What type of theme for a Shmup would you like to see next?

HeLGeN-X · Post by **HeLGeN-X** » Mon Apr 02, 2007 6:48 pm

Or what do you think would be unique, like how mushi is with insects, and muchi muchi pork is with pigs.

What do you think would be a cool and unique theme for a future shmup?

I was thinking something inside a human body would be unique, but maybe not so cool.

iatneH · Post by **iatneH** » Mon Apr 02, 2007 6:50 pm

X-Multiply is very cool.

I want a real hentai shooter with good gameplay. Now THAT would be unique. It's not going to happen though.

Kiken · Post by **Kiken** » Mon Apr 02, 2007 6:56 pm

iatneH wrote:I want a real hentai shooter with good gameplay. Now THAT would be unique. It's not going to happen though.

You know.. tobe D+Vine is actually pretty decent... the problem is that it has a completely broken-up level format. It would have been great if there was an arcade-mode where all seven levels could be played in a single sequence (maybe selectable after the game had been completed once).

JBC · Post by **JBC** » Mon Apr 02, 2007 6:57 pm

One user had an idea like that long ago. About going back in time and entering the body of your mother to defend her zygotes from time-jumping alien parasites trying to prevent your own birth. That would be awesome - but wouldn't really make for an original setting as we've had stuff like that in X-Multiply and Abodox. Awesome idea for a story though.

I'd like to see another bird themed shmup like Agony or Kolibri, but done in a more traditional manner.

Anyone remember Slime World? How about a gel themed shmup... Just picture that level in Gradius V where you are in some sort of waste disposal area of a Bacterion vessel that keeps rotating around you. That concept could be taken to many more levels.

incognoscente · Post by **incognoscente** » Mon Apr 02, 2007 9:22 pm

John Hughes movie.

sven666 · Post by **sven666** » Mon Apr 02, 2007 9:28 pm

iatneH wrote:X-Multiply is very cool.

I want a real hentai shooter with good gameplay.

i want XXX-multiply... some G-darius counter-style-lazer-tentacle-action-HELL-YEAH!!

Klatrymadon · Post by **Klatrymadon** » Mon Apr 02, 2007 9:34 pm

About going back in time and entering the body of your mother to defend her zygotes from time-jumping alien parasites trying to prevent your own birth.

That's a fucking boss idea, mate. Anything cerebral and obtusely weird is right up my alley. I wish modern shmups were a bit more ambitious in this sense...

Actually, I suppose I just want to see a few evolutions of this existing theme. Abysmal biological environments that're far beyond human comprehension give me a hard-on I could hammer nails with.

JBC · Post by **JBC** » Mon Apr 02, 2007 9:43 pm

Isn't it? I wish i could remember who was posting about that...

Gorecki · Post by **Gorecki** » Mon Apr 02, 2007 10:09 pm

Agreed, a modern biological theme would rock. The space anus of Gradius V level 4 was good, but not messed up enough. We need tentacles and cancers and inter-dimentional daemon sperm.

auryn · Post by **auryn** » Mon Apr 02, 2007 10:22 pm

HeLGeN-X wrote:I was thinking something inside a human body would be unique, but maybe not so cool.

Hmmm, I remember Fantastic Voyage on the Amiga had that theme. And of course Microcosm CD32, but that's a rail shooter like space harrier. The setting & atmosphere were great in that one. Gameplay was not so hot though.

I think most basic themes have been covered in the past already ... but there's so many possible varations on a theme that it doesn't matter. Look at fantasy themed games like Dimahoo, Dragonblaze, Cotton 2 or Agony (on the Amiga). All are fantasy themed games, but the execution is so different that each offers a unique gaming experience.

Gorecki wrote:inter-dimentional daemon sperm.

edit: hell yeah!

auryn · Post by **auryn** » Mon Apr 02, 2007 11:05 pm

btw, I think a Shmup based on the literary works of HP Lovecraft would be cool...

I mean look at the table on this page (scroll down a bit)... it's like a virtual encyclopedia of shmup bosses!

who woulnd't want to take on these highly amicalble creatures:

- Baoht Z'uqqa-Mogg The Bringer of Pestilence (A huge, flying, scorpion-like beast.)

- Bugg-Shash The Black One, The Filler of Space, He Who Comes in the Dark (Appears as a slimy mass covered with eyes and mouths)

- Ach' narrgutha The evil toad (A brown globulous fiend of pain)

- Glaaki The Inhabitant of the Lake, Lord of Dead Dreams (Appears as a giant slug with metallic spines.)

- M'Nagalah the Eternal The Great God Cancer, The All-Consuming (A massive, tumorous, blob-like thing.)

before finally facing:

- Shub-Niggurath The Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young

and as a true last boss (the one, the only, the ever popular):

- Cthulhu The Sleeping God, Master of R'lyeh, The Great Priest (A gigantic, winged, octopus-headed humanoid.)

Edit: but we should not speak of these things. I feel a chill in the air even as I make this post.

GaijinPunch · Post by **GaijinPunch** » Mon Apr 02, 2007 11:42 pm

The theme were someone besides Cave makes a pretty one.

icycalm · Post by **icycalm** » Mon Apr 02, 2007 11:45 pm

GaijinPunch wrote:The theme were someone besides Cave makes a pretty one.

Treasure's already on that one, I hear.

Klatrymadon · Post by **Klatrymadon** » Tue Apr 03, 2007 12:17 am

We need tentacles and cancers and inter-dimentional daemon sperm.

Yes! The bosses should be gigantic, loathsome parasites composed of fibrous, tumorous muscle tissue, etc.

And instead of mouths, they've got four arses.

I couldn't agree more with Auryn, as well. Big Lovecraft fan here, and pretty much every location, creature and elder god he ever described would be right at home in a sublimely horrifying bio-shooter. Cosmicism up the wazoo!

Never_Scurred · Post by **Never_Scurred** » Tue Apr 03, 2007 12:40 am

a mathematical one. Not necessarily in the bullet hell/Cave style, but similar to Ikaruga.
Kinda like a typing of the dead, but shmup related.
I'd love to see the superplays on a game like that

professor ganson · Post by **professor ganson** » Tue Apr 03, 2007 12:41 am

Gorecki wrote:Agreed, a modern biological theme would rock. The space anus of Gradius V level 4 was good, but not messed up enough. We need tentacles and cancers and inter-dimentional daemon sperm.

Check out Blast Factor (or whatever it's called) on PS3.

Veracity · Post by **Veracity** » Tue Apr 03, 2007 12:43 am

Abstract would be kind of nice. It's such an inherently abstract genre, but I can't think of much on the commercial front that takes that route aesthetically.

Nuke · Post by **Nuke** » Tue Apr 03, 2007 1:20 am

auryn wrote:btw, I think a Shmup based on the literary works of HP Lovecraft would be cool...

I mean look at the table on this page (scroll down a bit)... it's like a virtual encyclopedia of shmup bosses!

who woulnd't want to take on these highly amicalble creatures:

- Baoht Z'uqqa-Mogg The Bringer of Pestilence (A huge, flying, scorpion-like beast.)

- Bugg-Shash The Black One, The Filler of Space, He Who Comes in the Dark (Appears as a slimy mass covered with eyes and mouths)

- Ach' narrgutha The evil toad (A brown globulous fiend of pain)

- Glaaki The Inhabitant of the Lake, Lord of Dead Dreams (Appears as a giant slug with metallic spines.)

- M'Nagalah the Eternal The Great God Cancer, The All-Consuming (A massive, tumorous, blob-like thing.)

before finally facing:

- Shub-Niggurath The Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young

and as a true last boss (the one, the only, the ever popular):

- Cthulhu The Sleeping God, Master of R'lyeh, The Great Priest (A gigantic, winged, octopus-headed humanoid.)

Edit: but we should not speak of these things. I feel a chill in the air even as I make this post.

!!!!!
I've had the same idea for years!
You chose between 3 defenders of sanity with strange powers, your bombs warp reality in a blasphemous maner and your journey takes you from Arkam to the dreamlands, to Yuggoth and finaly to 47°9′S 126°43′W.
....And somhow it's all nyarlathotep's fault.
(Watch out for the extra hard secret boss on the seacond loop, Azathoth

)

VeganZombie · Post by **VeganZombie** » Tue Apr 03, 2007 3:26 am

So it seems a molecular/biological theme is going pretty strong..

What about a molecular shmup where you play as a white blood cell through various parts of the body.. With each stage being a different body part/affliction and the boss being the virus/disease itself.

I don't know man, it sounds pretty good to me.

Krooze L-Roy · Post by **Krooze L-Roy** » Tue Apr 03, 2007 5:42 am

Not the most origianl perhaps, but a religious themed shmup would be right up my alley. You start out defending Heaven, then slowly make your way down through Purgatory, past Earth and into hell to fight the Devil. Hell could be broken into seven sections, themed for each of Dante's rings (I believe there were seven of them).
Actually, the opposite might be even cooler, since demons and such are so overused as enemies. Working your way out of hell and storming Heaven.

Pixel_Outlaw · Post by **Pixel_Outlaw** » Tue Apr 03, 2007 6:04 am

70's pinball.

Gungriffon Geona · Post by **Gungriffon Geona** » Tue Apr 03, 2007 6:09 am

something that takes itself seriously yet at the same time doesn't.

Acid King · Post by **Acid King** » Tue Apr 03, 2007 6:47 am

You control a bear riding a bicycle. The true last boss is Stephen Colbert.

Gungriffon Geona · Post by **Gungriffon Geona** » Tue Apr 03, 2007 6:50 am

Acid King wrote:You control a bear riding a bicycle. The true last boss is Stephen Colbert.

Switch that around but instead of a bicycle it's a motorcycle and you play as Freakazoid.

futurebiblehero · Post by **futurebiblehero** » Tue Apr 03, 2007 7:09 am

Breakin' II Electric Boogaloo, the Shmup. Tear through the ozone with Ozone. Kick it into turbo with Turbo. Power-up with cardboard mats and graffiti. THIS IS COMBAT! COMBAT!

Gungriffon Geona · Post by **Gungriffon Geona** » Tue Apr 03, 2007 7:11 am

Combat?
THIS
IS
SPARTA: the game!

tuoma · Post by **tuoma** » Tue Apr 03, 2007 7:12 am

Mac, the Lovecraft idea is outright awesome in a really good serious way, SOMEONE DO THIS NOW! The bear on a bicycle is sweet in a more ridiculous way =)

I want an "over the top egyptian myth outer-space-book of the dead" kind of thing. Last boss, a goodly faraoh, true last boss? Illuminatis demon-head lizard leader.

They had some really crazy gods and demons to pick from to make up the other enemys and bosses.

JoshF · Post by **JoshF** » Tue Apr 03, 2007 7:52 am

Steampunk Mecha

Klatrymadon · Post by **Klatrymadon** » Tue Apr 03, 2007 10:23 am

true last boss? Illuminatis demon-head lizard leader.

Awesome. That'd probably be the one instance where a licensed soundtrack would be nice - Nile's Chapter for Transforming into a Snake.

Gorecki · Post by **Gorecki** » Tue Apr 03, 2007 12:19 pm

How about a Treasure shooter that unfolds backwards through time, scrolling backwards from the boss to the start of the level, so that your own bullets are sucked out of the enemies and down the screen, where you must maneuver into their path to prevent a destructive paradox, all whilst dodging enemy bullets that suck upwards from the bottom of the screen?

shmups.system11.org

What type of theme for a Shmup would you like to see next?

What type of theme for a Shmup would you like to see next?

Re: What type of theme for a Shmup would you like to see nex