SGDQ '15 Shmup exhibition possibility

[Shepardus]

High level scoreplay is definitely what we should be thinking about here, not making some pretense that shmups can be speedran.
A Yagawa game seems perfect.

If it's in their exhibition slot it doesn't have to be a speedrun, right? Just wanted to stress this point.
Also will it be on a side stream or part of the main event?

just quoting this as i think it's spot on. people need to get this idea that the exhibition would need to be a speed run out of their heads. speed running a shmup is not a thing. no one does that, no one would want to see it. high level play would be much better / more appropriate.

Yeah, Aquas said from the start that it would be an exhibition and doesn't need to be a speedrun.

Ikaruga would be a nice game to exhibit. Looks impressive, relatively well-known, very simple to explain relative to its depth. If someone could do a double-play that would be even better.

You know, Crimzon Clover wouldn't be bad either, other than the fact that it would destroy the stream quality. One of the Touhou games would be nice to include too, like say UFO or GFW (which has the additional benefit of being short), as they're always visually impressive and have a good amount of technical commentary to go over.

If you really want something similar to a speedrun, you could consider Dangun Feveron, considering how everything in that game revolves around doing things fast. And it gets the groove on.

[MathU]

Hmm...would Kingdom Grand Prix fit the bill?

This and Cosmic Cop/Gallop are two very entertaining shooters to speed run. Surprised they've barely been mentioned. Unlike most of these other suggestions, they fit the theme of this perfectly.

[CStarFlare]

This is all interesting discussion, but I wonder if the real questions are

Who is able and willing to attend?
What are they good at?

RFJ may be a great game to show off, but if the best player who can run it can clear Real Battle 2 60% of the time with conservative strategies, is that really an ideal exhibition?

Offhand, I could think of a handful of games that might be interesting to the GDQ crowd but ultimately there needs to be a runner and a run.

[Aquas]

^ Precisely.

About RFJ, maybe clearing wouldn't be a requirement for exhibition but it sure does make a nice package if it could be the case.
I'm considering a hair of re-learning RFJ in a week for this, but I also am liking Mushi BL Maniac as my pick now.

Again, the notion on what stg are speedrunnable should probably be seperated from this.

[ProjectAKo]

Psikyo games would basically be perfect for this.
Simple, fast, exciting, easy to understand. Both loops can be done in less than 30 min.
It would takes someone really skilled behind the controls tho.

This is what I'm talking about.

[ratikal]

How about Eschatos? It's simple to understand, minimal milking, and the soundtrack is banging. Plus, we have two players in the states (that I am aware of) that could perform well at it.

[Squire Grooktook]

Scoring in Eschatos also makes the game a bit faster too.

[Aquas]

I talked to Rom and he said they like these types of games for an exhibition: any ddp, Mushi series, Ikaruga, touhou lunatic, are decent suggestions. But basically, we're to submit as a shmups contingent for a 90 minute showcase (is our proposal)

[KAI]

2015 SGDQ Games List:
TASBot plays ikaruga - Maximum Score - 0:21

Oww god.

[1up]

I see Aquas and Softdrink got denied every shmup they suggested. Atleast we get to see Aquas awesome Ghoul'n Ghosts speedrun

[CaptainBadAss]

It's too bad this didn't go through. I've been watching GDQ since 2011 or 2012 and I would've loved to see a SHUMP. In either case, I'll still be watching as much of it as I can .

[copy-paster]

GDQ Shmup sections ?
I never realize this

I thought Darius Gaiden / G Darius can speedrunable to play since some Zones have short length levels
Cave-Raizing shmup games may can be very entertaining to play, or at least Gradius III Arcade for rage quit moments

[Chaos Phoenixma]

Could always try again in AGDQ. Maybe try to get a lot better at whatever games so that you're at a much higher level. Don't know if it was refused due to the lack of speedrunning content(the TGM exhibition at least has some speedrun elements to it) or if the proposed runs just weren't high level enough.


Or pick ones that can be speedrun, so practice up on Pocky and Rocky(which has been in one as a mystery game), Mamoru-kun, or maybe some others.

[trap15]

I don't quite get why people seem to think TGM isn't a speedrun. It's LITERALLY a speedrun. The goal is a fast time to clear. Which is the definition of a speedrun.

[jepjepjep]

A non-forced scrolling shmup like Fantasy Zone or Outzone would be a good fit for a speedrunning demo.

[Erppo]

Outzone might actually be a pretty good speedgame since the normal way to play it is doing everything really slowly. Though you do get a million bombs so maybe it's not that interesting.

E: Oh yeah it's also completely random when you get the speed up item and that's pretty necessary.

[davyK]

Agree via Ikaruga. The polarity thing makes for impressive play re spectating.

What about some caravan modes in games? They rely on you getting to and defeating the boss within a 2 or 5 min time limit and better ones have scoring tricks on the way. Thinking about Star Soldier games for example.

Also - there's Kingdom Grand Prix and the Grand Prix Omake mode in Oshaberi Parodius.

[system11]

Push scroll are the only real option. In The Hunt for example.

[DMC]

Some of you have mentioned Kingdom Grandprix. Two issues. One, last time I looked, western players were pretty far from the top scores. Two, high level scoring seems to involve slowing down your ship as much as you can and end up last in several laps/stages of the grand prix (this slows down scrolling and allow for more enemies to be milked). I bet it would be pretty boring for the target audience to watch this and it is the opposite of speedrunning.

[CStarFlare]

Sucks that their games got declined. Ikaruga could be interesting? Anyway, now that a showing is off the table there's not much to do except talk generally.

Caravan games are time-oriented but not really speed games outside of boss quick kills. They might be too bite-sized to justify a game or console swap (probably console, because there's not really much Caravan on modern systems and the meat of any exhibition would have to include Cave and/or Touhou). Recca is actually kind of a perfect package on paper - it's a fairly known retro hidden gem has that Time Attack, a traditional Caravan mode, and a normal/hard course - but it's probably not main-stage material. It's an impressive game, but it doesn't bring the wow factor that an uninitiated audience would need to be drawn in.

The genre and its community is overwhelmingly focused on auto-scrolling games, and as such I'm not sure I'd consider a push scroller a win for the scene any more than Shoot the Bullet was. I've got nothing against them, they'd just be cool in a "game I like" way instead of a "goddamn, shmups in GDQ" way. Scoreplay would be the way to go, and they've done that Star Fox 64 run so there is some precedent for allowing that. No one plays shmups for speed - let's not try to shoehorn it in so they'll let one of us sit on the couch.

It would be interesting to hear from someone who submitted if they know why things didn't work out, if only so it might be planned for and mitigated by anyone who might want to try again next year.

[system11]

You could route Mr Heli actually, that would be unusual.

[Squire Grooktook]

No one plays shmups for speed - let's not try to shoehorn it in so they'll let one of us sit on the couch.

Agreed. Score play of a normal autoscroller or bust.

[Shepardus]

I didn't know that they've done a scoring run at GDQ before in the form of Star Fox 64, I guess they aren't against things that aren't strictly speedruns if they think the audience will like it. And yes, high-level scoreplay is the way to go. I do think that the runner needs to be really good at scoring (at least close to the top in the western community) if a demonstration's going to be interesting.

[Chaos Phoenixma]

It was a donation bidwar between scorerun or speedrun.


I doubt it had anything to do with not being related to speed because yes they have had a scorerun before and they offered the option. I think it had to do with the runs being offered not being high level enough, but I have nothing to do with it, so I could be wrong. The Star Fox 64 runner was high level in scoring.


And yeah, I do think scoreplay should be what is what should be submitted for an exhibition, but there's definitely something for ones that could potentially be speedrun that might be interesting.


most of the ones I've played can't be speedrun. I should definitely try out stuff like Pocky and Rocky, In the Hunt, Outzone because they may be decent games, but I wouldn't try speedrunning them myself even if they can be done in theory.

[Shepardus]

Resurrecting this thread to ask: Has anyone here considered a Shoot the Bullet / Double Spoiler speedrun?

No, it's not like most shmups, but that's exactly why it actually makes more sense at a GDQ event than most shmups. The scenes-based gameplay means that you can compete to see how quickly you can complete all the scenes, and it's also pretty marathon-safe since if you screw up on a scene you just go back to the start of the scene. I'm not sure how much speed optimization you can do beyond completing all the scenes on the first try, though - anybody with more experience with the games want to comment on this? It's probably not as interesting as scoreplay but is it at least more interesting than "just play through the game and don't die"?

[Chaos Phoenixma]

Double Spoiler was accepted once as a speedrun, but the runner had to cancel right before the event.

So StB/DS should be an option.

[hien]

No one plays shmups for speed

That's probably right but I think some kind of scoring race between equally good players (if that's a realistic scenario) or something like that could still be pretty entertaining to watch without it deviating too much from what people expect to see on such an event.

[Icarus]

They submitted Eschatos for SGDQ '15 as a two-way scoring race between Ratikal and Aquas - two of the highest scoring players in the West - and that was rejected at the very first phase of submissions.
So if they weren't even receptive to that, then it's hard to think of anything they could be interested in seeing on the big stage.

[hien]

They submitted Eschatos for SGDQ '15 as a two-way scoring race between Ratikal and Aquas - two of the highest scoring players in the West - and that was rejected at the very first phase of submissions.
So if they weren't even receptive to that, then it's hard to think of anything they could be interested in seeing on the big stage.

Oh okay, that's very disappointing to hear.

[Eaglet]

Needless to say, organizers don't know shit about STG's and so long as that remains unchanged this is not a possible venue.

The thing is though; Eschatos would've been a success. No doubt about it.