Smallest Hitbox

[Dale]

I've been curios about this, what manic shmup hold's the record for smallest hitbox on the players ship?

My money's on Shikigami Noshiro2 it just seems ridicuosly small to me.

[Kiken]

I've been curios about this, what manic shmup hold's the record for smallest hitbox on the players ship?

My money's on Shikigami Noshiro2 it just seems ridicuosly small to me.

Psyvariar 2's hitbox is literally 1 pixel in the stomach of the mech.

[BulletMagnet]

Mushihime-sama's is pretty small...though it might just seem smaller because of the small hitboxes on some of the bullets too.

[Twiddle]

Beast Wing in Raiden Fighters Jet

doesn't get any smaller than that

[neojma]

Not knowing actual specs or anything and just by "feel", I'd have to say nothing comes close to Psyvariar 2. The other Psyvariar games seem pretty small too. Sometimes the Psyvariars are good for my ego because I go zipping right through bullets and don't die. It makes me think I'm better than I really am, and I appreciate the flattery (yeah, I'm a Leo).

[GaijinPunch]

Gotta be Mushi's, as you take into account the bullet's have very small hitboxes as well.

[Frederik]

That`s the point: Not only the size of the hitbox, but the relation to the bullets hitbox as well. Though I have to say I find bullets with way smaller hitbox than their visible appearance a bit annoying. So far I liked the concept of the "glowing" hitbox (Shikigami, Touhou games etc) best. The player should be able to exactly see what he is able to dodge and what not.

Haven`t played Psyvariar 2, but what annoyed me about 1 was that I never knew the place of the hitbox - considering the ship is rotating and changing its shape into the weirdest forms ever ten minutes. I simply couldn`t get used to that. Especially annoying in a game that needs you to buzz along the bullets.

[tekneekz]

ive zipped through many bullets in mushihime sama that looks like their is no way out but ended up zipping through tiny bullet hitboxes, gotta be mushi

[RFL]

Has to be Mushihime... I've squeezed through bullet formations so tight in Mushihime that it almost seems ridiculous...

Psyvariar 2 has a small hitbox as hell, but I still think Mushihime has to be the smallest, I mean in Mushihime you can literary collide with a wall of bullets and still squeeze your way through it...

[Middlemoor]

How can a hitbox be "smaller" than 1 pixel?

[GaijinPunch]

How can a hitbox be "smaller" than 1 pixel?

If a bullet has a hitbox smaller than it appears, then the hitbox is effectively smaller than a pixel. Not literally. In other words, not only does your tiny hitbox have to hit the bullet, but it has to hit the bullet almost dead center. In effect, if there's only a couple of bullets on the screen, you could say it's harder to actually hit the bullet, then not hit it.

[Middlemoor]

...but the OP's about hitboxes on a player's ship.

[elvis]

Psyvariar 2's hitbox is literally 1 pixel in the stomach of the mech.

I'm certain that both Psyvariar 2 and Mushihime Sama use 1-pixel hitboxes.

And at 240p, there's no smaller than that, unless someone makes a 480p game with a 1-pixel hitbox.

[GaijinPunch]

...but the OP's about hitboxes on a player's ship.

And we expanded on it.

[Kiken]

Psyvariar 2's hitbox is literally 1 pixel in the stomach of the mech.

I'm certain that both Psyvariar 2 and Mushihime Sama use 1-pixel hitboxes.

And at 240p, there's no smaller than that, unless someone makes a 480p game with a 1-pixel hitbox.

But Psyvariar 2 is 480p (it wouldn't be VGA compatible if it wasn't, right?). Therefore its 1 pixel hitbox is 1/4 the size of Mushi's 1 pixel hitbox (in relation to the screen, of course... in relation to image size, they are exactly equal).

[PFG 9000]

So are we talking about hitbox size relative to the screen, or relative to the player's sprite? I'd assume it's the former, otherwise Gradius V would have to be mentioned.

[iatneH]

One way to make a hitbox smaller than one pixel:

Define all object coordinates and collision detection in a space which is greater than the maximum resolution of the screen, and apply a scaling function only when drawing to the screen.

What I mean is, let's take a snapshot of a hypothetical game in action:
The playing area is defined as 2400 units x 3200 units.
The hitbox is 5 units wide.
So when you scale down by a factor of 10 for drawing, the hitbox is effectively 0.5 pixels wide in screen space. However, pixels themselves are discrete so you won't be able to tell exactly where your hitbox is relative to a bullet if they occupy the same pixel in screen space (they may or may not overlap in world space).

I actually used this technique in one of my own games to simulate fractional speeds for sprite movement.

[DJ Incompetent]

You'd think when we're at the point that hitboxes of ships and bullets can get down to a single pixel, developers would add some sort of touch to the player ship to show cosmetic damage of bullets that have hit the surrounding parts of the ship but not necessarily the dead center hitbox. Then you can go into Psyvariar or Mushi and after some boss your ship shows somethin like a busted up right wing, a damaged nose, and extra steam and smoke coming out the back, but your ship is still doin' the same it's always been because that single pixel hitbox was never touched.

I think it would make any stage and boss fight more....dramatic!

Why hasn't anybody done this yet?

[Icarus]

It would raise the question "how is that ship flying when it's all messed up like that?". Which is a similar sort of question to "how the heck is that aircraft flying backwards?". Good questions, answerable only through the use of shootemup physics.

[BulletMagnet]

It would raise the question "how is that ship flying when it's all messed up like that?"

Heh, that one's already raised at every "dismantle-able" boss you fight..."Okay, I blew off the tail, both wings, the engine, and the cockpit...and it's still[/] trying to kill me?"

[elvis]

Psyvariar 2's hitbox is literally 1 pixel in the stomach of the mech.

I'm certain that both Psyvariar 2 and Mushihime Sama use 1-pixel hitboxes.

And at 240p, there's no smaller than that, unless someone makes a 480p game with a 1-pixel hitbox.

But Psyvariar 2 is 480p (it wouldn't be VGA compatible if it wasn't, right?). Therefore its 1 pixel hitbox is 1/4 the size of Mushi's 1 pixel hitbox (in relation to the screen, of course... in relation to image size, they are exactly equal).

Ah yes, you are right.

I guess by sheer logic that makes Psyvariar 2 the "winner" in this case.