New elements for shmups / new tactics for enemies.

[jochen]

Shmups are easy to understand and "limeted" in their gameplay.
You try not to get hit by enemy-fire and shoot as much enemies as
you can. Quite simple ... and I love shmups for that ...

Sometimes the formula changes a little bit ... Twinkle Star Sprites
is a good example for a combination of a shmup and a puzzle game.

Twenty years ago nobody thougt of bullet-hell-shmups from Cave ...
NES, Master System and the arcade boards of this time were not
built for such games and masses of sprites.

Back to the my topic.

In Shikigami no Shiro II you fight one level-boss in a kind of
puzzle-game. In Triggerheart Exelcica you catch enemies and
use them as weapons. In Psyvaria you have to get as near as
possible to the enemies fire ....


So ... all your shmup-lovers here ... do you have some new
ideas for a little and hopefully welcome change in the shmup-formula.


I also would welcome some level-bosses with new, never before seen
tactics.

A idea from me : an invisible level-boss ( like the "cloaking-divice"
of the Klingons or Romulans in Star Trek ). You see the enemy
or just parts of him then he fires or then you hit him. You see the
whole enemy then he is beaten.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

I've asked the same question but a bit of different wording -- can the damaku "bullet hell" genre be further developed?

Can the shmup genre be further developed with new methods of gameplay and game mechanics?

Wouldn't it be nice to sit on a developers' round table and hear about what new ideas and concepts thrown out in the open for the next arcade shmup project? It would be interesting to hear some input/opinions/advice from ace Japanese arcade shmup players as that would be invaluable in developing a new shmup title as well. ^_~

You'd have to give Success Corp. credit for coming up with it's successful "Buzz" concept as shown in Psyvariar Medium Unit and it's more elegantly refined version of Psyvariar Revision -- they play great running on the original Taito G-Net mobo hardware. Could a third Psyvariar sequel be in the works from Success/Skonec?

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[the2bears]

I think discussing, brainstorming, and throwing ideas out there is great. But you never really know if an idea works until you prototype it. Without testing the ideas generated, it's all guesswork.

Bill

[PC Engine Fan X!]

You're right about that, Bill...until a new and novel idea is excuted in code and tried out on real hardware, it may or may not work. Now if it does work, could it be refined/honed to the point of perfection? ^_~

And developers say they wish that had more time to incorporate all those cool and new ideas during brainstorming sessions into the first arcade shmup release but that would have to wait until the said game's sequel to implement them (assuming said first intial arcade shmup game does well in the game centers, profit-wise). ^_~

[lgb]

Add some sort of point bonus to Gradius-powerup-bar games, such as the aforementioned Gradius and Slap Fight, whenever you scroll through the entire bar without powering-up.

That would be good for a sequel for any of those two games (think Raiden III and IV in such execution).

[null1024]

You're right about that, Bill...until a new and novel idea is excuted in code and tried out on real hardware, it may or may not work.

This is why Game Maker was invented. Rapid prototyping is awesome!

edit: I hate Chrome and these textboxes -- it screws up when rendering them...

[Ed Oscuro]

Have attitude for gains!

Uh, what Bill said...

[RedDeathRunning]

It seems like one way to go (though this may have been done previously) would be to have damage from bullets have significantly differing consequences dependent upon color or enemy, etc...Since this point is inherently vague, what I'm trying to point out is that one could setup a game to have more consequences from enemy damage then simply the drop of a life bar. Obviously, Ikaruga did this in some fashion, but I'm thinking of negative consequences more than some kind of advantage.

Think of it this way, instead of draining your life, certain bullets could re-arrange controls (i.e. left on the stick would become down, etc...) for a couple of seconds. Admittedly, as has already been mentioned in this thread, I have no idea if this would be a good idea until it is actually worked out (though I think it sounds, at least, plausible and interesting). If not done well, one could imagine this would only generate extremely annoying game play.

[captpain]

It seems like one way to go (though this may have been done previously) would be to have damage from bullets have significantly differing consequences dependent upon color or enemy, etc...Since this point is inherently vague, what I'm trying to point out is that one could setup a game to have more consequences from enemy damage then simply the drop of a life bar. Obviously, Ikaruga did this in some fashion, but I'm thinking of negative consequences more than some kind of advantage.

Think of it this way, instead of draining your life, certain bullets could re-arrange controls (i.e. left on the stick would become down, etc...) for a couple of seconds. Admittedly, as has already been mentioned in this thread, I have no idea if this would be a good idea until it is actually worked out (though I think it sounds, at least, plausible and interesting). If not done well, one could imagine this would only generate extremely annoying game play.

That sounds like branching into very gimmicky gameplay. The best shmups tend to be lean and focused... if you die, it's not because of some "trick".

[PC Engine Fan X!]

It seems like one way to go (though this may have been done previously) would be to have damage from bullets have significantly differing consequences dependent upon color or enemy, etc...Since this point is inherently vague, what I'm trying to point out is that one could setup a game to have more consequences from enemy damage then simply the drop of a life bar. Obviously, Ikaruga did this in some fashion, but I'm thinking of negative consequences more than some kind of advantage.

Think of it this way, instead of draining your life, certain bullets could re-arrange controls (i.e. left on the stick would become down, etc...) for a couple of seconds. Admittedly, as has already been mentioned in this thread, I have no idea if this would be a good idea until it is actually worked out (though I think it sounds, at least, plausible and interesting). If not done well, one could imagine this would only generate extremely annoying game play.

That sounds like branching into very gimmicky gameplay. The best shmups tend to be lean and focused... if you die, it's not because of some "trick".

Try playing a isometric shmup game of Desert Falcon on the 7800 ProSystem console and you'll find out that some power-up are worth getting just to survive the harder waves. Of course, the power-ups of Speed Up, Warp, Invincibility, etc. just do exactly as listed. Other power-ups like Hover, Hobble or even Broken Wing are considered gimmicky at best and will most likely cause your falcon to perish rather quickly if activated -- the Dune Beetles are known to ram into you if you stay on the ground too long on the higher waves. By grabbing the proper combos to get Extra Life is one surefire way to prolong a serious session of Desert Falcon indeed.

Or you could just hover in one safe spot and keep blasting the small fry that the end-wave Sphinx boss spits out at you -- lots of free extra points & extra lives with that milking method. ^_~

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~