Is it necessary that you be able to kill 100% of enemies?

[Pixel_Outlaw]

I'm stil working on my project and need to get some opinions. Is it totally necessary in your opinion to be able to kill every enemy or do you prefer finding the best path of enemy killing? I'm not talking about enemies you can't kill I'm just wondering if a shmup should make it so you can kill every enemy per stage(Aka not being able to shoot 100% because you can;t be in two places at once.)

Your thoughts?

[BulletMagnet]

Either style can work, I think...you've got plenty of games where you get extra points for killing everything, and then you've got stuff like Silvergun, which encourages you to only kill certain enemies and let the rest pass. As long as "the essentials" of the game are well done, I don't think many people will complain about this "feature" one way or the other.

[DJ Incompetent]

Depends on the weaponary the player will regularly have.

If the player will have a limited set of shooting on-screen and it's up to the player to pace his firing (or better yet, adjust his fire creativly) to hit everything in front of him as it is possible and easy for enemies to fly past and through the player's wave of shots, then yes, allowing the possibility of a 100% kill count is a decent idea; providing it is moderatly difficult to accomplish and the game itself is setup so survival is more difficult when trying to accomplish this.

However, when arranging a system of enemies on every stage, be aware that:
1. Every enemy in the stage MUST GET SOME PROPER SCREEN TIME. None of this "flash on-screen in the top corner, flash off-screen a second later" crap
2. Every enemy must make a presence. If an enemy is stationary, it better stay on-screen a long time. If the enemy can fly around, it better cross the screen, do some actual moving around, and actually attempt to stay around long enough to attack the player before disappearing. None of the "You missed the enemy because you didn't scroll the playfield/screen over to see him" bullshit...but that applies more to any wobble screen modes.



Otherwise, if there is no real gap in a player's rate of fire, or the player's weaponary is all-out destructive, then no. Keep it a mindless free-for-all.

[Pixel_Outlaw]

Ok thanks for your time folks!

[sjewkestheloon]

I like games to throw a shit load of enemies at you with some powerups underneath so dodgying about for the powerups can result in a suicide ship, similar to what Gynoug does in the first stage. There's no way to kill everything in this sort of situation so i'd go for that one.