SHINORUBI #2 - What would you like to see in it?

[LASTBOSS88]

Hi,

Shinorubi 1 is finished... apart from maintenance, there will be no more modifications to the game.
SHINORUBI was released on STEAM, PS4, PS5, SWITCH, XBOX ONE, XBOX SERIES X/S and in arcade on EXA ARCADIA

SHINORUBI is our first game. it has a lot of flaws. We want to make SHINORUBI #2, and to make a better game we want to get your opinion. Developing a game is a long process, and the earlier game design decisions are made, the easier it is to integrate them... that's why we want to get your opinion now.

What things did you like about shinorubi, what things did you not like. What would you like to have in SHINORUBI 2?
What are the most important points for you? Should we develop the arcade aspect more? the adventure aspect or roguelike?
What elements of Shinorubi 1 can you keep, and what elements should you forget...
Don't hesitate to be exhaustive...

We want to improve, and make the best possible choices for Shinorubi 2.
Thank you in advance for your help.

Romuald,
and the whole shinorubi team

[SuperPang]

Tate please.

End of thread.

Seriously though, great effort in many ways, so congrats. But tate.

[guigui]

I guess Tate support for consoles/PC will come often in the suggestions. Did not actually buy the game yet, but the vertizontal format is what keeps me away from it atm, so I support this too.

Hopefully next messages get your more constructive things, and wont focus too much on this.

[soupbones]

Personally, I like the horizontal approach - it's refreshingly different. We have PLENTY of vertical shmups.

Building on that - I might suggest pulling back the camera a bit, as it is sometimes too close. And the sense of impact when firing on other ships is a little weak. Not sure if that's the sounds effects, or animation - but firing doesn't feel as good as something like Futari or Thunderforce 3.

You nailed the design aesthetic, love the character/ship variety - so keep going with that!

And not to sound like a broken record - but arcade stick support on PS5 is still needed on the original game!

[oversoul17]

I know I am directly contradicting the previous post, but I would like to see it in the style you presented it in Pink Label, that is, not vertizontal. This is what ultimately kept me from purchasing the game. If you made something like Pink Label more widely available, I would buy it.

Beyond that, I second the TATE option.

Otherwise, I personally appreciate the artstyle and overall aesthetic and am looking forward to what your team does with this ip in the future!

[soupbones]

I know I am directly contradicting the previous post, but I would like to see it in the style you presented it in Pink Label, that is, not vertizontal. This is what ultimately kept me from purchasing the game. If you made something like Pink Label more widely available, I would buy it.

Ha - all good. Trust me, on this forum - I’m expecting PLENTY of opposite opinions when it comes to the vertizontal topic! Doesn’t seem to have a lot of fans here.

[To Far Away Times]

A modern 16:9 horizontal scrolling game with SHINORUBI #1's level of production values would be pretty novel.

[DMC]

It seems most vertizontals focused on the weapon mechanics to try to solve the tight space.

• Radiant Silvergun offered a variety of weapons like those shooting sideways (lots of enemies on the side walls as well). It also included a lot of creative backwards/rotation scrolling moments on some of the bosses, that I think works really well with a vertizontal. Stage 3D boss is a good example.

• Raystorm, Twinbee Yahhoo, and Soukyugurentai uses a 2.5D plane with distinct weapons for ground enemies, which you cannot collide with, which gives you more space (in Soukyu you can even target enemies before they enter and after they leave the screen).

• Mars Matrix and Giga Wing lets you reflect bullets to enemies on the side/diagonally.

• Guardian Force had some diagonal weapons and side scrolling moments iirc.

• Soukyugurentai also has some interesting camera zoom ins and outs during and after boss fights that might be interesting to look at if you want the game to be immersive.

In comparison, the straightforward shot in Shinorubi doesn't work as well in a vertizontal in my opinion.

The look of the Shinorubi 1 was great at first glance, but watching the game for an extended time was pretty straining for my eyes. I would consider balancing things more in terms of desaturation, brightness, etc.

[ChurchOfSolipsism]

To be quite honest, I didn't think there was enough originality gameplay-wise in Shinorubi. As in none at all. The bullet patterns were incredibly bland, the scoring system uninteresting, as was the design of the stages. Couldn't stand the vertizontal aspect either. Graphics were good at first glance, but not enough contrast, and most of the enemy designs were generic, as was the music. So,
- no more vertizontals, please, it just doesn't work, particularly not in a 16:9 format. Horizontal bullet hell shooters are rare anyway, so do one of those.
- Give your game a stronger theme, something less bland and overused. Look to Progear, Mushihimesama, Steel Empire, In the Hunt, or Gynoug for inspiration. Include more unqiue music.
- Come up with an interesting scoring system.
- Come up with new bullet patterns.

[ryu]

I don't mind yoko vertical scrollers, but this game looks especially claustrophobic with those huge sprites and the heavy UI. Was this specifically developed for people that are halfway blind? Because that's the only valid excuse for those oversized sprites. The player ship is almost 1/4 of the screen size in the scrolling direction, wtf.

[Lethe]

• Mars Matrix and Giga Wing lets you reflect bullets to enemies on the side/diagonally.

What's particularly interesting about the Takumi case is how reflecting isn't just a weapon that works well in vertizontal and mitigates its problems. It spins the typical challenge of danamku verticals on its head - instead of claustrophobic it's agrophobic; instead of herding bullets to maximize the effective playing space you herd them to make the space smaller, instead of moving minimally while dodging you need to move long distances efficiently to catch/redirect the bullets in time.

[Jeneki]

I don't mind yoko vertical scrollers, but this game looks especially claustrophobic with those huge sprites and the heavy UI.

In a way it makes me feel like I'm playing a regular vertical shmup, but only looking at the bottom part of the screen. Ghost Pilots (NeoGeo) is another game that makes me feel this way.

I'm glad Lastboss is sticking around and willing to make more shmups. There's always room for improvement and creating something cool. We haven't scared them off yet hehe.

[Redfox]

If it is a vert shmup TATE please.

If it's regular horizontal (with your aesthetic) that's fine too!

I love your game regardless (purchased it on console as I said I would over 2 years ago in the other thread).

Great job!!!!!!!!!! I like it as much as any CAVE shooter.

Thanks again!

[Sturmvogel Prime]

Many ideas from other shmups could work.

• Thunder Force V: The "High-Tempo Bonus" where quick killing mid-sized enemies and bosses multiply the score. A timer on their target mark would be a great indicator. A gallery with concept sketches and database with lore would work too (Perfect System's "Digital Viewer").

• Blazing Star: The Combo counter by killing enemies with charged shots.

I also agree with DMC's idea of a 2.5D perspective since it adds much more depth and exploits the concept with the Air-to-Ground weaponry.

[SuperPang]

Apologies if I sounded a bit harsh. All new shmup development should be encouraged and I'm sure a lot of love went into this. The fundamentals are there, the art style is cool and it's very generous with the arrange modes. I think all the sequel needs is a tate orientation and a fresh scoring hook for the main mode.

Good points made about the sheer size of everything compounding the yoko problem. It really does feel like somebody's hidden half the screen.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

For the Shinorubi 2 sequel, proper tate from the get-go would be ace on both gaming consoles & arcade formats (assuming that it gets an full-blown Exa-Arcadia release down the road which is a high benchmark/goal for any independent game developer to strive for/achieve nowadays -- really is quite the highest honor/accolade that a dev team can pull off).

Perhaps a cool anime FMV opening intro to draw in the casual onlookers/crowd besides the usual hardcore veteran shmup crowd -- it'd be something different for a change of pace, indeed.

Offer true on-line leaderboards support for the various current gaming console platforms: PS4/PS5, Series S/X and Switch is a necessity/required these days. Don't regulate on-line leaderboard support just for only PC & Steam Deck platforms.

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Offer a true 60fps framerate spec benchmark for the Switch as the lower 30fps framerate overall presentation just doesn't cut it nowadays. It's well known that Shinorubi is already a highly graphical intensive stg to begin with (could it be that the Switch is currently severely underpowered as it is with the more graphically demanding games?).
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Sure, Shinorubi looks quite beautiful/stunning when running on an OLED screen setup as with the Switch OLED & Steam Deck OLED handhelds-- that's a given.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[FRO]

I would echo most sentiments about the tate thing, with the proviso that a 16:9 mode where you have a vertically oriented play field and side bars with art or stats, maybe a HUD of some kind would be good as well, to encourage play on a standard TV/monitor setup, or handheld on a Switch, Steam Deck, etc. As much as I love a good tate shmup, it's not always convenient to play it that way for a variety of reasons. But if the option is present, and the game is designed around that being a core design principal, I think the sequel would be better for it.

As to the changes, the color saturation is interesting for a bit, but it does make things a bit harder to see. It's visually nice to look at, but it can be easy to get lost in it while playing. Also, some of the bullet styles and patterns don't mesh well, and it's very difficult to see a path through stuff, forcing you to bomb in spots where maybe you wouldn't want to. Perhaps make the bullets a bit more obvious in terms of the hurt box, or if the entire sprite is the hurt box, remember that during the design phase so that there's spacing for micro dodging through patterns. Many of them are exceptionally tight, even in the easy mode.

[T_H]

From my experience with the game, bullet patterns need improvements. There is hardly any micro-dodging and mostly macro-dodging which is quite fun during the stages but the bosses mostly fire huge walls of very dense bullets that you can either dodge very easily or not at all. I would have loved to see more patterns with slower, less dense bullets that could be gracefully weaved through. After thinking about it, this might actually be a direct result of the verizontal approach and how you handle the available space and is maybe a big argument AGAINST verizontals in general.

Speaking about bullet patterns, the line of fire of popcorn enemies can not be broken, especially in Hard mode, forcing you to either circle around the entire screen or use a bomb. It would have helped if you were able to herd the bullets and create gaps.

Furthermore, the progression of Normal / Hard / Very Hard had bad pacing with a 1CC forcing you through the TLB. The only way I found to beat the TLB was to outlast it, requiring at least 4 lives - which meant that the player needed to actually play better than a regular 1CC to build resources. Progression should be more linear, first achieving a 1CC and then a TLB clear with more difficult conditions.

Some other minor details that could be improved upon:

- Think about sealing ground units. Sometimes the player can be killed at point blank range from an off-screen turret. It's not so bad once you know which turrets shoot once, which turrets shoot twice and so on but it was irritating at first. Maybe needs some playtesting.

- Stage 3 midboss had too much health, never managed to destroy it.

- Online leaderboards and replays please!

- Camera was too close in stages 1 and 2. It got better from stage 3 onward.

- Small delay after pausing the game. Not an issue during play or in an Arcade setting. Unless you are at home and need to pause in an awkward position.


I think the biggest problem you have to solve is bullet pattern design and how to effectively make use of the verizontal space if you want to keep following that road. I think you have a good foundation you can build upon and I still liked my time with Shinorubi (especially all the content that was included). Maybe turn Shinorubi 2 into a sidescrolling bullet hell game instead?

[PC Engine Fan X!]

From my experience with the game, bullet patterns need improvements. There is hardly any micro-dodging and mostly macro-dodging which is quite fun during the stages but the bosses mostly fire huge walls of very dense bullets that you can either dodge very easily or not at all. I would have loved to see more patterns with slower, less dense bullets that could be gracefully weaved through. After thinking about it, this might actually be a direct result of the verizontal approach and how you handle the available space and is maybe a big argument AGAINST verizontals in general.

Speaking about bullet patterns, the line of fire of popcorn enemies can not be broken, especially in Hard mode, forcing you to either circle around the entire screen or use a bomb. It would have helped if you were able to herd the bullets and create gaps.

Furthermore, the progression of Normal / Hard / Very Hard had bad pacing with a 1CC forcing you through the TLB. The only way I found to beat the TLB was to outlast it, requiring at least 4 lives - which meant that the player needed to actually play better than a regular 1CC to build resources. Progression should be more linear, first achieving a 1CC and then a TLB clear with more difficult conditions.

Some other minor details that could be improved upon:

- Think about sealing ground units. Sometimes the player can be killed at point blank range from an off-screen turret. It's not so bad once you know which turrets shoot once, which turrets shoot twice and so on but it was irritating at first. Maybe needs some playtesting.

- Stage 3 midboss had too much health, never managed to destroy it.

- Online leaderboards and replays please!

- Camera was too close in stages 1 and 2. It got better from stage 3 onward.

- Small delay after pausing the game. Not an issue during play or in an Arcade setting. Unless you are at home and need to pause in an awkward position.


I think the biggest problem you have to solve is bullet pattern design and how to effectively make use of the verizontal space if you want to keep following that road. I think you have a good foundation you can build upon and I still liked my time with Shinorubi (especially all the content that was included). Maybe turn Shinorubi 2 into a sidescrolling bullet hell game instead?

On all the major gaming consoles with Shinorubi (Switch, Xbox Series S/X, PS4 and PS5), there's no online leaderboard support whatsoever nor replay capability.

On Steam/Steam Deck with Shinorubi, there is proper online leaderboard support (+ game footage recording capability -- Valve just very recently added this feature for use with Steam games and Steam Deck support as well with the latest firmware update). One of the latest Shinorubi patches allows you to watch your own highest score gaming run as the main default game demo nowadays -- before this perk/feature was implemented, it'd be the usual sample random game demo runs shown instead.

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Despite the several recent Steam Deck patches released for Shinorubi, it still runs into the dreaded "black screen issue" once a single game demo session runs it's course forcing you to exit the current session and start a new session from scratch -- it still hasn't been resolved/fixed as of 12/18/2024 (the console ports of Shinorubi don't have this particular problem).
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The Switch port of Shinorubi has a 30fps framerate but would truly benefit from a 60fps framerate upgrade indeed.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~