Do any shmups have AI for player 2?

God · Post by **God** » Sat Mar 24, 2007 1:17 pm

I've seen this in a couple brawling games (Final Fight 3 and River City Ransom EX). Also in Justice League Heroes if memory servers.

So, do any shmups like this exist yet or are any being made? Starfox doesn't count.

ahnslaught · Post by **ahnslaught** » Sat Mar 24, 2007 1:37 pm

Twinkle Star Sprites has the 2-player puzzle-shmup thing going on, but it's a competitive, rather than a cooperative, thing.

SFKhoa · Post by **SFKhoa** » Sat Mar 24, 2007 3:04 pm

Stage 3 of Trizeal? Although they deserve to get show down if they don't know how to dodge a single stray bullet.

LSU · Post by **LSU** » Sat Mar 24, 2007 4:56 pm

I've often thought this could be a cool idea if it were implemented well, Would it have to base it's ability off the player's skill to be really fair, though? (Kind of a positive rank setting..?)

The CPU-controlled satellites in, say Hyper Duel, spring to mind as something that's starting to approach this kind of idea, but it still doesn't nearly stand in for a second player.

RotateMe · Post by **RotateMe** » Sat Mar 24, 2007 5:18 pm

A shmup AI player would be awesome in general. If I would know how to I would code one for a cave game at once.

j^aws · Post by **j^aws** » Sat Mar 24, 2007 5:18 pm

Does controlling two ships by one player count?... And I don't mean 'that' Ikaruga video!

- Space Duel (Atari, circa '82/ '80, depending on where you get your info), a spiritual succesor to Asteroids... I think it's on one of the Atari compilations and also in MAME...

It also has 2-player co-op and VS. modes...

Kamakazie · Post by **Kamakazie** » Sat Mar 24, 2007 6:09 pm

Well, in Gradius V there's that level where you fly around with a future version of yourself... and later with the past version of yourself that actually follows what you did on the first run.

Twiddle · Post by **Twiddle** » Sat Mar 24, 2007 11:09 pm

A shmup AI player for a danmaku game would almost be cheating because the walls of bullets depend entirely on freaking out a human player instead of an AI player calculating the safest spot according to the trajectories of every bullet on screen, as well as the bullets' hitboxes.

shoe-sama · Post by **shoe-sama** » Sun Mar 25, 2007 12:19 am

lol mad AI reflexes

Krooze L-Roy · Post by **Krooze L-Roy** » Sun Mar 25, 2007 8:17 am

It'd be cool if there was a game where you could record all your ship's movements on one playthrough, and then, on the next playthrough, the ship you "programed" would be there fighting alongside you. I could see something like that working for a game like Ikaruga, where you can by necessity only get half of all the possible chains.

SFKhoa · Post by **SFKhoa** » Sun Mar 25, 2007 4:59 pm

Krooze L-Roy wrote:It'd be cool if there was a game where you could record all your ship's movements on one playthrough, and then, on the next playthrough, the ship you "programed" would be there fighting alongside you. I could see something like that working for a game like Ikaruga, where you can by necessity only get half of all the possible chains.

That wouldn't work well for games where enemies change course based on where you are on the screen.

God · Post by **God** » Mon Feb 18, 2008 10:03 am

Made it a little further in R-Type 2 and discovered the boss you fight with 4 other R-Type ships.

Too bad he wasn't in R-Type Final. All kinds of neat things they could've done with that.

Mortificator · Post by **Mortificator** » Mon Feb 18, 2008 11:30 am

That's the game I was going to mention too. Funny thing is, every time I read a review or post about R-Type II, it always talks about the "infected R-9s that attack you." I guess no one else notices they don't hurt you and you can't hurt them.

That boss is supposed to be a giant uterus, by the way. See the little spinning Bydo fetus? But we all know how Irem loves the reproductive system.

Anyway, at the very beginning of Sigma Star Saga you have a number of wingmates.

There's a cool ID4 homage.

And say what you will about the game, but I can't help but like the protagonist.

Enhasa · Post by **Enhasa** » Mon Feb 18, 2008 7:39 pm

Shmup AI is pretty hard to do realistically I think.

In every pvp, comp AI pretty much uses dodgebot for a while and then randomly slams into a bullet arbitrarily when it's time to lose. Or they just stand there and get hit often like in Senko.

Syndicate · Post by **Syndicate** » Mon Feb 18, 2008 9:43 pm

No, even if they did, chances are the AI would always be in your way, get blown up all the time, and would only fire one shot a minute.

NAVVARR · Post by **NAVVARR** » Mon Feb 18, 2008 9:46 pm

Does Chaos Engine count?

-i know its a top down -but it still is a shooter of sorts and the AI was pretty good for the computer controlled player.

Shion · Post by **Shion** » Mon Feb 18, 2008 11:44 pm

Well, there's Touhou 9: Phantasmagoria of flower view. It's pretty much a 1v1 competitive shooter, and the 2nd player has AI in single mode. It's pretty random though. Sometimes it plays like a god and dodges even the largest bullet-storms imaginable, and the next moment it will get hit by a simple attack.

worstplayer · Post by **worstplayer** » Tue Feb 19, 2008 8:17 am

Well, making competent AI for shmup isn't that easy. I originally wanted to have AI player for Laseroid but quickly gave up when i realized what it has to do.

First of all, dodging. Simple IF something's heading your way THEN move away from it could work for something like Raiden but completely fails in bullet hell games. Waypoints are useless as well - not only playfield constantly changes but you have to PREDICT those changes. It must also recognize when there's no way out and use bomb when necessary. And i won't even talk about advanced techniques like guiding enemy fire.

The bot must also move itself to position where it can effectively destroy incoming enemies and not crash into anything when doing so, again in dynamically changing environment. It also has to decide which weapon is appropriate for current situation and use it.

It must do miscellanous tasks (chaining, scratching, pointblanking, collecting multipliers, whatever) which require to do things that are contradictory to his other orders, so it must recognize when it's safe to do so.

And hardest problem of them all: It must cooperate with "live" player, without having any way to communicate with him. Previous problems could be simplified with some clever tricks, but this one is simply impossible.

TL;DR: It's fucking impossible to write shmup AI that doesn't suck and/or cheat.

zdk · Post by **zdk** » Tue Feb 19, 2008 8:24 am

Shion wrote:Well, there's Touhou 9: Phantasmagoria of flower view. It's pretty much a 1v1 competitive shooter, and the 2nd player has AI in single mode. It's pretty random though. Sometimes it plays like a god and dodges even the largest bullet-storms imaginable, and the next moment it will get hit by a simple attack.

Enhasa wrote:In every pvp, comp AI pretty much uses dodgebot for a while and then randomly slams into a bullet arbitrarily when it's time to lose.

pretty much.

glitch · Post by **glitch** » Tue Feb 19, 2008 11:00 pm

Krooze L-Roy wrote:It'd be cool if there was a game where you could record all your ship's movements on one playthrough, and then, on the next playthrough, the ship you "programed" would be there fighting alongside you. I could see something like that working for a game like Ikaruga, where you can by necessity only get half of all the possible chains.

have you playing cursor*10?

lgb · Post by **lgb** » Tue Feb 19, 2008 11:32 pm

How about Tempest 2000? It has that AI Droid.

ROBOTRON · Post by **ROBOTRON** » Wed Feb 20, 2008 12:50 am

Alpha Mission II for the Neo-Geo AES has the toughest, most unforgiving AI I've ever experienced in a shmup...1 or two player co-op, it doesn't matter.

If you collect all the power ups and equip your ship with 4 or more super weapons...the AI stiffens up so hard its unbelievable. I've noticed if you collect Thunder, Blackhole, Phoenix or Nuclear...it becomes even harder X5. The enemies begin shooting homing bullets, power ups either appear much less often and/or appear so random...you cannot collect them in order (you have to collect 3 pieces of the same weapon in order to collect the power-up as a whole...if you collect a piece different from the parts you currently have, it starts the process over). The game also starts throwing anti-power-ups that take away your ship's weaponry that you must avoid...but they resemble power-ups, so its easy to make a mistake and run into one. Then there are warps and reverses...warps throw you forward towards the boss skipping valuable power-ups along way (but you cannot be hit during warps) or reverse warp which makes you go back to the beginning of the stage and fight your way through all over again...even though its a pain in the ass, there can be a good strategy to it.

I know I'm probably explaining it in a sh*tty way but try it out, and you'll figure out what I'm talking about.

glitch · Post by **glitch** » Wed Feb 20, 2008 8:30 am

sounds like a brutal rank system rather than AI though...

ROBOTRON · Post by **ROBOTRON** » Wed Feb 20, 2008 10:47 am

glitch wrote:sounds like a brutal rank system rather than AI though...

Perhaps I misunderstood.

I was thinking AI = Artificial Intelligence...the better player you are, the tougher the game is.

JoshF · Post by **JoshF** » Thu Mar 13, 2008 11:32 am

Slap Fight MD special mode has an AI controlled option.

Ed Oscuro · Post by **Ed Oscuro** » Thu Mar 13, 2008 11:48 am

I think that in most cases an AI controlled player is going to distract the main player, plus it rams home that extra pathetic feeling when you see the AI cop a nasty hit in the face for no good reason.

AI ranking up with you could mess with a game's rank, too - imagine a player who kind of sucks cranking up the rank and the AI following suit; does the AI start shooting blanks too? lol

320x240 · Post by **320x240** » Thu Mar 13, 2008 11:49 am

AI goes against everything that make shmups what they are.

Post by **Shatterhand** » Thu Mar 13, 2008 1:06 pm

NAVVARR wrote:Does Chaos Engine count?

-i know its a top down -but it still is a shooter of sorts and the AI was pretty good for the computer controlled player.

Pretty good indeed, I always get pissed when they get a power-up before me

.

I've read the game was originally going to have THREE players at the same time, and on single player there would be 2 computer bots... but they felt the game felt too crowded like that and dropped to just 2 players.

JoshF · Post by **JoshF** » Thu Mar 13, 2008 1:09 pm

Alway pick a slower character.

Post by **Shatterhand** » Thu Mar 13, 2008 1:32 pm

The best teammates happen to be the quickest ones also (Gentleman or The Preacher), and I always liked to play with Navie which is the slower character....

... still many times when you need a health pack, for example, the CPU would NOT get it, and let you get it, or if your weapons is less powered than his, he will also let you get the power up, showing how the AI is indeed very smart.