Hello everyone. This is my first post in this part of the forum (and I am relatively new here anyway), so bear with me. Thinking greatly about shmups recently, I have come up with some scoring mechanics for an original game (which in my opinon is the most important aspect of shmup development, then comes enemy/bullet patterns, etc...). So my idea is as follows: It would be a vert-scrolling game. Your character/ship would have two attacks: a powerful frontal one with small area of effect, and a less powerful spread/blanketing attack.
At the begining of the game, you choose your character, then select which of these two attacks will be primary and secondary. The primary attack will be less powerful, and the secondary a bit more than if it was a first (so an alt-fire spread attack would be more powerful than a primary spread attack, but less powerful than a primary frontal, etc...). All enemies will be of different levels, corresponding to difficulty inherent in bullet paterns and resilience to attacks. A level one enemy will be worth certain points, a level two will be three level 1s, a level three two lvl 2s, etc.... A frontal attack woud therefore kill a lvl2, while a horizontal would not, but would kill more lvl 1s; this is all pretty standard. Where this really comes into play is comboing.
In the game you will have a little bar at the bottom of the screen. Killing enemies will fill this bar (in proportion to their level). When the bar is full (only 1 lvl), you will be able to hold down the fire button to unleash your alt attack (which you selected earlier). Depending on what lvl enemy you kill, how many of them, and at what proximity, this will start a combo multiplier; so killing a lvl two enemy (only possible with the alt-frontal attack) from basically melee range will give you a x5, or killing three lvl 1s will do the same. Then, any enemy you kill immediately following this will give you n x multiplier points. Now the higher your multiplier, the faster your bar regenerates every time you kill an enemy. And using the alt-attack again will allow you to chain your multiplier (so x5 + x5 = x10).
But the downside to all of this is that every second you don't kill an enemy, you combo counter goes down, until it reaches 1. And the higher this counter is, the faster it goes down (so x10 to x5 will be twice as fast as x5 to x1). Bombs will kill any enemy onscreen, but reset the counter to x1.
So, that's it so far. What do you think?
Idea for Shmup scoring mechanics.
2 questions:
1. Is there a reason your primary weapon is the weaker one? That sounds counter-intuitive.
2. Is this like an overly complex DoDonpachi+EPSrade combo system?
In my experience, complexity doesn't necessarily make a better game system. Simplicity does. Now this might just be my opinion (take it or leave it), but I would try and come up with a system that is easier to explain and comprehend by the player. I guess I just find it hard to imagine how a player is going to read all of this scoring complexity while playing. But I hope you prove me wrong...
Mobichan
1. Is there a reason your primary weapon is the weaker one? That sounds counter-intuitive.
2. Is this like an overly complex DoDonpachi+EPSrade combo system?
In my experience, complexity doesn't necessarily make a better game system. Simplicity does. Now this might just be my opinion (take it or leave it), but I would try and come up with a system that is easier to explain and comprehend by the player. I guess I just find it hard to imagine how a player is going to read all of this scoring complexity while playing. But I hope you prove me wrong...
Mobichan