Yes, but it's clear that checkpoint milking is a dumb exploit and not really something the developers intended anyone to do. It's also easily fixed by life restrictions. Basically every game with dumb checkpoint milking instantly becomes a lot better when you try to no miss it.
Ray Force is indeed 1994 (despite what MAME will tell you), but honestly, the year thing is arbitrary anyway.
Hm... I have various examples in a very unorganized list. Here you are...
For what it's worth, Recca (1992) has Garegga medals. They're both easier and harder to grab, because although they float around like Star Soldier medals, there can be
so many of them that it's easy to miss one unless you are on top of it from the start. I guess this game just ties in with all those caravan titles, but... there were a lot of those! They all technically descend from Star Force anyway.
There are also various games that reward you for grabbing items. A notable example is V V, where you get a "Perfect" bonus for grabbing every medal and not dying (if I remember right) in a stage. Technically that's 1993, but it's a modified version of a 1992 game, so I don't know. Grind Stormer and V V also have medals all over the place that are a lot like Sonic Wings and Psikyo medals.
Dogyuun (1992) has that per-frame bonus if you have an enemy in the tractor beam. That one's busted though, as it still increments against bosses and those don't time out.
Speaking of formations, Darius (1987) almost started the modern sense of it. There are earlier examples, like the Time Pilots.
In addition to formation bonuses, Time Pilot (1982) also has parachuters to rescue for points. If you don't get the formation within a certain timeframe, or don't get the parachuters before they despawn, no bonus for you. Time Pilot '84 also has the formation bonuses, and has a number of secret things hidden in the game area if you poke around in it. You can find some cool game area maps
here.
Gaplus (1984) has various secrets in it, though I couldn't tell you which ones actually directly reward points off-hand. Galaxian (1979) and co. all have a bonus for shooting enemies while they're doing various things. A lot of early '80s games had mechanics like that. Galaga '88 has various scoring stuff as well, as mentioned.
Moon Patrol (1982, is too a shmup!) has time bonuses, since you can go faster or slower in a stage. Since it's an Irem game, does that technically make it a precursor to Gallop...? Speaking of which, Gallop (1991) counts for sure.
The early Capcom trilogy has various mechanics. Vulgus (1984) has a score trick involving hitting multiple enemies at once with the special weapon. 1942 (1984) has that bonus for crashing something into a large enemy. Options are usually used for this, but you will actually get the points if you suicide, believe it or not. 1942 also has the series' standard destruction rate, though it's
extremely hard to get. Exed Exes (1985) has all sorts of scoring stuff.
The absolute god of old game scoring is by far Star Force (1985). That game was specifically known for it in its time, featuring things like the Cleopatra secret. Like I mentioned earlier, the original Star Soldier was created as a sequel to this game, with even more secrets.
Of course, Xevious (1982) more or less started this concept of secrets hiding around in gameplay with its Sol towers. Like many games made in the years after Xevious, Star Force was specifically trying to challenge or outdo this game. It was a very big deal for quite a few years.
Sorry for the absolute state of this list, kinda just typed it up from off-hand thinking.
Jeneki wrote:Source for Ketsui chip design?
It was mentioned in a CAVE interview. Remember the "Mr. Stoic" Ketsui hack? It was inspired by and named for the bit in this interview. From
here:
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At the beginning we were thinking to make a very orthodox shooting game. We were going to have no scoring system at all, focusing purely on bullet dodging and destruction, a “plain ramen”, or “Mr. Stoic” style STG. However, during playtesting a week before the location test, another programmer said, “This isn’t us. This just isn’t us. A ramen without an easy to understand scoring system… that isn’t Cave!” …tantrums were thrown and that was the end of that idea. So we frantically asked the designers to “Make us some box-like things that will match the world of the game.” That extremely vague instruction was the origin of that item, which later became Cave’s foremost moe character, the multiplier chip. (Programmer)
A week before loctest, folks! They had an entire "plain ramen" game put together just like that.
Right below that, Mr. Programmer tells us that Espgaluda almost became like that too:
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Our sales department was very adamant about not making another game like Ketsui, and instead told us to do a character themed shooting this time, and that game was Espgaluda. As the project progressed we didn’t have any special scoring system in place, but we then realized well into development that we were in danger of making a “Mr. Stoic” character shooting game. The Kakusei system was the end result of us mustering our strength and exploring some new ideas. (Programmer)
Mind, the Kakusei system is very cool, though Espgaluda is sort of a Progear derivative. Noone believes me when I say that for some reason, even though very few games have that "trade one resource for another" mechanic.
Since Mushi Original did eventually happen, it's clear this is something they really wanted to do. They should have done it more often:
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Alright, THIS time we are going to make a “Mr. Stoic” shooting game! And it will have that 90s ultra hardcore manly style! … such was the vigor we had as we planned this game. Even at the initial planning stage we knew we wanted the ship to be a hardcore mecha fighting jet! The enemies too would use actual tanks and helicopters as motifs! It would be a “real military style world war shooting” …you’d smell the gunpowder wafting from your screen! However, one day, due to various circumstances, that “hardcore mecha fighting jet” suddenly became an “itte kima~su!” style girl, those real military mechas became buggish bugs, and the game became a “heartwarming fantasy style bug shooting game”… with the smell of horned beetles wafting from the screen. I can’t deny the possibility that we coded the dense danmaku Ultra mode unconsciously as a response to these changes. (Programmer)
Where's
my Mr. Stoic character shooting game...
