HELP WANTED! Video Game Psychology Project

[Rahndail]

Hey all - newer poster here, but longtime lurker. I've recently been fascinated with somehow analyzing and presenting some form of scientific and/or informal research into video games as a whole, with a focus on the various communications that games entail and their impacts on the human experience. For instance, I know that there's a deep history of developers getting input from shmup superplayers to improve their games, easter eggs in shmups, the secrecy around the Japanese scoring scene, and the advent of online scoring leaderboards and adaptation of social media to share those scores. My ambitions go beyond just shmups, but the genre in particular has a lot of things to unpack in my opinion, and this forum seems like the only rightful place to facilitate this discussion.

I'm still parsing through how I want to articulate these concepts - whether via YouTube or other media - but I think a step would be to isolate the important shmups that have left an impact on humanity as a whole, and why. It would be easy for me to just take some Cave, Konami and other big-studio shumps, but I'd like to have a broader-encompassing list of the most "important" ones. I have a preliminary list, but would love your input as well! Some commentary on my choices as well, but feel free to recommend EITHER ADDITIONS OR DELETIONS, and mention why (if you don't mind). Also, if there's something fascinating about the genre that I didn't touch upon here, feel free to pitch that recommendation too!

Some things I think I'm lacking:

- Distinguishing the best of the best of each major developer. I definitely missed a few, with Compile being a glaring omission.
- Doujin shmups. I might throw Kotsujin in there, but I'm sure there are WAY more games to that side of things.
- Some redundant picks for certain brands (Gradius maybe).
- Distinguishing which I'd actually like to play in-depth/1CC versus just talk about. I think 1CCing would take a lifetime for me, so any resources you can share to help me discuss some of these topics would be awesome.

The List V0.5:

• 1943 Kai - Encapsulates some of the earlier-on console shmup tailoring, with a whole ass additional second loop.
  Akai Katana - Cave's final horizontal shmup.
  
  Armed Police Batrider - Raizing... Haven't played, but know it gets a lot of love.
  
  Bangai-O - Neat "twin-stick" Treasure shmup. Not feeling particularly strongly about the pick, but love the uniqueness of it.
  
  Bangai-O Spirits - Fascinating first take at a Mario Maker-like but for Bangai-O. Might swap with any of the Dezaemon games, so curious your opinions on this.
  
  Battle Garegga Rev.2016 - I want to analyze the amazing M2 porting, and what everyone else has already talked about with the insane rank/scoring mechanics.
  
  Big Bang Mini - Neat, cozy alternative "shmup" on DS. What's not to love?
  
  Blazing Lazers - One of the quintessential PCE shmups.
  
  Blue Revolver - From what I've heard, one of the quintessential modern indie shmups.
  
  Border Down - I'd like to analyze G-Rev, as well as the curiosities of this particular hori shmup.
  
  Crimzon Clover World Explosion - Self-explanatory, super player makes bomb ass modern indie shmup.
  
  Darius Gaiden - Fascinating rank mechanics that almost seem like a precursor to Garegga's systems. I also love the meta-context of the endings.
  
  Dodonpachi DaiFukkatsu - The follow-up to DOJ.
  
  Dodonpachi DaiOuJou - The masterclass
  
  Dolphin Blue - The lost gem from the Atmoswave.
  
  Eschatos - Qute's magnum opus(?).
  
  Gate of Thunder - Thunder Force DNA but scaled down to PCE.
  
  GigaWing 2 - SPARK........................... BOMBA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!... And 4P vertizontal shmupping goodness.
  
  Gradius Gaiden - The pinnacle of Gradius?
  
  Gradius I & II - The godfather and its son.
  
  Gradius III (SNES) - Something about the simplification of arcade shmups to fit onto the home console market.
  
  Gradius Rebirth - Might remove, but I do enjoy those Rebirth titles more conceptually instead of just pertaining to shmup history.
  
  Gradius V - Treasure's idea of the pinnacle of Gradius? Also some interesting commentary on the genre as a whole.
  
  Gunvein - See Blue Revolver. I also love the training modes, communication within the game about never giving up, and other cute encouragements from the devs which I think will be the future of shmups.
  
  Ikaruga - The antithesis of a lot of shmup concepts.
  
  Kamui - Neat doujin shmup. Could probably use other ones instead, so curious your inputs here.
  
  Ketsui Deathtiny - Dodonpachi's more aggressive cousin.
  
  Layer Section/Rayforce/whatever else - Taito at its finest, with much-copied laser lock-on mechanics.
  
  Metal Black - Darius' weird cousin.
  
  Mushihimesama Futari - Cave's best? Wild scoring mechanics, the OST, the whole package...
  
  Progear - Might be redundant with Akai Katana as a Cave hori shmup. Any opinions here?
  
  Psyvariar 2 The Will to Fabricate - Refinement of the grazing mechanics introduced by the first game. Unless there are better examples of this?
  
  Radiant Silvergun - The JRPG of shmups, and Treasure's first take on the genre (fixed!).
  
  RefleX - Might be redundant with Kamui.
  
  Retro Game Challenge 2 - Abstraction of the idea of playing console caravan shmups... On a portable Nintendo system for which those games weren't even really popular for its sister Nintendo consoles.
  
  R-Type 3 - The pinnacle of the R-Type formula?
  
  R-Type Final - The pinnacle of the R-Type formula pt. 2?
  
  Salamander 2 - Gradius goes experimental.
  
  Soldier Blade - PCEngine shmups at their absolute finest.
  
  Soukyugurentai - Vertizontal, less-talked-about Raizing game that has vibes for DAYS.
  
  Space Invaders Extreme - The ultimate handheld shmup?
  
  Steel Diver - Miyamoto takes a stab at an alternative shmup but for the 3DS at launch. The hell was he thinking?
  
  Summer Carnival '93 Nexzr Special - "Official" fan-made competition shmups. Willing to swap out if anyone feels strongly about that aspect.
  
  Thunder Force III - Technosoft pt. 1
  
  Thunder Force IV - Technosoft pt. 2
  
  Twinkle Star Sprites/Rival Megagun/Wartech/Senko no Ronde - Versus shmups! This one should be weird to dig into, since I have no idea how alive these scenes are.
  
  UN Squadron - Console porting goodness.
  
  Under Defeat - HELICOPTERS and AIMING!
  
  Zero Gunner 2 - HELICOPTERS and AIMING! pt. 2
  
  ZeroRanger - Blah blah Undertale. But also an amazing love letter to the genre and its players.
  
  ADDITIONS:
  Kyuukyoku Tiger
  Hishouzame
  Gradius IV
  Nemesis 2 (GB)
  Darius II

[Steven]

Need Kyuukyoku Tiger (not Twin Cobra, Kyuukyoku Tiger specifically) and Hishouzame since those are easily some of the most important and influential (and best) vertical STGs of the 80s. Pretty much every vertical game that came after Hishouzame was built on what that game did, and Namiki Manabu said on Twitter before he deleted his old account that Hishouzame is the best vertical shooting game EVER.

[Rahndail]

Need Kyuukyoku Tiger (not Twin Cobra, Kyuukyoku Tiger specifically) and Hishouzame since those are easily some of the most important and influential (and best) vertical STGs of the 80s. Pretty much every vertical game that came after Hishouzame was built on what that game did, and Namiki Manabu said on Twitter before he deleted his old account that Hishouzame is the best vertical shooting game EVER.

First off, appreciate the quick response

That's amazing context - added!

[Flycast]

Radiant Silvergun - The JRPG of shmups, and Cave's first take on the genre.

Radiant Silvergun was made by Treasure

[Lethe]

What are you trying to accomplish here?
Are you talking about the human experience, or the scene, or influential games, or games you like personally? Or a combination of everything?

TBH I am not remotely interested in the communicatory angle on this, because the personal experience aspect is more appealing personally, and is a much better fit for this genre (wouldn't be surprised if sociological analyses of videogame scenes were one of the most common subcultural subjects these days). The low-level experience may or may not relate to what you're doing, but in case it does:

You say some games "in-depth", how much in depth? An academic understanding of how a game works is never going to say anything meaningful about its "experience". With single-player games you can mostly relive the historical process on your own, unlike in a real, temporal scene, which survives only in history. In this community, the cross-section of people who are analytical enough to identify why something is effective, and people who are able or willing to express their feelings effectively, seems to be really really small. And to rely on your own, real experience, you need to play a lot more of everything... to the degree that you probably won't find time to talk about it. You'd be better off starting this project off one game which you've already developed lots of affection for, not even considering a list of what "should" be talked about!

[PC Engine Fan X!]

Yes, Blazing Lazers (circa 1989) is the American game title given when it made it's official debut stateside on the NEC produced TurboGrafx-16 console (it's better known as "Gunhed" in Japan with it's PC Engine console counterpart). I recall that back in March of 1990, one local arcade had a Dynamo upright arcade cab sporting a brand new TurboGrafx-16 jamma conversion kit with Blazing Lazers up & running on it. Apparently, NEC of Japan had made a contract with an American arcade manufacturer, United Amusements, to make a specialized jamma pcb (that could play both Japanese PCE & USA region TG-16 game carts on it without the need for a game converter) to sell & distribute to American arcades back in 1990. How cool is that?

NEC of Japan was seriously considering distributing & selling the TG-16 jamma conversion kits in it's native country of Japan but never did so. It was quite an expensive endeavor/joint collaborative effort to make it happen but to not take advantage of that rare "golden opportunity" to promote the PCE platform in the Japanese game centers, NEC did absolutely nothing with it's TG-16 arcade pcb kits (outside of selling it to the relatively few interested arcade owners/operators stateside that actually bought one). True story.

If you look at the February 1990 issue of Video Games & Computer Entertainment magazine, there's a full article spread that goes into greater detail about the uber-cool United Amusements' TG-16 arcade hardware kit. Unfortunately, I saw it/played it only once back in March of 1990 and haven't since then. It's considered an ultra-rare arcade pcb kit nowadays and is regarded as a part of PCE/TG-16 lore/history.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Distinguishing which I'd actually like to play in-depth/1CC versus just talk about. I think 1CCing would take a lifetime for me

I would strongly suggest playing a few games to find ones you enjoy and try 1CCing a few of them before embarking on this writing endeavor. As you say, "the genre has a lot of things to unpack" but to understand them really requires some degree of personal experience and struggle in playing them well.

[m.sniffles.esq]

If you're trying to find 'pinnacles' or whatnot (your list has that word at least 20 times), you need to start at Galaga. As everything else comes from that (Xevious probably being second)

[DMC]

Some suggestions if you want to approach like a psychological/social science study:
1. Clearly define the population of humans you want to infer to, will it include any shmup fan, or specifically people visiting this forum, arcade players, console gamers, active gamers today, or people that played a lot of shmups decades ago, etc.
2. Define the research question. You can use chatgpt for brain storming. Something like "What are the common themes and patterns that emerge when members at a dedicated shmups form describe their subjective experiences of their favourite shmup games?"
3. Plan the study design and collect data. You could browse the top-25 thread, carefully select a few relevant games, make a thread about if you could interview some people about these games through Zoom or whatever. You could do a semi-structured interview with some planned questions.
4. Analyse the data, for instance with the help of chatgpt you could probably do a thematic analysis on emerging themes.
5. Publish in Science and revitalize the genre!

[Rastan78]

Yeah it sounds like choosing an area of focus is going to be key. Is it going to be the community, the cultural impact, the games themselves?

One thing I will say is that probably the most underexposed and unexplained area of this genre is the community and the players. Compared to the FGC or speedrunning scene most shmup players tend to fly under the radar. "Hidden bosses" so to speak.

As far as the games at the pinnacle of the genre, many have been well explained or would at least require somewhat of an expert to add meaningfully to their understanding.

Speaking for myself, I'd like to see a project like this get at info that's not already out there in the public eye. Whether that's interviews with superplayers, the historian types who track scores and replays, devs, collectors, hardware guys or whatever. Then out of that aggregate an actual picture of what the community is might emerge?

[Mrhide]

Psyvariar 2 The Will to Fabricate - Refinement of the grazing mechanics introduced by the first game. Unless there are better examples of this?[/list]

Aka & blue type-R

[PC Engine Fan X!]

Another thing about playing arcade stg games in the 1980s and into the 1990s was that the arcade gamer was spending real money -- you'd try to make each quarter/arcade token last as long as possible (which by rote memorization, eventually a 1CC or 2CC was possible/doable). If you were "in the zone" (a phenomenon in which a highly skilled player is able to pull off a 1CC regardless of whatever the CPU throws at the player), a 1CC could be done -- however, gives rise to another pressing situation at hand of what's known as "the law of diminishing returns" -- there is a higher chance/probability that a 1CC session can go south/wrong and the player would have try again.

Back in May of 1994, I inserted a single token to credit up a single game of Atari Games of Klax circa 1990 (a famous arcade puzzler that has remained a cult arcade favorite amongst old-school arcade gamers like myself -- a single Klax gaming session is always going to be different each time due to the randomness of each colored tile given to the player by the CPU thus forcing the player to improvise "right on the spot" if it needed be -- requires fast reflexes and faster hand-eye coordination to pull it off successfully to advance in the higher waves) at a local arcade joint. I warped at every tenth wave when provided the chance/opportunity to do so and managed to get to Wave 100 (you must score a minimum of least 250,000 points or more to finish wave 100 -- which is pretty easy to do if you know what to do). Every fifth wave is considered a fast wave which does require the ace Klax player react to whatever colored tile is making it down the conveyor belt. Finish Wave 100 and you're awarded an additional 1,000,000 point bonus added to your overall total score.

I'd have to say it was about two to two & half hours of playing Klax none-stop to achieve my 1CC 6,000,000+ score indeed (which is a whole lot longer than the modern-day arcade stg 1CC session takes to complete anyways -- that is a given in this day of age). Did I get proper recognition for doing it? No, I did not (but at the very least, I have the ultimate satisfaction & knowledge to pull it off again should I wish to do so and that's all that counts in the end). Back in 1991, I'd practice for hours-on-end on the NES Tengen version of Klax to hone my mad skills on it to be to try my mettle/final showdown on the real deal that is the Klax arcade cab at an arcade. As the ol' adage/saying goes: "Practice makes perfect" -- which does apply to attempting a serious 1CC session in any arcade-based or console-based game genre (besides the stg genre itself, of course).

Years later, I broke down and had to get the Atari Games jamma pcb of Klax to play/own (playing Klax through Mame doesn't count in my book anyways) -- that's the only real & proper way to play it nowadays on real arcade hardware/software setup. At the once-a-year classic "California Extreme" arcade game & pinball show, I'd see a lone Atari Games Klax upright cab brought in & set on "Free Play" for all CAX attendees to try it out -- no quarters or arcade tokens necessary/needed this time around. It's awesome to play it as it was originally meant to be.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[Flycast]

Rahndail i don't know if i can post this, but, this can be helpful:

https://www.racketboy.com/retro/shmups- ... d-shooters
(and every links associated)
suggested by SPM in another topic