I'm making my own cave style shmup and I'm stuck at making my first ever stage. The stages bullet patterns and enemy placement had no synergy to each other and felt very unfun to playtest.
The stage only contains 5 enemies, one is a popcorn tank who moves slowly and randomly fires a shot, second is a popcorn who follows a path and shoots towards the player, third is a small elite that shoots a arrow shaped bullets towards the player, fourth is a medium elite where it moves slow and shoots a spread of big bullets and shoots a stream after, the last enemy is a mega elite where it had a difficult bullet pattern to dodge and cancels all when it dies.
Is it all of the enemies fault or my enemy placement is just that bad?
How do you come up with a level design
Re: How do you come up with a level design
The general approach I take whenever making anything is to glare at anything I hate about it, identify why I hate it, adjust it, and continue glaring at the thing until I don't hate it anymore. That your question is so general, I'd say the main problem is you haven't formed a strong enough model of what you want to create yet. Imitation is always a good way to get started.
Shoot'em ups have a lot in common with music, it's why games like Ongeki and Dangun Feveron can feel so euphoric to play at times. If you play the same string of notes all the time, it gets monotonous and boring. If you don't repeat patterns, it'll feel like a chaotic mess of random noise and nonsense. (Kenta Cho's games can feel like that.)
One trick a lot of games do is to spawn the next wave of enemies when there's nothing on the screen. This is a kind of balancing feature, keeping the game somewhat interesting as the player gets better instead of having them sit on an empty screen with nothing to do. Bonus points if they have to move the hell away from where they cleared the last wave.
Anyway, the simple first formations you face in a Gradius game is a good example of a bunch of stuff going on. The zakos come in a horizontal line, which has an important feature: The enemies in the front act as shields for the enemies in the back of the formation. They're fish in a barrel, but they're not defenseless. Sometimes the guy in the back breaks formation just when you think he's toast (an example of 'mixing up the pattern' to surprise player expectations), forcing you to move vertically or he'll get away. Which you don't want to do: shooting down a formation rewards you with a power up. (This is a carrot all levelin' up RPG games like Gradius have. Increased avatar power is always a strong reward.)
From that additional ideas naturally emerge: like using zako as barriers for miniboss-type enemies. When the zakos block your shots to the real threat, it's annoying. When you kill those little shits and finally start working on the miniboss's HP, it feels satisfying.
This is the foundation of ALL entertainment media: Emotions. There are lots of craftsmanship stuff you can micromanage, but all of it in the end of the day is to make the other person on the other end feel something.
Anyway anyway, I recommend blocking out a level similar to my advice for painting: start with laying broad strokes. "This is the area where there's guys who have a field that slows down the player's movement, I'll call it 'the swamp'. This is the area where fire comes out of the side of the screen, I'll call it 'the oven'. Etc etc." (Thinking of levels as a set of obstacles can help. Like Ninja Warrior always has a name for an obstacle: the pipe slider, the warped wall, etc. If you can give a name to a formation or section of a level, it might help.)
2d Mario games are always a good example of patterns. 1-1 has that pipe region in front that escalates in difficulty. First, a short pipe. Next, a taller pipe that teaches the player they need to hold in the jump button for longer to go higher. A goomba lurks before the next pipe, which is so tall you have to learn you can hold in the run button to jump higher. (This spot has got to be a killer for complete and utter video game noobs, I bet.) The last pipe to overcome has two goombas, which might look more dangerous but is actually easier because there's more space between the pipes. This is a psychological trick where things might look more difficult, but aren't. (This helps gives the player a sense of unwarranted accomplishment, without realizing it's unwarranted. An example of this in a shoot'em up would be like the massive waves of tanks in DoDonpachi, where basically none of them ever shoot at you and aren't a real threat.) (This is also an example of a cooling off period for a challenge. Things don't always have to get harder, they can get easier toward the end. Front-loading the harder parts is actually a pretty good design philosophy imo.)
That's a good example of pattern escalation: you start with a warmup to prime the brain with expectations, and then dial up the pressure. I'm sure you're familiar with the setup where a few little guys come up and you shoot'em down EZ PZ and think to yourself 'P'ef, easy...' And then a shitload of guys suddenly come out and you're like 'This is bullsh*t!' .... Like I said before, emotions.
Don't feel bad if you're not able to make the games you want to make right away, it takes years to learn and notice things. The most important thing is that you enjoy it as a hobby.
Shoot'em ups have a lot in common with music, it's why games like Ongeki and Dangun Feveron can feel so euphoric to play at times. If you play the same string of notes all the time, it gets monotonous and boring. If you don't repeat patterns, it'll feel like a chaotic mess of random noise and nonsense. (Kenta Cho's games can feel like that.)
One trick a lot of games do is to spawn the next wave of enemies when there's nothing on the screen. This is a kind of balancing feature, keeping the game somewhat interesting as the player gets better instead of having them sit on an empty screen with nothing to do. Bonus points if they have to move the hell away from where they cleared the last wave.
Anyway, the simple first formations you face in a Gradius game is a good example of a bunch of stuff going on. The zakos come in a horizontal line, which has an important feature: The enemies in the front act as shields for the enemies in the back of the formation. They're fish in a barrel, but they're not defenseless. Sometimes the guy in the back breaks formation just when you think he's toast (an example of 'mixing up the pattern' to surprise player expectations), forcing you to move vertically or he'll get away. Which you don't want to do: shooting down a formation rewards you with a power up. (This is a carrot all levelin' up RPG games like Gradius have. Increased avatar power is always a strong reward.)
From that additional ideas naturally emerge: like using zako as barriers for miniboss-type enemies. When the zakos block your shots to the real threat, it's annoying. When you kill those little shits and finally start working on the miniboss's HP, it feels satisfying.
This is the foundation of ALL entertainment media: Emotions. There are lots of craftsmanship stuff you can micromanage, but all of it in the end of the day is to make the other person on the other end feel something.
Anyway anyway, I recommend blocking out a level similar to my advice for painting: start with laying broad strokes. "This is the area where there's guys who have a field that slows down the player's movement, I'll call it 'the swamp'. This is the area where fire comes out of the side of the screen, I'll call it 'the oven'. Etc etc." (Thinking of levels as a set of obstacles can help. Like Ninja Warrior always has a name for an obstacle: the pipe slider, the warped wall, etc. If you can give a name to a formation or section of a level, it might help.)
2d Mario games are always a good example of patterns. 1-1 has that pipe region in front that escalates in difficulty. First, a short pipe. Next, a taller pipe that teaches the player they need to hold in the jump button for longer to go higher. A goomba lurks before the next pipe, which is so tall you have to learn you can hold in the run button to jump higher. (This spot has got to be a killer for complete and utter video game noobs, I bet.) The last pipe to overcome has two goombas, which might look more dangerous but is actually easier because there's more space between the pipes. This is a psychological trick where things might look more difficult, but aren't. (This helps gives the player a sense of unwarranted accomplishment, without realizing it's unwarranted. An example of this in a shoot'em up would be like the massive waves of tanks in DoDonpachi, where basically none of them ever shoot at you and aren't a real threat.) (This is also an example of a cooling off period for a challenge. Things don't always have to get harder, they can get easier toward the end. Front-loading the harder parts is actually a pretty good design philosophy imo.)
That's a good example of pattern escalation: you start with a warmup to prime the brain with expectations, and then dial up the pressure. I'm sure you're familiar with the setup where a few little guys come up and you shoot'em down EZ PZ and think to yourself 'P'ef, easy...' And then a shitload of guys suddenly come out and you're like 'This is bullsh*t!' .... Like I said before, emotions.
Don't feel bad if you're not able to make the games you want to make right away, it takes years to learn and notice things. The most important thing is that you enjoy it as a hobby.
Re: How do you come up with a level design
If by "CAVE style" you mean Dodonpachi, you'll notice that the almost harmless hordes of weak enemies and the layering of easy to dodge bullet patterns are a means to an end, not only boring weak threats: they gently push and pull the player along the right path, with a succession of varied emotions and situations like BryanM explained so well.
Do you have the means to make your enemy types flexible enough to design a level through their placement? Your descriptions suggest that they are meant to be rather self-contained threats instead, mostly a recipe for boring lack of variety and complexity.
For example, assuming vertical scrolling, a column of tanks could be created far offscreen and shoot down immediately to provide an obstacle (a long stream of bullets), while elsewhere a platoon of the "same" tanks could fire all simultaneously and aimed at the player. Not going to happen if every tank "moves slowly and randomly fires a shot".
Do you have the means to make your enemy types flexible enough to design a level through their placement? Your descriptions suggest that they are meant to be rather self-contained threats instead, mostly a recipe for boring lack of variety and complexity.
For example, assuming vertical scrolling, a column of tanks could be created far offscreen and shoot down immediately to provide an obstacle (a long stream of bullets), while elsewhere a platoon of the "same" tanks could fire all simultaneously and aimed at the player. Not going to happen if every tank "moves slowly and randomly fires a shot".
Re: How do you come up with a level design
There is good reason for this.GreenAnime wrote: ↑Sun Feb 23, 2025 2:53 am I'm making my own cave style shmup and I'm stuck at making my first ever stage. The stages bullet patterns and enemy placement had no synergy to each other and felt very unfun to playtest.
That's a nice description, but a picture is worth a thousand words, a video a thousand pictures, and a demo a thousand videos!GreenAnime wrote: ↑Sun Feb 23, 2025 2:53 am The stage only contains 5 enemies, one is a popcorn tank who moves slowly and randomly fires a shot, second is a popcorn who follows a path and shoots towards the player, third is a small elite that shoots a arrow shaped bullets towards the player, fourth is a medium elite where it moves slow and shoots a spread of big bullets and shoots a stream after, the last enemy is a mega elite where it had a difficult bullet pattern to dodge and cancels all when it dies.
I can not imagine what you imagine, let's see your level design.
Can't be the enemies fault, you gave them life! So it must be the second one right? I'm not so sure.GreenAnime wrote: ↑Sun Feb 23, 2025 2:53 am Is it all of the enemies fault or my enemy placement is just that bad?
Good luck.
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