How long do you prefer your stages/progression

[Squire Grooktook]

Been doing a bit of research lately.

Most shmups seem to give about 2 minutes for a stage 1, and may or may not increase length for each following stage, depending on how many there are.

How do you prefer your stage length's? Short? Fast? Short opening stage and long finale? Even progression? Does it effect the flow of the game to you, or is it all the same to you?

[Kollision]

I don't mind them short, but I wouldn't want to have them too long either.
Long stages are only admissible when at the end of the game, I guess.

Sol Divide is an example of too short.

[Vludi]

Short, i just can't get into R-Type 3 because of that first stage.

[Shepardus]

I don't have much of an attention span, so I'm quite a fan of short stages, short bosses, short game - think Dragon Blaze and Battle Bakraid. Longer stages have their place, though, which is usually the last stage or penultimate stage (Garegga and most Touhou games have relatively short last stages to put the focus on the bosses). Radiant Silvergun's the only game I can think of that gets away with a really long first stage, though it divides stages into shorter substages. Tatsujin and Tatsujin-Oh are two games that are too long for their own good.

I'm not sure whether I prefer stages to get longer as the game goes on (possibly with the exception of the last stage) or remain about the same length. I can think of good examples of both. Longer last stages tend to give a more "epic" feeling but can also feel off-puttingly hard to learn since it feels like progress grinds to a halt while you're stuck on a long stage. Depending on your scoring system it might make the preceding stages worthless for score too.

[Durandal]

Short first stages are good because they are the easiest, and I want to get over them ASAP.

[ciox]

It really depends on the game. I'll give you an extremely specific example.

There are some complaints about Psyvariar having short stages (roughly 50 seconds on average), but this works for the best with the game, in an average stage you already have to cheat death dozens of times if you are playing by grazing and moving all over the place as intended, that and the bosses are a main highlight of the game where both survival gets harder and a lot of innovative strategies and tricks come out - with each boss having two phases at around 45 seconds each (played for score), you kind of need short stages to keep the whole game at a normal length of 24 minutes, so I think they made the right call by having short and very concentrated stages from beginning to end.

Looking at the very long late stages in other high quality games, it seems they're typically broken up with lots of novel elements, minibosses jump in at you inbetween the usual waves and enemy-wise you have both new enemies for the stage and lots of guest enemies from other stages that you haven't seen in a really long time so that there's as much variety as the game can offer.

I believe it's more about balancing the amount of novel elements and concentration of scoring/survival tricks in a stage than balancing the stage length, a "too short" stage is fine if it has lots of stressful moments packed in, a "too long" stage is also fine if it has enough novel gameplay elements that it doesn't feel like it drags. A "too long" stage is especially fine if the game itself doesn't have flaws like lots of dead air space or tendency for repetition that a long stage would amplify.

Super short stage with absurd amount of action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhHAftRP2hI#t=14s

[Xyga]

I like them long and hard.*

Boss-centric games can be awesome but honestly I think those with a lot to show, a lot happening from start to boss, have the best great game/memorable experience profile.
(though they tend to be just long memorizers *cough*)

*stages

[TransatlanticFoe]

I like the "longer stages with a few breaks in the action" you get with a lot of Toaplan titles. Truxton takes the biscuit a bit though and Truxton II even more so, while Psikyo tend to go too short (even if the bosses are awesome).

Not keen on final stages that do the DFK/Exzeal sudden shift to hazard memorisation central. I don't mind stages getting gradually longer but don't suddenly go dumping a Metal Slug 3 final stage slog in my face!

[Strikers1945guy]

I like the beginning stages short and the last stage to be the longest. Makes it feel a lot me epic especially with increased difficulty between stages.

That said sometimes the Psikyo short stage frenzied are a nice change of pace

[Aisha]

When it comes to games with long stages, I don't mind as long as there's an effort to break up the monotony. Yakouga 5 takes about 70 minutes to clear so it's a long game with long stages, but it manages to stay fresh by constantly throwing creative sub-bosses and varied stage dynamics at you from start to finish.

[AxelMill]

About two to three minutes is the length I like the most.

But, it isn't a matter of length as much as it is one of pacing and variety. I can easily stomach one whole hour of Gradius V, and the stages there last 10 minutes on average (including bosses). I fall asleep when playing Darius I and II. And it's not because I think "they're old, therefore they suck": R-Type and Gradius are fun all the way through.
inb4 R-Type Final.

Here's another question: what's your ideal stage-to-boss ratio? How long do you want them to be?
I think two thirds stage and one third boss is fine. I don't like how, say, R-Type's bosses last a few seconds. I also don't like bullet sponges that take five minutes to kill when they do nothing but spew the same 20-second-long pattern over and over. Touhou does this right, in my opinion. Again, it's all a matter of pacing and variety.

[gray117]

Fun enough that I don't really notice one way or another... but what is fun?

I really wouldn't research this. If you want to make a game do things because you have a reason for wanting to do so, not because it fits a weighted mean.

For example, Ikaruga's small chapter pre-ambles/run-ups/intros were really effective thematically - but they just wouldn't 'fit' some other games.

It's like the chapter and overall length of a book. Sure there's some typical practical patterns. But no author's going to tell you that you need x number of chapters and each chapter should be y pages.

[Squire Grooktook]

Here's another question: what's your ideal stage-to-boss ratio? How long do you want them to be?

That's an interesting question.

I like "epic" battles where the bosses themselves have character and personality (in terms of patterns/mechanics, as well as appearance).

Bosses serve a dual purpose of:

A: Breaking up the typical multiple enemies approach of most shmup stages in favor of dedicated single combat
B: Provide a climax to the stage.

For the former reason, I like the bosses to approach the length of the stage, to balance out the single combat/multiple foe combat ratio. From the latter perspective though, I think they shouldn't totally reach the same length as the stages, since a climax should be something momentary compared to the build up of tension. I would personally have bosses that are very slightly shorter then the stages. Like 3 minute stage = 2 minute boss.

Maybe. I'm still thinking about this.

[copy-paster]

I also like a long first stage, only if it has a "hectic things on screen". *hugs Gradius V

For a stage-to-boss time ratio, take a look Garegga/Batrider (as well as the boss rush) for example.

[ciox]

It's not just the stage-boss ratio, there's also the number of stages.
The length of a boss determines the length of a full stage and eventually how long the whole game is, to stay around 24-25 minutes for a full run which seems to be the favored shmup length you might have to choose the number of stages wisely, or juggle things around like Psyvariar did if you prefer a large amount of stages for that exploration and "going places" feel.

[Squire Grooktook]

^^^Yeah I thought of that.

The "going places feel" is interesting. You think more stages = more of an "adventure"/"explorationg" feel? I always did prefer the 6 stage format of Touhou and DDP and Esp Galuda II over Cave's usual 5 stage length for those reasons.

[davyK]

Longer early stages can be very off-putting. I can remember RType III and Super Aleste having long first stages. It's OK later on in the game but early stages should be short but be choked full of scoring opportunities to keep skilled players interested.

[Squire Grooktook]

I like Super Aleste's first stage but only if played on the hardest setting. R-Type 3's is just too sparse, on the other hand.

[ciox]

The "going places feel" is interesting. You think more stages = more of an "adventure"/"explorationg" feel? I always did prefer the 6 stage format of Touhou and DDP and Esp Galuda II over Cave's usual 5 stage length for those reasons.

Yeah I do, it's kind of awkward to change the theme too much in one stage and it's also a convention to stick to one theme per stage, so more stages usually means more places to go.
Don't get me started on how this works with games that have branching stages as well, I don't think it's a coincidence that games with that feature like Darius or (for the billionth time, sorry) Psyvariar combine it with a high stage count per run to send the exploration feeling into overdrive.

[Sumez]

Longer early stages can be very off-putting. I can remember RType III and Super Aleste having long first stages. It's OK later on in the game but early stages should be short but be choked full of scoring opportunities to keep skilled players interested.

I agree with this 100%. I never thought long and hard about it, but it's true that in almost every case where the first stage in a shmup lasted longer than average, it came across as off-putting to me.
Of course it's all a question of feeling some kind of progression, and as was also said - "going places" and "adventure feeling" I think is important to almost any kind of game, even the more abstract kinds (eg. Tetris[GM] changing backgrounds and music as the speed picks up), and especially in the early game you want to feel like the game has more than just one thing to offer, which is also why you'd normally make the first stage vastly easier than the following ones - demonstrating the game and the basic systems that it offers, so the player knows what he/she goes into - and in the case of arcades, suck more coins out of them.

Especially the Aleste and Tatsujin games have been offenders of this, with stages running much longer than sensible. You can do that for the later stages, especially the last one, but you also want to "hook" your audience. Same really goes for bosses, if the boss fight is longer than a minute or so, it definitely needs to have some progression to it.

This is also, to some extend why some of Cave's last bullet hell games never really appealed to me.

[Sumez]

Btw. Probably the best "exploration" feeling I've had in any classic shmup:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30p6T9PN-UI

[Squire Grooktook]

The "going places feel" is interesting. You think more stages = more of an "adventure"/"explorationg" feel? I always did prefer the 6 stage format of Touhou and DDP and Esp Galuda II over Cave's usual 5 stage length for those reasons.

Yeah I do, it's kind of awkward to change the theme too much in one stage and it's also a convention to stick to one theme per stage, so more stages usually means more places to go.

Yeah. This is an exciting idea. Hadn't really thought about the concept of "whoa let's have, like, 10 stages but make them all like 1-2 minutes long!". Are there many other games that progress as rapidly as Psyvariar and with as many stages (Psyikyo games have short stages I know, but the loop itself is also pretty short).

Would you say the adventure/exploration feeling from that is mostly a result of the backgrounds though? Or does that sense of progression from rapidly moving through mechanically different stages also give a unique feel of covering a vast distance?

On the subject of aesthetics, a long while ago I was kind of interested in the idea of each stage in a game having two "themes", that change halfway through. IE one moment your flying over a ruined city, which gradually transitions to a fiery magma ruins/lake over the course of the stage. Super Ghouls and Ghosts/Chomakaimura always gave me the "adventure" feel in the way its stages were long but they often had an interesting thematic transition mid way through (graveyard -> plant overgrown ruins. Sunken Ships -> raging ocean. -> claustraphobic lava caves in hell -> massive spiral towers in hell, etc.)

[ciox]

Yeah. This is an exciting idea. Hadn't really thought about the concept of "whoa let's have, like, 10 stages but make them all like 1-2 minutes long!". Are there many other games that progress as rapidly as Psyvariar and with as many stages (Psyikyo games have short stages I know, but the loop itself is also pretty short).

Would you say the adventure/exploration feeling from that is mostly a result of the backgrounds though? Or does that sense of progression from rapidly moving through mechanically different stages also give a unique feel of covering a vast distance?

Battle Bakraid is one, its stages are also pretty fast and it has 8 total. Some of the Raiden Fighters games qualify too aside from the "giant boss" stages that are very long on purpose.
For the feels I think that everything helps, you have new music, graphics and recognizable enemy patterns typically, even if the enemy types are reused.
Like here's two very different music themes from the middle of the same game
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vd68reuTkZk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=802cRBHUDs8

On the subject of aesthetics, a long while ago I was kind of interested in the idea of each stage in a game having two "themes", that change halfway through. IE one moment your flying over a ruined city, which gradually transitions to a fiery magma ruins/lake over the course of the stage. Super Ghouls and Ghosts/Chomakaimura always gave me the "adventure" feel in the way its stages were long but they often had an interesting thematic transition mid way through (graveyard -> plant overgrown ruins. Sunken Ships -> raging ocean. -> claustraphobic lava caves in hell -> massive spiral towers in hell, etc.)

That would be interesting, it's rarely done in shmups and when it is it's usually towards the very end that the theme changes for the boss fight, so the second theme is much less developed.

[AxelMill]

Short, i just can't get into R-Type 3 because of that first stage.

Ugh, I hate that stage so much. Did they really need to make a 10-minute-long tech demo for Mode 7?

The "going places feel" is interesting. You think more stages = more of an "adventure"/"explorationg" feel?

I think the lack of any kind of stage transitions give an equal, or even better, feeling of a journey. Einhander or Rayforce are shining examples of this, and I wish more games did that.

[Shepardus]

RayForce does a stellar job of that "adventurous" feeling. It doesn't really have "no" stage transitions though, they're just seamlessly blended into the stages themselves, not that that's any less impressive (it's actually more so in my opinion). Eschatos is a similar example.

I like short stages for gameplay purposes but I don't get the same impression from them as ciox does regarding the "going places"/"adventurous" feeling. I need more time for a game to really sell its setting to me as a substantial place and time. Most of Psikyo games, for example, feel to me more like a grab bag of assorted locales than a cohesive journey, though I think that was kind of their intent with the random stage order. How you present the stages and transition between them is more important to this than how long they are, though. I haven't played Psyvariar much so I can't comment on anything it does.

[Squire Grooktook]

I like short stages for gameplay purposes but I don't get the same impression from them as ciox does regarding the "going places"/"adventurous" feeling. I need more time for a game to really sell its setting to me as a substantial place and time. Most of Psikyo games, for example, feel to me more like a grab bag of assorted locales than a cohesive journey, though I think that was kind of their intent with the random stage order. How you present the stages and transition between them is more important to this than how long they are, though. I haven't played Psyvariar much so I can't comment on anything it does.

I think it's that Psyvariar has short stages but their are much more of them (10 or more I think) and it clocks in at a standard length of 20-30 minutes total IIRC. Psyikyo games a single loop is usually about 10-15 minutes at most or so, I think.

[AxelMill]

RayForce does a stellar job of that "adventurous" feeling. It doesn't really have "no" stage transitions though, they're just seamlessly blended into the stages themselves, not that that's any less impressive (it's actually more so in my opinion). Eschatos is a similar example.

By "stage transitions" I usually mean "fade to black"s and "hyper-speed"s and "stage bonus screen"s. These three have no such thing, and it's amazing. Well, Einhander kinda does have stage bonus screens, but you can still see (and control) the ship in the background, they do not function as magical teleporters that bring you from an ice stage to a lethal lava land in a few seconds.

[system11]

I like stages to have a bit of meat to them. There had been a push in modern shmups towards shorter stages which are little more than boss preparation, and it feels like throwing away the art of stage design in favour of 'boss rush omg' which is one of the laziest and most unpleasant forms of game for me personally.

I don't even mind really long stages as long as there's some variation instead of just spamming the same waves and looping a bit of scenery. I think Tatsujin-Oh falls down a bit there, for example the section before the stage 1 boss has no reason to be as long as it is.

[Despatche]

Stages should be around the same length. There should never be a focus on any particular stage, all stages should be designed with the others in mind.

For raw length, you could have each stage get slightly longer, or have the first and last stages be slightly shorter than the ones in the middle. The first and last stages shouldn't be incredibly short nor incredibly long, too many games do one or the other.

Tatsujin has pretty good stage length. Tatsujin Ou's stages are too long, but at least they're interesting, putting it well above the vast majority of shmups. A game with even slightly more variety than Tatsujin Ou would be a top 10 until the end times.

[MintyTheCat]

For me the levels in Gunbird are not long enough; I am just starting to 'wake up' and then the levels is over

But some levels go on for too long. I happy medium is in order of a few, intense minutes I feel.