello UnidentifiedPhantasm,

first of all I would ask yourself which area(s) you are most suited/interested in wrt Game development:

1. Conceptual Art
2. Pixel Art/Animation/Spriting
3. Level design
4. Game Testing
5. Gamecode development
6. Utility development
7. Musician/FX

You may also find other roles such as marketing and promotion and presentation roles in addition to the roles above.

Most people will not carry out every role alone so you will need to form or join a team.

I would recommend that you read a couple of books about Game development too - e.g. understand what a Game Development Document is.
Then work out if this is what you fancy getting involved with or not.

I have seen many people in software particularly try to achieve too much in a short time. Instead, I would advise you to concentrate on taking small but sure steps and to try things out. You can have a great deal of fun along the way.

Please take all my suggestions with the understanding that I am not a professional Game Developer but a Software Developer with an interest in Shmups.

Cheers,

Minty.

~

I am planning to read a book about gamedev, however those are rare in my country ( portugal ) so i will most likely order it online.

I think 1,4, 7 are quite interesting.

[MintyTheCat]

Hello UnidentifiedPhantasm,

first of all I would ask yourself which area(s) you are most suited/interested in wrt Game development:

1. Conceptual Art
2. Pixel Art/Animation/Spriting
3. Level design
4. Game Testing
5. Gamecode development
6. Utility development
7. Musician/FX

You may also find other roles such as marketing and promotion and presentation roles in addition to the roles above.

Most people will not carry out every role alone so you will need to form or join a team.

I would recommend that you read a couple of books about Game development too - e.g. understand what a Game Development Document is.
Then work out if this is what you fancy getting involved with or not.

I have seen many people in software particularly try to achieve too much in a short time. Instead, I would advise you to concentrate on taking small but sure steps and to try things out. You can have a great deal of fun along the way.

Please take all my suggestions with the understanding that I am not a professional Game Developer but a Software Developer with an interest in Shmups.

Cheers,

Minty.

~

I am planning to read a book about gamedev, however those are rare in my country ( portugal ) so i will most likely order it online.

I think 1,4, 7 are quite interesting.

Provided that you can read in English you will find a handful. I shall have a look to see if I can recommend any from those I have read.

Also, Gamasutra and one or two other sites are useful for general Game Development related ideas, direction and advice:

http://www.gamasutra.com/

Sadly, there is nothing dedicated to Shmup development at this time and this sub-forum is all we have right now

Also, there are a few Game Dev schools around Europe, might be an idea to look at the courses they offer and get the syllabus and the reading-list to see what they are all looking at. Often you can also get hold of their lab work too and course work so you can take your pick from these resources too:

https://www.plymouth.ac.uk/courses/unde ... evelopment

(*) I am not advocating this University but it should serve as an example.

Cheers,

Minty.

[UnidentifiedPhantasm]

To tell the truth, the game dev itself hasn't even started ( concept has though ) , and i won't begin until i have a much more powerful computer to work with, which is sometime this month, so until i have it i won't take chances and risks with dev backgrounds and music, because this computer has a few problems ( sometimes shuts by itself )

But on a good note, i already have the basis for a song in the game.