Cave's Future (New Investor relations document)

[whitey]

From Insert Credit....

It was thanks to one of those investor relations documents which Cave publishes in PDF format that we got to first hear about the development of Cave's latest arcade games (the sequels to Espgaluda and Ibara) and now the story repeats regarding the development of the forthcoming arcade titless from this company over the next few months. Unfortunately, we have bad news this time. Cave's next arcade games after Pink Sweets will take the form of a mah-jong-based medal game and a card game for children. There's no mention of a new shooting game (or non-dedicated arcade game, for that matter) in the whole document aside from Pink Sweets' location test report. Not a good sign. It also lets us know that Cave has formed a co-participated company with Tamiya to publish online games based on Mini Yon Ku, and more interestingly, that a 'kouryaku DVD' for Ibara and another one for Espgaluda II are being made. Ibara is also going to receive a 'digital comic' of which you can see a small preview in the document.

Document is loacted here: http://www.cave.co.jp/ir/ir06013102.pdf

Can anyone get anymore info out of this doument? Any report as to how Pink Sweets did at the loc test?

[CIT]

Can anyone get anymore info out of this doument? Any report as to how Pink Sweets did at the loc test?

Sorry, doesn't say anything more in the document, other than the location test having taken place.

[Dylan1CC]

Mahjong and childrens' games. From such a great company all I can say is:



Seriously though, I hope this isn't the end.

edit: Of course, maybe overreacting a bit since Mushi had a bowling game. But a whole year with no new shooter from them while they "test the waters" for these crap spin off games is worrying.

[captain ahar]

i'm particularly curious about the diagrams on the last two pages of the doc.

now i'm worried... like a battle-hardened pirate often is.

[GaijinPunch]

There are Blog reports on Pink Sweets location tests... all Japanese though.

This isn't necessarily a bad thing. They just got ESPGaluda II out a couple of months ago, and are still working on Pink Sweets. Perhaps the next proper arcade game is too much in it's infancy to post? Wishful thinking perhaps.

i'm particularly curious about the diagrams on the last two pages of the doc

I don't think those are new. They were there last time, although maybe a bit different.

[CIT]

Those diagrams are just there to illustrate the company structure, nothing to worry about...



...other than the whole Mahjong thing, of course.

When Shooter companies start making Mahjong games, it's usually a bad sign...

[Icarus]

The way some of you are going on, you'd think Cave had just declared bankruptcy. If anything, a mahjong game and a card game will give them the opportunity to take a little break from the shmup field, and try to reenergise their creative skills. When you make as many shmups as they have, you can end up getting complacent, and the quality starts to slip.

(And lets face it, all their games, while great, are all just variations on the same chaining theme. With the exception of Ibara and Ibara Pink Label, of course. ^_-)

[undamned]

When Shooter companies start making Mahjong games, it's usually a bad sign...

Word. See Xnauts. We can look forward to naked cave chicas. Yay.
-ud

[captain ahar]

(And lets face it, all their games, while great, are all just variations on the same chaining theme. With the exception of Ibara and Ibara Pink Label, of course. ^_-)

**cough**raizing**hack**medals**sputter**rank**end** :P

[llabnip]

Those diagrams are just there to illustrate the company structure, nothing to worry about...
...other than the whole Mahjong thing, of course.
When Shooter companies start making Mahjong games, it's usually a bad sign...

Psikyo made several Mahjong games and then went on to continue a few shooters (though I don't care as much for the later era Psikyo shooters, most love them). Jaleco (Game Paradise) didn't do too badly either. Capcom had a couple of weird Mahjong games (one featured characters from Gunbird!). I'm actually having a hard time coming up with an example of a company that developed a Mahjong game and had their later shooter releases suffer. I see undammed had Xnauts - so there's one. I guess one could argue that Compile shooter output dropped to nearly nil after the release of Puyo Puyo (one of my fav puzzle games but I would have preferred they continue to pump out shooters... at least we got Zanac Neo) but that was a puzzle game (I don't think Compile ever created a Mahjong game).

Anyway, I love mahjong so I'm not that unhappy! It took a long time to learn the Japanese Richi and other localized rulesets but now that I'm over the hump, I enjoy Mahjong games quite a bit (though I mostly enjoy it as a real 4P boardgame with a nice set of tiles).

I'm sure Cave will continue to pump out manic shooters. So nobody should panic.

[Icarus]

(And lets face it, all their games, while great, are all just variations on the same chaining theme. With the exception of Ibara and Ibara Pink Label, of course. ^_-)

**cough**raizing**hack**medals**sputter**rank**end**

"Variations on the same CHAINING theme." Please re-read my previous post. And I am well aware of Ibara's Raizing heritage, and the fact that it is vastly different to anything Cave have put out prior to it's release (with the exception of Uo Poko and Mushihime-tama). ^_-

EDIT: Also note that Raizing have tried out many different weapon and scoring systems, not just the Rank and Medals thing. Racing. Weapon. Web. Mech Form. Bomb Multipliers. Tribute bosses. Item sets. Elemental charge attacks. Variable Options.
Cave have done what? Shot. Hold Shot for slow movement and/or power attack. Bomb. The occasional secondary attack (eg Kakusei System/Hyper Mode). ^_-

You might want some throat drops there, Cap'n. Pretty bad cough you have. ^_-

[Eight One]

The way some of you are going on, you'd think Cave had just declared bankruptcy. If anything, a mahjong game and a card game will give them the opportunity to take a little break from the shmup field, and try to reenergise their creative skills. When you make as many shmups as they have, you can end up getting complacent, and the quality starts to slip.

Mushi-tama was their break. Back to action!

[captain ahar]

just want make sure, you know i not serious, icarus?

[Icarus]

just want make sure, you know i not serious, icarus?

Of course. ^_-
I just wanted to clarify my point is all, in case someone else picks up on it ^_-

(And on a Cave fan's forum such as this one, someone inevitably will ^_-)

[Kiken]

Hey, shouldn't I get some extra credit for calling this (Cave making Mah Jongg games)?

[Dylan1CC]

Icarus: The way some of you are going on, you'd think Cave had just declared bankruptcy. If anything, a mahjong game and a card game will give them the opportunity to take a little break from the shmup field, and try to reenergise their creative skills.

I hope you are right and it is a short "creative break." Yeah, they could use a year off to refresh themselves, I agree.

[captain ahar]

(And on a Cave fan's forum such as this one, someone inevitably will ^_-)

well yeah, but y'see cave have never made a bad game...

i just don't know when to quit...

[Dylan1CC]

(And on a Cave fan's forum such as this one, someone inevitably will ^_-)

well yeah, but y'see cave have never made a bad game...

i just don't know when to quit...

[Acid King]

(And lets face it, all their games, while great, are all just variations on the same chaining theme. With the exception of Ibara and Ibara Pink Label, of course. ^_-)

Zah? While I'd agree that all of their games share similar traits, I don't think you could say all of them are just variations of the same chaining theme. The Donpachis and Mushi are the big offenders of this, but I think Progear, Guwange, Dangun and Galuda are all considerably different than those, even if the control scheme is similar.

[GaijinPunch]

well yeah, but y'see cave have never made a bad game...

Never made a bad "arcade" game is pretty accurate.

[Acid King]

well yeah, but y'see cave have never made a bad game...

Never made a bad "arcade" game is pretty accurate.

Now let us never speak of yanya caballista again.

[Neon]

(And lets face it, all their games, while great, are all just variations on the same chaining theme. With the exception of Ibara and Ibara Pink Label, of course. ^_-)

Zah? While I'd agree that all of their games share similar traits, I don't think you could say all of them are just variations of the same chaining theme. The Donpachis and Mushi are the big offenders of this, but I think Progear, Guwange, Dangun and Galuda are all considerably different than those, even if the control scheme is similar.

You beat me to it. I prefer Raizing to Cave, and I love Icarus for making and maintaining the Garegga ST (among other great contributions), but...bullshit, that's not very fair to Cave. Progear, Dangun, Galuda I and II, have no chaining whatsoever...I'm pretty sure Guwange's does it in a weird way as well. And they all play differently from each other, moreso than Psikyo (with about 1 small improvement per game) at least.

Roffles at the 'I'm being persecuted' attitude in general...'this is a Cave forum, all Cave's games except the Raizing ones are the same.' You're smarter than that my friend.

[Icarus]

Oh please. ^_-

• Esprade - chaining brown item boxes to maintain 16x, start of bullet nullification systems within Cave games.
• Guwange - chaining coins to maintain skull "chain counter" bar, extension of Esprade's "secondary attack to main attack" style of scoring, plus extension of Esprade's milking procedures (see replays of stage3 cat-spider boss for an example).
• Feveron - chaining discomen to increase in-game item based score multiplier, a system Ketsui adopted in part (Ketsui's green boxes adds to score multiplier in a similar manner)
• Progear - chaining Rings to increase two types of item counters, Rings and Jewels, which affect score in different ways. Another extension of the Esprade/Guwange bullet nullification system.
• Espgaluda - chaining in short bursts using an item-based secondary attack counter, and yet another bullet nullification system, this time rooted to the destruction of the enemy that fired the pattern, rather than nullifying bullets around said destroyed enemy's location
• Espgaluda 2 - same as Espgaluda, with an even more complex item-based chaining system (Kakusei Zesshikai (sp?)) which counts down both sets of items, and dramatically increases bullet count (and the opportunity to nullify those bullets).
  
  EDIT: IIRC, don't you get more Kakusei Gems when you kill something at point blank range? Sounds very Ketsui-like to me.
• Ketsui - short burst chaining similar to Donpachi, but with proximity based item rewards and a secondary multiplier based on those rewards. Similar bonus structure to Esprade/Guwange with item bonus countdown.
• Mushi - probably the only Cave game that's close to breaking the mould, although its hit-based chaining system takes from Dodonpachi 2.

To me, chaining does not have to be along the lines of Dodonpachi's style, and there are lots of elements shared between every Cave game. And I state again, Cave are good, but come on. It took Shinobu Yagawa to make them change their direction. (And even then Ibara got slated for not being Cave-like.) This Cave fan wants to see them try something radically different, and Ibara Pink Label is an encouraging sign.

[system11]

Mushihimesama
Ibara
Espgaluda 2
Ibara 2

All in a pretty quick timeframe. I'd say Cave can afford to take a break from making them.

[shariar07]

Yeah i agree they have making lots of shmups recently, they should take a break and put everything in retrospective about what worked and what needs to be fixed or added on the shmup side.

I guess maybe by the end of 2006 or early 2007 we will see
Mushihime-sama 2 or Dondopachi DJ 2 in the arcades

[Rob]

All in a pretty quick timeframe. I'd say Cave can afford to take a break from making them.

It's funny most people haven't played 3 of those 4 games and worry over some cash-grab filler games. If only Takumi had 3 new shooters slated for release within a year, or maybe 1.

What's next what's next what's next??

[neorichieb1971]

I doubt Cave are taking a break from Shooters at all. Most of the programmers, artists and designers have been in the shmup field forever.

It would be counter productive imo, to make them program games they have no interest in.

You guys are reading far too much into that note.

[Valgar]

All in a pretty quick timeframe. I'd say Cave can afford to take a break from making them.

It's funny most people haven't played 3 of those 4 games and worry over some cash-grab filler games. If only Takumi had 3 new shooters slated for release within a year, or maybe 1.

What's next what's next what's next??

My thoughts.

[gunbird18]

I just wish Taito or some other distribution company would pick up Ketsui and let us enjoy it while the Japanese enjoy the awesome new Cave Mahjong games!

(Yep, haven't experienced Ketsui yet. Drooled over the superplay videos, but haven't been within 500 miles of a Ketsui board... )

[BulletMagnet]

To me, chaining does not have to be along the lines of Dodonpachi's style...

You do indeed have a rather wide-reaching definition of "chaining"...though you do realize that you're one step off from being able to say that Raizing made players "chain" medals in their games, right? Not to even mention, of course, Bakraid's more "Pachi-esque" chaining system off to the side...

And I state again, Cave are good, but come on. It took Shinobu Yagawa to make them change their direction.

Yeah, to an unofficial Garegga sequel.

Mushi - probably the only Cave game that's close to breaking the mould...

I can't help but be a bit surprised to hear that...myself, I found Mushi, despite its strong points, to be one of Cave's least creative efforts in terms of gameplay...it felt to me almost exactly like the DonPachis, but a bit more lenient, since you only had to hit things rather than kill them, and missing a piece of a chain wouldn't immediately reset you to square one. Unless you're talking about Original mode, heh heh.

(And even then Ibara got slated for not being Cave-like.)

Where? Not on this forum, from what I can recall seeing...some have apparently frowned at the game for failing to improve on (at least completely) some of Garegga's "issues" (invisi-bullets, inaccessibility, etc.), but I can't once recall seeing someone here say "I don't want Cave to do something different!" If anything, several seem to have followed your lead in labeling Ibara as one of their favorite Cave games of all, largely because it's something "different"...if you've got a link to someplace that can prove me wrong, by all means post it.

As for the actual topic at hand, methinks it's a bit too early to tell what Cave's attitude towards future shmups might be...they've been doing it for awhile, after all, and have remained pretty popular among players of the genre, so if I had to guess I'd say that they wouldn't be abandoning it completely. Again, though, who knows...in any event, we've got a pretty good amount of their stuff to play in the meantime.