Dream Shmup

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m.sniffles.esq
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Dream Shmup

Post by m.sniffles.esq »

For some reason, I have a feeling this one is either get a lot of responses, or none.

Anyway. have you ever dreamt about a non-existent shmup OR have a non-existent shmup in your head that you wish you could will into existence?

This past spring, I had a crazy, lucid dream that I was playing the new Space Harrier released for the current gen (in the dream, I was playing on a Xbone), and it was pretty incredible.

It was like the original Space Harrier, but sported a huge open world (we're talking you could travel to different freaking planets), and do a large variety of crazy quests that all pretty much involved running, flying, and shooting--but also involved all manner of insane monsters like these giant turtles that could retreat into their shells to become indestructible. You could also ride the cyclopsed elephant and the huge robot from the original's splash screen, buy different sets of armor, weapons, etc, speed through these intergalactic cities blowing the shit out of everything, summon a dragon... It was seriously the best.

Then I woke...

It was one of those things where I thought the dream was a reality for like the first six or seven minutes that I was up, and was all "Man, I don't want to go to work, I just want to play Space Harrier all day. Maybe I could call out..."

I'm still holding out a weird hope that it was actually a premonition rather than a dream, and right now Sega has like 10 die-hard Space Harrier fans working on it , sort of what they did with Sonic Mania.

Okay, I bared my soul. Your turn.
PS If anyone comments "This thread sould actually be titled 'Dream Rail Shooter'", I will find you, and it won't be pretty...
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Re: Dream Shmup

Post by BulletMagnet »

Not sure if it counts, but I have dreamt once or twice of browsing the shelves of some random store and encountering a home port of a favorite shmup that never actually got one, or a hard-to-find title for impossibly cheap.

Don't make fun, I've been told it's perfectly normal for boys my age. :P
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m.sniffles.esq
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Re: Dream Shmup

Post by m.sniffles.esq »

I have dreamt once or twice of browsing the shelves of some random store and encountering a home port of a favorite shmup that never actually got one, or a hard-to-find title for impossibly cheap.
The "amazing find" dream? I've had plenty of those. My favorite was buying a big box of ps1 and Saturn games marked "Whole Box Only--$20" at a yard sale, only to take it home and find Radiant Silvergun in the case for "College Slam" (or something similar).

Again, when I woke I was convinced this had really happened for like 10 minutes. Probably inspired by the time I actually bought a black sports Dreamcast at a flea market for $15, and found 'Soul Calibur' in it's tray when I got it home.
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RawlingGunnar
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Re: Dream Shmup

Post by RawlingGunnar »

I'll often have dreams of finding arcades in defunct shopping malls. Thing is, these malls, despite having few open shops or even non-functioning escalators, will have all kinds of people just hanging around and what shops are still there are pretty nifty. Like a hobby store here or there or a really convoluted, darkened, impossibly busy food market just full of shambling masses. Creepy, but only when interpreted objectively from a conscious standpoint.

At any rate, these arcades will have machines that will usually be for sale, and my minds-eye interpretations can be pretty wacky. For example, 19XX on a narrow, tall, stainless-steel cab, controls just sticking out of a flat vertical panel and a 13" monitor. The guy running the joint said, "$300 and it's yours". And of course, I'd wake up before the purchase could be made (at a time when I always have literally zero cash anyway.)

Slightly off-topic, there have been other times I'll stumble across arcade or computer games that defy any sort of logic, but will be insanely fun in the context of when it's played. I couldn't tell you how a game whose ludicrous 48:9 CRT displays with mere squares and dashes works from a mechanics standpoint, but as an avid puzzle gamer, it was one hell of a dream...

Being someone who has never had the same dream twice, it's always entertaining when a dream like these happen. It's always a fresh new experience. The human mind is incredibly powerful... most of the time :wink:
Last edited by RawlingGunnar on Tue Aug 27, 2019 1:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Xyga
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Re: Dream Shmup

Post by Xyga »

Stuff like finding a badass shmup (or whatever genre game) in a random arcade or used/import store, was real before we had the internet, emulators, and online shopping.

So we could 'dream about it', but it happened irl sometimes. And it was best when it was one we'd never seen before.

Yeah I'll turn this into another "the internet ruined everything" thread. :twisted:
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Re: Dream Shmup

Post by Kollision »

A new Philosoma, just like the older one but with up-tp-date graphics, a proper final boss and a proper scoring system.
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Stevens
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Re: Dream Shmup

Post by Stevens »

A Side Vower style dlc for Under Defeat.

Or a sequel.
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OmegaFlareX
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Re: Dream Shmup

Post by OmegaFlareX »

I can remember my past dreams a lot better right before I go to sleep, but I'll try a couple that are coming to mind:

Years ago, I had a recurring dream of some shitty vertizontal that I'd find EVERYWHERE (malls, movie theaters, minigolf, etc.). Ugly pre-rendered 2D or ugly early Type-X 3D, and the demo was always a stealth bomber boss similar to the New York stage in Aero Fighters/Sonic Wings 2. It wasn't AF2 because when I played it, it was clearly a bottom-of-the-barrel crapfest made on a shoestring budget by inexperienced developers, similar to the Korean AC games I've seen since I've had those dreams.

Another one that really stood out was a military-style shmup with a boss that terrified me. It was a helicopter of some kind but the bullets were ungodly fast and in a pattern that I could not dodge at all. When I say "terrified" I mean this event in this dream sticks out in my mind as a source of real, intense dread. This one was a non-recurring dream, and only happened once, thankfully. I also seem to recall something about actual danger outside, like gunshots or something.

As far as your question goes, I DON'T want either of these to exist.
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Re: Dream Shmup

Post by mycophobia »

I once dreamt that I punched a Galaga machine and $100 bills came out

I also dreamt that I was playing a Ketsui machine but the joystick was the analog nub from a 3ds
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Re: Dream Shmup

Post by hamfighterx »

I once fell asleep while playing Mars Matrix and transitioned smoothly into playing a dream version for several levels! Wasn't until I woke up that I noticed anything was up.
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Re: Dream Shmup

Post by donluca »

m.sniffles.esq wrote:Anyway. have you ever dreamt about a non-existent shmup OR have a non-existent shmup in your head that you wish you could will into existence?
EDIT: ignore this, I didn't understand exactly what OP meant.
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Re: Dream Shmup

Post by PerishedFraud ឵឵ »

I remember having plenty of dreams as a kid where i'd be piloting shmup spaceships. It was eerily realistic and lacking any proper gameplay. Cool if you think about it.

These days I rarely ever dream about games, let alone shmups, but I do remember a few Toaplan titles like Outzone or Batsugun sneaking their way into a dream or two, if only for a short while.
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m.sniffles.esq
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Re: Dream Shmup

Post by m.sniffles.esq »

A Side Vower style dlc for Under Defeat.

Or a sequel.
Well... g.Rev actually put up a blog entry about a month ago (the first since October).
And... They're doing pretty much all sub-contracting.
But... They mention that something is in the works that will bare their name. But, they can't talk about what it is right now.

Obviously, it's something with a little more recognition than "twin stick rouge-like shooter" since they can't even mention what it is.

But... Since Under Defeat HD landed with a resounding 'thud' (which was not their fault, but anyway). I'm not totally sure they'd be spending their time, money, and energy on following that up.
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Re: Dream Shmup

Post by Tannk »

My dream shmup would be like raiden dx but chopped down pacing ie rid the first 2 boring stages, better music and personality, but i love that play style.
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Re: Dream Shmup

Post by blossom »

Three small ideas that I'd love to see. I'm still not super knowledgeable about the whole genre, maybe there's already something out there for one of these.
  1. shooter from the ground up designed as a boss rush
  2. classic shooter like Thunder Force or Soldier Blade with more of a scoring system (Vastynex is close to what I want, however I feel the multiplier could be tweaked to have a higher skill ceiling - as it stands, I think the WR of 21 million or so has already reached 99% of what's capable in the game)
  3. ok so I used to have a bad habit of dancing around to the music in stage 3 Eden's Aegis and getting killed, which makes me wonder, what if there were a shoot em up that encouraged and rewarded dancing? There would be small designated dance zones throughout the stage, and the longer you dance, I guess the more aggressive the enemy fire becomes, and you're rewarded with... points? ammo for a special weapon? or maybe dancing can simply stop enemy bullets for a time so you can cancel them? man, I have NO clue, I'm not a game designer, all I know is I've liked the idea of a dance-y shmup for a while now
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Re: Dream Shmup

Post by OmegaFlareX »

1. Radiant Silvergun or Ketsui Death Label (Psikyo games past the first gen could be considered this as well)
2. Omega Fighter
3. One of the Capcom shmups lets you wiggle for bomb meter
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Re: Dream Shmup

Post by Ghegs »

The Psyvariar titles and XII Stag also feature wiggle-mechanics.
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Re: Dream Shmup

Post by Shepardus »

blossom wrote:shooter from the ground up designed as a boss rush
Warning Forever, rRootage... I guess Fraxy as well? Armed Police Batrider's Special Course also works pretty well as a boss rush even if it's not the "main" game.
blossom wrote:classic shooter like Thunder Force or Soldier Blade with more of a scoring system (Vastynex is close to what I want, however I feel the multiplier could be tweaked to have a higher skill ceiling - as it stands, I think the WR of 21 million or so has already reached 99% of what's capable in the game)
RayForce. Thunder Dragon 2 also has pretty involved scoring. My first thought was Sexy Parodius and Gokujou Parodius, though maybe you weren't thinking of something like that.
blossom wrote:ok so I used to have a bad habit of dancing around to the music in stage 3 Eden's Aegis and getting killed, which makes me wonder, what if there were a shoot em up that encouraged and rewarded dancing? There would be small designated dance zones throughout the stage, and the longer you dance, I guess the more aggressive the enemy fire becomes, and you're rewarded with... points? ammo for a special weapon? or maybe dancing can simply stop enemy bullets for a time so you can cancel them? man, I have NO clue, I'm not a game designer, all I know is I've liked the idea of a dance-y shmup for a while now
IKUSAAAAAAAN! has a strong sense of rhythm, being synced entirely to its music, and rewards you with points for flying around the screen absorbing bullets with your shield.
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Re: Dream Shmup

Post by blossom »

Hmm, I don't know if simply wiggling is precisely what I had in mind, although that does sound fun in its own right.

I think I read IKUSAAAAAAAN! is a Touhou fan game, so I'd avoided it. But reading about what you wrote and then what Jaimers wrote about it in his video description, it does kinda pique my interest.

Thunder Dragon 2 is a game I'd actually be playing more, except I can't figure out how to make it louder in MAME.

Omega Fighter looks fun, problem is there are like... three different versions? Which one should I play? This forum's leaderboard also seems confused on this, because it seems to imply special mode is a dipswitch, and it is, but then there actually is another PCB named Omega Fighter Special which is different from either of those. Right? I think?
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Re: Dream Shmup

Post by Restart_Point »

Dream shmup would be if all the original devs from Irem and Konami who worked on series like R-Type and Gradius got together with Treasure and made a new horizontal shmup (horizontal is my fave style) Call it Gradius-Type 6 or something. What ever they came up with would surely be awesome
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Re: Dream Shmup

Post by ciox »

Ultra Space Harrier sounds fun, won't lie.

I remembered now that I had a dream a long time ago about playing a romhack of Battle Bakraid, and yeah I was a little dissapointed it wasn't real
- it had more ships, 20 or so, looking like kitbashed remixed editions of existing ships
- more enemies and bullets during the stages, making the game more difficult
- slightly fewer chain targets available during the stages, making the game less chain-focused and more like Donpachi
- biggest change was that after each suicide while chaining, the chain timer would decrease faster and faster until it finally dropped, this made chains a lot shorter, more difficult to setup and more important to plan in advance, again making it a lot more like Donpachi instead of DDP or anything else that allows full chains
- chaining all of axebeak was extremely difficult given the faster timer after each suicide, even axebeak needed to be portioned into just one ideal chain instead of trying to chain all of it

the chain timer change was really funny, it created something similar to a typical nightmare scenario where the monster is gaining on you or something
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Re: Dream Shmup

Post by Shepardus »

ciox wrote:I remembered now that I had a dream a long time ago about playing a romhack of Battle Bakraid, and yeah I was a little dissapointed it wasn't real
- it had more ships, 20 or so, looking like kitbashed remixed editions of existing ships
- more enemies and bullets during the stages, making the game more difficult
- slightly fewer chain targets available during the stages, making the game less chain-focused and more like Donpachi
- biggest change was that after each suicide while chaining, the chain timer would decrease faster and faster until it finally dropped, this made chains a lot shorter, more difficult to setup and more important to plan in advance, again making it a lot more like Donpachi instead of DDP or anything else that allows full chains
- chaining all of axebeak was extremely difficult given the faster timer after each suicide, even axebeak needed to be portioned into just one ideal chain instead of trying to chain all of it

the chain timer change was really funny, it created something similar to a typical nightmare scenario where the monster is gaining on you or something
That's an awfully specific dream, but it does sound like it would be fun.
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Re: Dream Shmup

Post by m.sniffles.esq »

Ultra Space Harrier sounds fun, won't lie
My subconscious thanks you
the chain timer change was really funny, it created something similar to a typical nightmare scenario where the monster is gaining on you or something
That sounds... really awesome, actually.
That's an awfully specific dream
Those are the best ones

My one pre-existing modification dream that I can remember was probably last fall and I somehow was playing a weird prototype of a Karous sequel, where the gameplay was very similar to the original, except your crow had three 'forms'. sort of like Panzer Dragoon. One was the crow from the original, one had you slim down to an almost skeletal form where you were super fast and agile with a really powerful shot, but with a tiny shield and a toothpick sword. The other bulked you up so you were slow, but your shield was extra wide and your sword could stomp a fucking mud hole in just about anything (but of course, your shot sucked). The original form acted as sort of a happy medium.

Not only did the various forms look really cool, but it added depth (using the right tool for the job) and risk/reward (because you got a big-ass bonus for only using one form throughout the entire level)
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Re: Dream Shmup

Post by OmegaFlareX »

blossom wrote:Omega Fighter looks fun, problem is there are like... three different versions? Which one should I play? This forum's leaderboard also seems confused on this, because it seems to imply special mode is a dipswitch, and it is, but then there actually is another PCB named Omega Fighter Special which is different from either of those. Right? I think?
Special gives you 1ups faster and is generally easier, so that'd be a good start. In the Special romset or PCB it's vanilla by default, special mode has to be enabled via a dipswitch.
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Re: Dream Shmup

Post by EmperorIng »

mycophobia wrote: I also dreamt that I was playing a Ketsui machine but the joystick was the analog nub from a 3ds
Was this a nightmare?
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Re: Dream Shmup

Post by blossom »

OmegaFlareX wrote:Special gives you 1ups faster and is generally easier, so that'd be a good start. In the Special romset or PCB it's vanilla by default, special mode has to be enabled via a dipswitch.
OK so disregarding the special dipswitch, Omega Fighter Special (the PCB) is or is not different from Omega Fighter? Pearl explained this a bit to me once and said they're different, but I thought I might as well ask someone else too, because the naming is intensely confusing.
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Re: Dream Shmup

Post by mycophobia »

EmperorIng wrote:
mycophobia wrote: I also dreamt that I was playing a Ketsui machine but the joystick was the analog nub from a 3ds
Was this a nightmare?
I don't remember being distraught or anything. I'm pretty sure I had that dream cuz I'd been playing Ketsui Death Label on my 3DS
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Re: Dream Shmup

Post by scrilla4rella »

my dream shmup is an M2 port of Dodonpachi
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Re: Dream Shmup

Post by mycophobia »

scrilla4rella wrote:my dream shmup is an M2 port of Dodonpachi
this but Tatsujin Ou
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Re: Dream Shmup

Post by Jonst »

my dream shmup would be an m2 port of progear, pretty boring i guess but it would make me happy.

i did have a dream that i scored the only saturn copy of bakraid for £400 once, gutted to wake up from that one.
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