Miscellaneous Shmup Stuff

[Technicolor]

Hi again, I had a few more off-topic questions and figured I’d go looking for a misc thread, but it doesn’t seem there is one yet. Or at least, not an active one. So here’s a thread meant for shmup questions, observations, whatnot that aren’t really enough to carry a whole thread by themselves.

To start things off: why is it that a lot of shmups (and games in general) skip single digits in their scoring? I’ve seen a few games that don’t do this, but they seem to be very rare. Was it just a coding convenience early on that just stuck, or something else?

[LordHypnos]

A lot of games will increment the last digit to keep track of continues used. I'm not sure which the first game to do this was.

[CloudyMusic]

There is a misc thread, but it's buried a few pages back, so no big surprise that you couldn't find it.

[Mortificator]

There's also a psychological aspect. 100 points! reads better than 1 point! even if it's still the smallest point denomination.

It probably didn't have anything to do with coding convenience, otherwise the number wouldn't be in decimal.

[BIL]

A lot of games will increment the last digit to keep track of continues used. I'm not sure which the first game to do this was.

I'd heard somewhere it was 1941, but take w/grain of salt, people talk some bullshit ;3

There's also a psychological aspect. 100 points! reads better than 1 point! even if it's still the smallest point denomination.

Conversely, I like how some Konami brawlers (eg Crime Fighters) give a flat 1pt/KO. Makes it feel a bit more personal when handin out GORILLA BEATINS

[OmegaFlareX]

There is a misc thread, but it's buried a few pages back, so no big surprise that you couldn't find it.

Quoting for emphasis. That's a good thread to bookmark.

[davyK]

Bought myself a 2nd 360. Very cheap now. I have a decent collection of shmups for it but my 360E is HDMI/composite only and I've fancied playing the games on my rotated CRT where I can sit up close.

So got a slim and then got an RGB SCART cable for it. Had some fun installing my shmups and getting them configured for the PAL60 TATE display. Weird seeing games like Futari and DFK running like that but loving it.

SDOJ and the MuchiMuch Pork / Pink Sweets compilation have a wrinkle though. They have a wide display mode that I need to switch off as my CRT is 4:3. The game fits the screen perfectly then but the main menus don't - they overscan. Not a massive deal but it's odd that you can have the menus rotated in the settings but they will not fit a 4:3 (3:4) screen. Not a deal breaker but it's weird they overlooked that (or is there an option for fixing it?)


EDIT: I have a larger CRT for hori-games and boy does Deathsmiles look good on it.