What do you think of versus shmups ?

[Keade]

Hello,

I'm studying game design in school and have to come up with a project which will be made for school, using Virtools (me+ a graphist should start the production phase in March)

Since I'm a big fan of Twinkle Star Sprites, I want to create a versus shoot'em up very much inspired of TSS with some gameplay modifications of course (the main lines of my gameplay are already written)

My teacher told me he wasn't against me willing to make a game which is a "better" version of another game.
However he told me that to bring something really new and interesting, I should think about the competitive shmups genre more (eg what are their qualities and defects ?) - and I think he's right.

He asked me, for instance : Why do you think there are so few competitive shmups around ?
If I had to make a list, I only see Twinkle Star Sprites, TSS:LPP and Phantasmagoria of Dimension Dream (Touhou).
There are also Change Air Blade and Senko No Ronde (both not splitted screen).

I thought about this question and could only come with few reasons.
Specifically, concerning TSS :
-It mixes different gameplays (puzzle + shmup) which can be troubling for some people (?)
-Maybe people prefer to fight their opponent more directy and don't like having to hit them indirectly ? Unlike a 2D fighter, in TSS you don't have the feeling that you're directly fighting against someone, and that anything you do instantly affects the opponent.
Note that this only applies to TSS, TSS:LPP and PODD.
Besides, Puzzle Bobble and many other puzzle games use an indirect fight, and AFAIK people like to play them in versus.
-In the beginning, it's harder to learn than some other shmups and it simply plays different from a "basic" shmup (which is just dodging and shooting as many ships as you can)

These 3 reasons don't make much sense to me, and I couldn't come up with better ones.

So, if you have some interesting opinions or ideas on competitive shmups (and especially splitted screen shmups), I would be very interested in reading you !

Thank you.



------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Here follows the details of the game concept I've currently wrote.
Please note that I should stick with its big lines, but almost nothing is definitive.
Concerning the gameplay, I thought it could be possible to change the TSS's puzzle part into something more like Ikaruga.

p.1
--- Presentation ---
Game name : Mirror's Quest (until I find something better)
Format : PC
Nb of players : 2
Public : hardcore gamers
Competitors : TSS, TSS:LPP, PODM

p.2
--- Pitch ---
The world is endangered by a gigantic magic mirror, which side effect due to it being damaged is to draw everything real on the "reflects side". The heroin have to fight various opponents to get to the mirror and finally repair it.
(note : I first thought the heroin should destroy the mirror but the contrary is probably better since broking a mirror means misfortune)

p.3
--- Gameplay --- (1/2)
- The game is a 2 players splitted screen w/ vertical scrolling shoot'em up, in which you play against each other. You win when your opponent is destroyed.
- Ennemy groups appear from time to time on the player's screens. The ennemy patterns come with various movements / behavior (aggressiveness...)
- A selective destruction of the ennemies gives bonuses, missing it means a penalty
- Once an entire ennemy pattern is destroyed by a player, it slowly teleports on the opponent's screen (transparency decreasing). The opponent can try sending back the pattern by destroying it before it's fully teleported. The patterns can be sent back and forth this way.

p.4
--- gameplay (2/2) ---
- Each player have a attack power (jauge). It increases as the players succeed in destrying their patterns
- It allows casting instant attacks like making shots/bullet patterns appear on the ennemy screen, switch screens (~mirror), vertical screen flip, etc.).
- (note : like in TSS), the game speed varies. It slowly increases during every round. It increases/decreases if the players attack power do so.
(note : this is one imho of the best features from TSS, that's why I would like something similar in my game).
- The ennemies grow more aggressive as they are in big numbers, so that you've to avoid at all costs your screen being filled by ennemies.

[A Black Falcon]

There's also a splitscreen versus mode in Space Invaders (SNES), which was released in both the US and Japan, as well as the Japan-only versions of Space Invaders on the Saturn and Playstation (the versus mode is in all three Japan-only editions of Playstation Space Invaders, but not in the Space Invaders PSX game that got a US release). It's a pretty interesting mode, definitely worth trying. It's two player only though, there's no 1p vs CPU mode like in Twinkle Star Sprites, so you'll need another person... but definitely play it. The SNES cart version is very cheap and easy to find. The only thing it doesn't do is save highscores, but oh well... what's there is more than good enough to be worth having. The game is also on Virtual Console, I believe, but the cart would likely be cheaper.

Also, it's not a shmup, but Tempest 2000/X3 does have a 2-player splitscreen versus mode with one player on each end of the web, shooting at the enemies and eachother.

Anyway, I agree, it's definitely too bad that there aren't more games like Twinkle Star Sprites, it's a great, interesting game. There really should be more games like it out there.

[spineshark]

There's also Seihou Kioh Gyoku, which is an awesome TSS clone. It's very fast, and you level your charges by grazing (every enemy releases suicide bullets).

[Enhasa]

Greatest shmup topic, I am a vs shmup fan and a fan of PVP. I would be happy to help you out with this, great idea. I took a game design course as an undergrad at Georgia Tech, but my teammates sucked so I phoned it in and we made some terrible mouse-based 2d artwank game that they wanted, what a waste.

You're not going to make a "better" TSS, so making it different and starting top-down is indeed a good idea. I think the answer to the question is: shmups are traditionally 1p (or even co-op) games, so like anything experimental the masses aren't really interested in it, so you're not going to have much commercial success that would translate into more games in the genre. I honestly don't think it has anything to do with gameplay mechanics in the genre itself, but it's good that you are thinking through all of this systematically.

I would like to hear your unique ideas for making a great vs shmup. Also I wouldn't mind playing you in TSS, I hear you are a great player, possibly tops on 2df. I don't play TSS as much as I'd like sadly, but when I do it's usually against SDA people since a lot of us love TSS.


Games I know about (only counting games designed around vs, not special modes):

Twinkle Star Sprites - all-time great game, split-screen, heavy puzzle elements, character balance pretty good, also a good baseline since it's relatively well known (don't need to explain to you of course)
Twinkle Star Sprites: La Petite Princesse - still good b/c it's tss, but slower so not as good (even on hardest setting), visibility is worse, also you gain meter too quickly
Senko no Ronde (has 3 arcade versions + 360 port) - all-time great game, arena (which means you directly fight), insane amount of strategy, higher-level strategy is more important than lower-level execution relative to most vs games, character balance and variety is actually quite good atm
Senko no Ronde DUO (upcoming) - hope it's good lol
Change Air Blade - vertical but single-screen, extremely tough to balance b/c top and bottom are way different, Sammy's problem is they did a poor job and sequels were never made that could fix this, top is way overpowered with many many broken moves, Japanese ban lots of top moves to try to compensate for this, interesting but ultimately bad
Phantasmagoria of Dimension Dream - split-screen, it's ok, bit simplistic, problem is that it's too non-interactive (in tss you look at the other person's screen as much as your own, here it's much de-emphasized)
Phantasmagoria of Flower View - split-screen, bullet hell vs shmup, the 1p is actually better than tss (but who cares), can actually play a downrank strategy which is actually kinda boring, same problem of other screen doesn't matter, game is better than all other non-STB Touhou games though including DimDream
Kioh Gyoku - Seihou version of phantasmagoria, split-screen, like all Seihou it has faster bullets than Touhou, I like it better than the Touhou games, suicide bullets and very fast
Acceleration of Suguri - arena, some people like this game but I don't (I do like Suguri though, not a pvp), seems to draw more inspiration from Psychic Force than Senko no Ronde despite daijoubu calling it a Senko clone
Psychic Force - arena, again some people love PF but I can't really get into it, too slow and clunky
Psychic Force 2012 - much better than PF but although I like it I have the same problems with it, this type of game really misses out by not having dash shots like Senko IMO


I would normally leave it at that but I will edit in what I think of each game, because that relates to the topic as one person's opinion of what works and what doesn't work. I had to draw a cutoff somewhere, so I put it somewhere between Psychic Force and Virtual On.

[nimitz]

I think the answer is quite simple, a shmup is in essence a one-player game, in which the pace is controlled.

What makes a shmup fun is when the Devs take great care of every event that is going to happen and every pattern that you will have to navigate. That's why random shmups don't really work (it would need very complex algorithms)

So with that in mind it's very hard to make a good shmup where the other player is the one influencing the pace and the action of the game and in which the players do have the actual impression of fighting each other, not just playing two separate games on the same screen.

That being said Twinkle star sprites did that brilliantly but still, it doesn't compare to a really good shmup, just look at the top 25s.

[Keade]

Thanks for all your answers.
I didn't know there were that many versus shmups, I'll try to play those you mentionned with a friend as soon as I can.

@Enhasa :
Since you asked, I'm going to post the details of what I wanted to make (will edit my 1st post).
I bet it has many flaws because it's very difficult for me to foresee wether a gameplay will work without actually playing a prototype for it.
That's why one of the reasons why I want to try and analyze as many versus shmups as I can (and I should've started sooner).
Btw I believe flawed versus shmups like Virtual On can also be interesting to study a bit, to see what is wrong and should be avoided.

About playing online : I need some adapter for my arcade stick but I should've it soon and be back on 2DF, so we could play each other then.


@nimitz :

What makes a shmup fun is when the Devs take great care of every event that is going to happen and every pattern that you will have to navigate.)

True, even though patterns are rarely 100% the same from one run to the other, even in shmups like Cave's (except certain bosses), because of ennemies who aim at the player's ship, homing missiles, etc. which result slightly changes depending on the player's position.
But the patterns timings are pretty much constant, so that after a few runs the player know what to expect at any moment.

That being said Twinkle star sprites did that brilliantly but still, it doesn't compare to a really good shmup, just look at the top 25s.

What top 25s are you talking about, is there one in Shmups site ? I couldn't find it.
I'm not too confident in top10 / 25 because they can be vote spammed, people can vote without care or general scale, etc. but ... I would like to give it a look.

[Enhasa]

I didn't include Virtual On series, but I wouldn't say it's flawed at all. It's not for everyone, but neither is any vs shmup or any game really.


If you want my opinions on "flaws" (although I don't like to call design decisions flaws), I would say:

TSS: LPP - meter is gained too quickly
Change Air Blade - top and bottom have wildly different attributes
the Touhou games - other person's screen is greatly de-emphasized
Acceleration of Suguri - can't move while attacking, dashing negates projectiles
Psychic Force series - can't move while attacking

TSS, Senko, Kioh Gyuko, Virtual On may have minor flaws, but I would say nothing fundamental, although Kioh Gyuko only gets around the other screen de-emphasis by being faster-paced. I'm not sure I would call the Psychic Force style flawed either, just that I personally don't like it as much.

Anyway if you are making a split-screen game, I would say the most important factor to consider is making the game highly interactive vs your opponent. Single-screen (including arena) vs shmups have the advantage of natural interactivity but the disadvantage of being much harder to balance.


I don't agree with nimitz, but his reasoning makes sense. Besides predictability being boring, I think another problem is that most devs don't know how to make an experience for you that you personally find "best." Cutscenes are an example of that.

Kaede: Top 25 is here. Yeah the results are silly I guess. If you click forward a page or two and skim, you can see year-to-year changes and also a list of all games voted.

[LtC]

Only versus shmup I've so far really enjoyed has been Kioh Gyuko. I tried out Change Air Blade a few days back and it seemed really interesting but rather boring against AI. Could someone point out some versus shmups that are playable through internet, that would be interesting to try out if any exist in the first place.

[Enhasa]

How many have you tried? Change Air Blade is considered to be an awful game, and I have to agree, as much as I would like to enjoy it. Of course, if you have so far stuck to 1p, you can't really judge a vs game until you play it 2p.


Twinkle Star Sprites - widely beloved, can play online with 2DF (with matchmaking) or Neo FBA (you can use Kaillera with MAME too but generally nfba is preferred as it's more stable)
Senko no Ronde - playable through internet via Xbox Live, although this probably isn't what you meant
Change Air Blade - playable online with Kaillera-enabled MAME, very low recommendation since any amount of lag greatly unbalances the game in favor of the top even further
Phantasmagoria of Flower View - there is an online play client, unfortunately it is very laggy and considered unplayable by most
Acceleration of Suguri - I'm pretty sure you can play this online, but I don't know about it since I've never tried it and don't care about it
Psychic Force - I think theoretically you could play this with Mame + Kaillera, but in addition to that being a poor solution, PF is too new and runs terribly in MAME to begin with


I think TSS and Senko are must-plays if you have the means, so if you don't have a 360 for the shmups already, definitely the recommendation everyone will give you is TSS. Be warned though, it's almost as much of a puzzle game as a shmup, so when you're starting out you might not understand the game. Here is a great FAQ mikwuyma finished but never got around to submitting anywhere.

[Master O]

There's also a splitscreen versus mode in Space Invaders (SNES), which was released in both the US and Japan, as well as the Japan-only versions of Space Invaders on the Saturn and Playstation (the versus mode is in all three Japan-only editions of Playstation Space Invaders, but not in the Space Invaders PSX game that got a US release). It's a pretty interesting mode, definitely worth trying. It's two player only though, there's no 1p vs CPU mode like in Twinkle Star Sprites, so you'll need another person... but definitely play it. The SNES cart version is very cheap and easy to find. The only thing it doesn't do is save highscores, but oh well... what's there is more than good enough to be worth having. The game is also on Virtual Console, I believe, but the cart would likely be cheaper.

Also, it's not a shmup, but Tempest 2000/X3 does have a 2-player splitscreen versus mode with one player on each end of the web, shooting at the enemies and eachother.

Anyway, I agree, it's definitely too bad that there aren't more games like Twinkle Star Sprites, it's a great, interesting game. There really should be more games like it out there.

If I'm not mistaken, Space Invaders DX (Arcade/mame) has a 2 player vs mode, but it's closer to Tetris, where you make the other players' "rows" of invaders crush your opponent.

[nimitz]

I guess my point wasn't very clear,

What I meant is that a good shmup is designed in a way that the whole "action" is already set in advance and a player only navigates through that maze of enemies, patterns, obstacles and such.

This basic principle is what makes the genre; to master a good shmup you need to know the game, to execute your plan/strategy almost perfectly and to adapt to the factors of a game than can vary from game to game. And thats what makes a shmup fun.

In a Versus shmup you cannot have that "maze " feeling because the other player should be the one controlling whats happening in your screen. so in the end making a good versus shmup is ALOT more like trying to make a good random shmup with algorithms (to try and make the game fun and hard for both players).

[PROMETHEUS]

I guess my point wasn't very clear,

What I meant is that a good shmup is designed in a way that the whole "action" is already set in advance and a player only navigates through that maze of enemies, patterns, obstacles and such.

This basic principle is what makes the genre; to master a good shmup you need to know the game, to execute your plan/strategy almost perfectly and to adapt to the factors of a game than can vary from game to game. And thats what makes a shmup fun.

In a Versus shmup you cannot have that "maze " feeling because the other player should be the one controlling whats happening in your screen. so in the end making a good versus shmup is ALOT more like trying to make a good random shmup with algorithms (to try and make the game fun and hard for both players).

That doesn't prove a different kind of STG couldn't be fun... Senko no Ronde is definitely up there as an example.

IMO what makes a STG fun is navigating through complex patterns and executing precise actions. Having to learn a plan and stick to it and do always the same are inherent flaw of the genre, not what makes it fun. But it's necessary to make a well balanced solo game.

Kaede : are you by any chance at SupInfoGame ?

[Keade]

I'm not, I'm at Isart Digital.

Ensaha : ok sorry, please forget my remark about Virtual On being flawed, I obviously misunderstood what you wrote when you said you had to draw a cutoff somewhere (english as a 2nd language, etc.). I believe you simply meant you had to cut the list at some point (for time reasons).

[nimitz]

IMO what makes a STG fun is navigating through complex patterns and executing precise actions. Having to learn a plan and stick to it and do always the same are inherent flaw of the genre, not what makes it fun. But it's necessary to make a well balanced solo game.

I agree with that.

But I wouldn't call this an inherent flaw of the genre. A part of memorization is required to make any game that is based on Skills (as opposed to luck). Even if its a versus game.

That being said, this is an ongoing process and there is still improvements to be made about that aspect of the genre.

[Enhasa]

Yeah, sorry Kaede, I should be the one apologizing. I know you are French and English is not your first language, so I should be doing a better job of not using slang terms.

The reason I didn't include Virtual On is because it's 3D, and while the game could be interesting to shooter fans like me, I don't think anyone considers it a vs shmup so it doesn't fit in this thread. I listed all the vs shmups (not special modes) I could think of. Maybe someone else knows of any more? There are also the hybrid shmup/RTS games like Herzog Zwei and many PC games and even games like Undertow, but I would include all those games under the RTS category.


By the way, first step in designing a vs shmup is deciding whether or not players can shoot directly at each other. Have you already decided to make your game like TSS in that you cannot?

Also I realized I have played you before on 2df (as "Myrmidon").

[Keade]

np Ensaha I need to learn slang and idiomatic expressions too.
Yes I remember I played Myrmidon but I forgot it was you I believe last time we couldn't play in good conditions, maybe lag or something. Anyway, I've finally ordered the new adapter I need for my arcade stick and therefore should be able to play on 2DF again

The game concept I wrote uses a splitted screen system just like TSS. I've just posted the details in my 1st post.

[Enhasa]

It looks interesting so far. BTW you should copyright that story or else ZUN will steal it for the next Touhou game, lol. It sounds just like a Touhou game.


When you say something more like Ikaruga for the puzzle part, do you mean instead of killing all enemies in one explosion to get perfects (bonuses), you chain like in Ikaruga?

The sending back and forth sounds cool. Are you going to cap the number of times this can be done, or just let people send back and forth forever? The most genius part of TSS I think is the reversal system. You want to send fireballs, but NOT shoot fireballs, but do shoot reversals. This rewards aggressiveness in sending fireballs and also makes players be careful with their shots so they don't shoot fireballs, instead of shooting down everything without thinking.

The game speed changing is known as "rank" and many shmups have it, but it works very well in TSS. Depending how you want the game to turn out, this affects how you balance the rank system. In split-screen games, game designers could have a different rank for each player, but typically the rank is shared for both players. You will have to decide how you will handle that. In POFV, one strategy is to intentionally rank down the game by not shooting down enemies. It's up to you to determine if that's fun, and if that should be possible.

About rank, I think a very common mistake would be to start it off too slow or make it too slow to adapt. I think TSS:LPP has this problem, because it feels very slow even on very hard. Some people might be upset if it ranks up or down instantly (you don't want it to be too obvious, like changing in the middle of a pattern), but I think generally faster rank changing is better. With two good players, you want the game to be able to rank up very quickly to make it interesting for them. The very beginning of a TSS match is slightly boring, but I don't mind since it ranks up quickly. It's more important to focus on how the rank affects good players, because poor/new players will be interested just trying to survive at any rank. Maybe it should be possible to select starting rank. (I think TSS:LPP tries to do this?)


Here are the two interesting ways I think TSS could possibly be modified. You could consider them for ideas, and of course not everyone would agree anyway.

1) Patterns are still fun because you have to perfect them while dodging and managing everything else, but it does feel like there could be more of them. I don't know if the designer could just design more patterns, or if somehow they could be somewhat randomly generated (might be hard to do). This would of course shift the focus of the game more to the puzzle side.

2) I would like if there was more control over the attacks you send to the opponent. Maybe it doesn't need to be direct control like in Senko, but maybe a small number of choices like either fast vs slow, position of screen to go to, position of screen to originate from, etc. For example, Tinker's extra attack can go fast and direct or slow and bounce. The type could be selectable, and that would make it interesting to choose based on the opponent's side.

Of course, you would want this selection to be simple, intuitive, and easy, so it's probably best to avoid fighting game inputs like Senko. It could be something as simple as direction you are holding when you release affects the extra attack (similar to Tinker's 8-way shot). 9 choices (8-way + center) would be overkill, but would be good for a 1-1 direction mapping of where the attack is going on the opponent's screen. 5 choices is probably also too many. If you have 2 factors, you can map each to an axis. The best part of a system like this is that if someone wants to ignore it (maybe they are a newbie or they are under a lot of pressure), they can.

[Keade]

It looks interesting so far. BTW you should copyright that story or else ZUN will steal it for the next Touhou game, lol. It sounds just like a Touhou game.

The similarity probably comes from the fact I watch anime, but what gave me the mirror idea is with no doubt Through the looking glass (I didn't realize this the moment I had the idea though).
But it's interesting you talked about Touhou, because I haven't thought much about the graphic design but I would like something manga-like, possibly inspired by Touhou.

When you say something more like Ikaruga for the puzzle part, do you mean instead of killing all enemies in one explosion to get perfects (bonuses), you chain like in Ikaruga?

Yes.
Here is the reason why I would prefer a puzzle system like Ikaruga's : the puzzle system in TSS is fun and works good, but imho it 'fails' when the game is fast and both players stays on the very top of the screen after starting a good chain explosion.
When it happens, I believe players don't actually master their chain explosion, so it's more or less luck.

Are you going to cap the number of times this can be done, or just let people send back and forth forever

I was planning to set the patterns to appear faster and move faster each time they're reflected. This way, they can't be sent back and forth forever.
Or (I just thought about that one) it could uses the "hot potatoe" game system : the pattern has a limited lifetime, it continuously decreases but reflecting greatly decreases it. There would be a lifetime indicator for the pattern but it would be vague enough so that you can't wait forever and reflect it at the last moment. And once the pattern is "dead"...well I haven't thought about it yet but there are lots of possibilities.

About rank (I didn't think of using the term ) :
I would prefer avoiding the rank to encourage players not to shoot stuff, unless this also implies taking more risks.
A rank selection option could be interesting; I'll think about it.

Your second (2)) point is also very interesting.

Thanks for all the feedback so far.

[Enhasa]

That makes sense because Touhou i.e. Team Shanghai Alice is heavily influenced stylistically by Alice in Wonderland / Through the Looking Glass.

Here is the reason why I would prefer a puzzle system like Ikaruga's : the puzzle system in TSS is fun and works good, but imho it 'fails' when the game is fast and both players stays on the very top of the screen after starting a good chain explosion.
When it happens, I believe players don't actually master their chain explosion, so it's more or less luck.

Yes, like when both players have fever and rank is high, controlling the chain explosions is very inexact. Also, it is good to move away from the TSS chain explosion system, as other games such as POFV have already copied it.


I think the hot potato attack reflecting (with something happening when the pattern finally dies) is a very good idea, maybe even the key mechanic of the game that you can focus around. To discourage waiting until it is about to die before reflecting, you should make the formation very deadly while you are leaving it alone (maybe even increasing deadliness over time). This whole idea is very wide-open, so lots of opportunities to get creative.

I agree with you in disliking the POFV downrank strategy. In POFV this is possible because if you destroy nothing, your opponent doesn't get to reflect anything back to you. However such a strategy in TSS would mean that you would be gaining no meter and sending no attacks, while the opponent would be going through lots of meter and getting fever and sending fireballs/extras/bosses at you. Also, patterns in TSS are generally a lot easier to deal with by killing them rather than ignoring them.

[mikwuyma]

Enhasa directed me to this topic so I'm just gonna post my opinions.

TSS: Great game, the only problem is that the character balance isn't great. But it's good enough so that any character can compete, which is what's important in the long run. Maybe sirlin needs to make a TSS: HD remix

TSS: LPP: Pros over the first game:

-No buttrape formation (that one pattern that comes from the back and can completely take you by surprise)

-Character balance is probably better (there are fast characters who are actually good in this game, like the furry and Memory, no really overpowered characters).

Cons: Game mechanics are less balanced.

-Game is slower overall, which screws some characters (Yanyan), and makes the game feel less urgent and action-packed.

-Bosses are a useless waste of meter and are no threat whatsoever (they die way too fast).

-There is less contrast between the foreground and background objects, making it harder to tell what's attacking you.

-Combo explosions are more "porous" -- fireballs slip through explosions all the time, which almost never happened in the first game. This in turn makes it harder to create big combos, which only exacerbates the "lack of action" problem.

-It looks like a lot of the new formations were put in the game with no thought whatsoever (I have no idea how to perfect half of them).

La Petite Princesse is still a good game, it's just no TSS, and the skewed mechanics just makes that fact painfully apparent.

Senko No Ronde: Yeah this is a great game and all, but it has one problem that TSS doesn't have, and that's a really high learning curve (lots of inputs and in-game system mechanics to memorize before you can really get into playing the game.)

Change Air Blade - The problem with this game isn't that the top is so dominant, it's that learning how to play on the bottom has a huge learning curve because you die in one hit, whereas being on the top is just a matter of how many buttons you can mash .

Then again, even if you're a bullet dodging master on the bottom there are some patterns that are such bullshit you're never going to dodge them

POFV: Basically what Enhasa and Kaede said, downranking is boring and it feels like there's not much interaction going on between both sides.

Acceleration of Suguri: I played this game for about 5 minutes and I thought it was poop

Kioh Gyoku: I thought this was fun, though I've hardly touched the game.

Enhasa: I have no idea what choosing the difficulty level does in LPP.

I'm sorry if I ruined your topic Kaede, but I'll gladly playtest your vs. shmup. Also, I think the hot potato thing could work out well. Also, tell me when you get on 2df again so we can play.

[EddyMRA]

Change Air Blade is a blast to play against another person. The single-player game is very unpolished, since the side-switch item rarely appears, meaning 99% of the time, you're the bottom player, while your opponent gets to call down support enemies and go into boss mode on you. When you do side-switch to the top against the CPU, it's an almost automatic win, since the CPU sucks at dodging the insta-kill shmup bullets and awesome boss mode you can now use.

The two-player game does have its flaws though. You cannot set handicaps for each player. People who cannot dodge bullets will get royally owned as the bottom player.

[Enhasa]

1p Change Air Blade is really easy, even though the computer gets to go into boss for no reason. That's because the computer does predictable and nonabusive patterns, unlike what humans can do. I can 1cc the 1p easily, but can't beat anyone on top 2p that knows what they're doing.

Of course, the biggest problem is probably that we were playing online over MAME and Kaillera (p2p Kaillera didn't even exist at the time), and lag makes playing as the bottom just ridiculous. When the SDA guys had a meetup in January, we tried playing some offline CAB, but we were all too rusty.

As said in the linked thread, CAB can be a very fun game to play as long as you don't take it too seriously. Drinking is recommended.

[Keade]

edit 2 (I cleared what I wrote first because it just wasn't clear enough) :

I am thinking of making the attack system deeper by creating different types of attacks (all released when the hot patatoe "explode")

These types of attacks would come along with different states for each element (ennemy) of a pattern. Let's call them A, B, C, D.
Each letter can have 3 effects on another one :
-Effect decreased a little bit (state remains the same)
-Effect increased a little bit (eg. you use type 'A' shot on a 'A' ennemy. State also remains the same)
-Or, create a dangerous combination of 2 states

Default shot ?
Shot is automatically selected according to the enemy it’s going to touch (default : decreased a little bit).

An ennemy's state could be modified by 2 events :
-A player shoots it
-It touches another ennemy and their states combines. This could make for very precise tactics, since when you send back a pattern, you know where it’s going to go, at which speed, and you can have a rough idea of what other patterns it’s going to bump into.

Back to the hot patatoe system :
When a pattern of type A explodes on one screen, every pattern which has A in it will explode on the same screen.
If a pattern is a combination (A+B) it'll make every pattern of which contains type A and/or B explode.



Rank :
-Decreasing a pattern's effect noticably decrease your rank
-Increasing it a little increase your rank a little bit
-Creating a dangerous combination increase your rank more.



An increased rank on your side means your attacks are a little more dangerous for your opponent. The drawback is ennemies will be more agressive against you (because you supposedly play better)

That's about all for today

[Momijitsuki]

Twinkle Star Sprites, Phantasmagoria of Dim. Dream, and Phantasmagoria of Flower View are all lots of fun.

[dai jou bu]

Acceleration of Suguri - arena, some people like this game but I don't (I do like Suguri though, not a pvp), seems to draw more inspiration from Psychic Force than Senko no Ronde despite daijoubu calling it a Senko clone

I never said anywhere that AoS was a clone of Senko. The only reason I lumped it in with my silly article for Senko was because Orange Juice presented the game in a style similar to it, and many who first saw this at the time (mostly who wanted to play G.Rev's game but didn't have the means) immediately made direct comparisons between the two, which I knew was completely wrong.

While it's obvious that the doujin circle (indie group) Orange Juice was heavily inspired by the style of Senko no Ronde since Suguri uses a similar transition effect with squares instead of circles, has a sound effect similar to G.Rev's title (except the pitch is higher) when navigating through the menu screen, and shamelessly places the Senko arena wall in here, the game mechanics loosely follows Psychic Force more than Virtual On.

Anyway, I like AoS, but the problem I have with it is that the window before you're able to attack cancel takes longer than it does in the previous game. This is obviously meant so people can actually have a chance to hit their opponent, but I feel cheated. Then again, you can still hyper attack at any time you're not getting pounded by your opponent's weapons, so I suppose it's not all bad.

Online mode works somewhat well, but both parties need to have a good internet connection in order to have a relatively smooth experience.

[SAM]

Well, I would want to add is TSS is shmups cross with Puzzle game (i.e. Puyo Puyo, etc.); while Senko No Ronde is shmups cross with Virtual On.

And Virtual On is not a shmups, it is in the same genre of Gundam XXX vs. XXX. which I think the genre is yet to have a name so far. The first two installments of Virtual On got only one on one vs., but the last two installments (Force & Marz) turns into 2 on 2, just like Gundam XXX vs. XXX.

[Minzoku]

How about the vs. mode in R-Type Final, except make it PLAYER driven instead of that AI crap it uses