shmups.system11.org

I'm pretty convinced that hype for non-game related reasons also plays a significant part.

a) Publishers haven't done a good job at all for marketing US released shooters. Sometimes we get good ports (Raiden 4, Wii Shikigami 3, etc.), but when they arrive with poor distribution, little press, and a budget price... is it any wonder people who aren't already following this niche stuff pretty closely don't notice or pay attention?

b) Name recognition of the publisher might help to spark a bit of a breakthrough too. If someone with enough credibility published a Cave shooter in the US, say, Atlus, Atlus zealots (of which there are many) would eat it up (see also: Einhander, which is WAY more well known than it would otherwise be due to being published by Square). Reviewers for mainstream sites would also give it more credibility. All you need is one or two big enough names, and it helps everyone in the genre.

c) Really working on the message you want the press to send is important too. Focus on explaining this somehow mysterious Japanese arcade culture, and really hammer home the fact that it's NOT about getting to the "end". The press are willing to pass on the publisher's PR message, we've seen that time and time again (perhaps it's sycophantic to a degree, and perhaps it truly is part just needing to educate the public voices so they give an accurate report). Gotta have someone actually WORKING on marketing and press relations though, instead of these bare-bones operations just worried about getting budget product out the door and dealing with their distributor contacts while ignoring the fact that they need a public message.

***

Also, as for addressing the too easy/too hard dichotomy... I think the unlockable credit approach is actually a pretty good way to deal with it (and I'm normally very skittish about "unlockables" in games, which are frequently implemented as horrible filler/padding, or misguided choices like locking fighting game characters). Start out with a credit or two, and bump it up every hour of play, or upon reaching certain score milestones, or certain # of plays. Keeps people from credit feeding from start to finish on their first play and calling a game "short", but drip feeds enough rewards to make it easy enough to eventually finish for anyone even if they're not tremendously skilled or willing to obsess over stuff like superplays and seek out obscure message board strats.

If you have to invest 6-8 hours to get "FREE PLAY", you'll have plenty of experience with the game and the concept of working to improve your skills to get farther or get more score. Even if you credit feed to the end at that point, you've been forced to "stop and smell the roses", and that's where a good game gets you hooked and makes you WANT to learn to be better. And for some on this forum - believe it or not, you don't have to 1cc a game to appreciate it (I've never 1cc'd a Cave game other than lv.1 Deathsmiles, and I still love everything Cave does).

If somebody can pull it off it's Atlus, given their track with Demon's Souls. THey are probably the most competent publisher when it comes to bringing the game to the West.

After said that SHMUPs in its current form will not sell in the West, period. They need new modes (no, Arcade<->X360 won't do), new unlockables, extra stuff, some story at least. Or CAVE needs to agree to have it priced at $30.

If anyone can get the genre to the US, Atlus can. They aren't completely mainstream, but their niche (hard games) often overlaps with ours. They have an existing fanbase who will be willing to try shmups if Atlus publishes them, and they most likely will enjoy them, even if they have trouble clearing them. Someone mentinoed roguelikes earlier in this thread, and I say that they were in exactly the same place as shmups were in: considered out of date, too hard, and lacking popularity. However, p\Pokemon Mystery Dungeon came out and attracted a lot of people to the genre, because it was very accessible and much easier than other games, giving the player abundant ressurection (normally ressurection items are very rare), removing the genre standard draconian punishment for dying (your save gets deleted, with an average run time of about 2 weeks) an element system with most dungeons having only one element for it's enemies, and giving the player easy access to strong attacks, yet still quite difficult compared to the average game of today, especially in the post ending dungeons. I think if we can combine Atlus publishing one of cave's games with a completely new game designed to draw people in, we can probably expand the shmups genre to be a large niche, though most likely not mainstream.

The title of the thread was "Looking for very hard games". So there's another gamer who thinks bullet hell is impossible.

For some years now the competitive aspect of gaming has been shifting towards multiplayer, while the singleplayer aspect is being transformed into an experience more than a game.

Then there is perception of these games and 2D games in general. You also have to see how other past mainstay genres of arcade games are doing, which is not good. In general, for any 2D game it's very hard for it to get itself recognized as a retail game. You would see that any game (be it action, adventure or whatever) with 5 hours of length or so is heavily criticized for being short. The general audience also sees arcade games in same light. I think something like sin and punishment strikes a good compromise between length and offering good arcade style game.

Well talking about mainstream reception, this would give you guys a good idea about the the perception of game reviewers.

http://www.giantbomb.com/quick-look-jap ... rs/17-299/

One of these guys went out of the way to buy multiple imports, so not quite the same as the average game reviewer. Pretty entertaining, though. Shooting Love 200X looks better than I expected.

Watching those two play DOJ was the most entertainment I've had all week.

It's less expensive to play the games... erm, apparently. =-)

The first comment on that link already set off the alarms:

^Yeah, so hard to enjoy these antiques when Assassin's Creed II is out.


The surviving guy looked like he was doing pretty well on stage 2, but not quite as good as Piger.

I'd give Giantbomb a little bit more credit...plus, they actually seemed like they were having fun in the video. Bonus points for mocking the loading times in BLEX.

Video + Comments = Rage Fuel Ultra

"I've only got about 100 points or so out of it so far... so I wouldn't really say it's worth the price."

"Raiden looks like a poor man's Ikaruga."

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF

You know there's something wrong with gamers when unlockable achievements affects their purchasing decisions. It really doesn't mean anything when you get 20 points starting a new game or getting your first powerup.



Yeah, that really wasn't bad for someone who doesn't play these games normally. Though it sucks knowing that it's likely that the guy won't ever touch DOJ again. People I know generally give these games one shot, get bored or frustrated after dying, and then move on to something else.

I think that shooting games are a niche because people like to win. For these games, people generally do a whole lot more losing before they start winning (high score/1CC/whatever) compared to other game genres out there so a lot more people get discouraged and play games that are easier to win at.

Okay, I've asked a few WoW players, and none of them knew what genre I was talking about until I mentioned raiden. I am now going to be putting a bit more focus on putting something like this on more mainstream gaming sites, so if anyone knows how I should go about doing that, help would be greatly appreciated.

Well I went ahead and started writing this stupid thing. "Everything You Know About Shmups Is Wrong."

http://rydia.net/udder/!crap/eykasiw.txt

Very WIP, do not take everything in it seriously just yet. If anyone has any suggestions or additions, I'm all ears.

As an indie developer, I find this discussion very interesting. My focus isn't hardcore shmups, but rather on kid-friendly games. So I don't think I can add a whole lot more to the discussion (a lot of great points have been made already), but let me share this.

I remember the 80s very well, and I remember spending a lot of time in the arcades with games like Asteroids, Space Invaders, Galaga, Galaxian, Time Pilot, etc. I loved those games. I also remember when the PC started becoming popular, and how games like Wolfenstein 3D and Doom started the FPS genre - and helped make 3D games in general mainstream.

Fast forward to a couple of years ago. I remember I was talking about computer games with my nieces and nephews, and I brought up the subject of shooters. I mentioned some of the games I used to play, and none of them had a clue what I was talking about. So one nephew Googled a couple of them on his handheld while we were talking, and he asked me, "Is this what you're talking about?" I looked and said "Yeah! That was a cool game!" He raised his eyebrow, and all of my nieces and nephews went "ooook" at the same time. They had never seen any 2D shooters before (probably because they can't currently be found on any game shelves), and their only exposure to them were the images of a few old games with simple, blocky, pixelated graphics that I helped them find on Google.

Some of the earlier posts in this thread made good points, and they're all valid. But here's one point that hasn't been made yet: I think this is why shmups are a niche genre, because there is a whole generation that doesn't even know the games exist! The sum total of their computer gaming experience is what they see on the store shelves.

Since then, I've written my own shmup aimed at kids (and I've referred other shooters to them, like Titan Attacks from Puppy Games or the Star Defender series from Awem). I think games have evolved to the point where a simple shooter like those I used to play would not hold a child's attention nowadays, not when they're used to modern games with ultra-fancy graphics and/or deep story and gameplay. So my game reflects that. It has a storyline, and each level is mission-based. But I did add a medal system that encourages the player to replay a level to try to get a better score and thereby earn a better medal.

I hope this post isn't deleted as spam. I'm not trying to peddle my game, because I'm sure it's probably too simple a game for the hardcore players on this board, since it was written with kids in mind. My point is simply that if you want shmups to become more mainstream, I think the first step is to "educate" our kids about them. Introduce them to some of the better shmups. If the kids are playing shmups and not buying the mainstream games, then guess what? The mainstream games will start producing the kinds of games the kids are playing (because that's where the money is to be made). So they'll start making shmups.

One last point: certainly casual gamers want easy games that they can progress through. I saw this mentioned earlier in this thread, and I agree with that. But I have a lot of nephews that don't fit that mold. If they're like other kids, they're willing to work hard at mastering a game like WoW or Halo so that they can dominate their friends. So I don't think they're afraid of hard games. I bet if they all got hooked on a really cool shmup, they'd all work hard at it for bragging rights. So mainstream shmups certainly would not have to be watered down or made too easy.

Sorry for the long post. Thanks for reading!

This post is in no way spam, and in fact advertising your kid friendly shmups here will most likely help the genre. We have to have at least some parents here, who will show your games to their kids, which gets them interested in the genre. Something very important about kids: a new game will spread like wildfire. Just getting one kid to like one of your games can easily result in several hundred more trying the game. If a competition arises, expect to have a lot of kids now permanently interested in the shmup genre. Also, about them being "too simple": look at the kirby series. Amazingly easy with almost no depth, but it still manages to be very popular among college students because they grew up with it, and it never stops being fun. A similar example would be x.x's more recent games: blue wish ressurection (plus) and eden's aegis. Both are easier than the touhou series, but still well liked because the low difficulty does not mean low fun. As long as the aren't hyper childish, they might be a good way to introduce people to the genre.

This is not a spam point but rather a point of view shmup developers should take. I agree that the game does not need to be too easy or hard. the perfect example is Genetos by Tatsuya Koyama, it shows how shmups have evolved since Space Invaders while keeping the difficulty low. Even last generation is nothing like cave games. There are 5 difficulty levels, everyone would find something for themselves in there. The lowest one is meant for little kids, each new difficulty level is a bit harder than last one. Highest difficulty is obviously meant for people who like hard & fair challenges. Shmups need to be stop being so excessively hard if they want to come back on the gaming streets again.

The key here is the experience that 'gamers' are generally after.

The main framework that people want experience are popular themed narratives.

Firstly, narrative does not necessarily involve a story, but that is a very popular form. Narrative, in terms of perceived narrative typically depends upon the ease by which players adopt their position in the game - something very immediate and easily done from, say, a contemporary styled first person perspective.

In contrast shmups are often fairly remote in terms of perspective, niche sci-fi/bizarre in terms of visual theme and mostly rely upon gameplay [implied] challenge to provide the experienced highlights. This is largerly integral to the pace and rhythm of a good shmup, be it relatively long or short.

Secondly, because of this, there are immediate visual, thematic and challenge based barriers to entry. In this sense the common 'gamer' is simply not interested in 'risking' their resources in money and time on a shmup. This, of course, devalues the value proposition even further.

Thirdly; exposure. It is not uncommon on some 'larger' games to have marketing budgets that match or nearly match the actual development costs. A lower cost shmup development maybe said to have low costs and even with a smaller market share could potentially make very good cost:profit earnings with say a medium price point and a good bit of marketing. However, even if the cost : profit ratio is potentially very good, the smaller totals involved cannot match the marketing expendature currently required to raise the profile to a significant level.

Not only does this impact induvidual games but also leads to a lower profile for the whole genre.

Between 1999 - 2007 this basically squeezed shmups from the public view. However, more recently, downloadable content, casual gaming, accessible online communities and cheap targeted marketing/promotions has raised the shmuping profile ... even if it is through games like geometry wars ...[essentially pretty screensaver/demo/zone out appeal through which people find also gameplay].

The exact same thing happened to fighting games which at least had immediate competivive play to keep something of a crowd around it.

As people downloaded, bought cheap, often rereleased, budget priced fighting games they were having fun with - say soul caliber - but it was Street Fighter IV that really broke the genre back out.

The nearest shmups have had so far are leaderboards and geometry wars, and the decent progress of the downloadable ikaruga... it will be interesting to see wheather over time cave can lead a shmup charge or whether someone else can break it out... or most likely at this stage I think shmups will probably follow a much more modest and slow curve upwards as they claim a small but profitable area of the market.

... I mean to really break out the genre via cave at the moment I imagine you'd have to release a complete cave complilation across all regions in store and download for $50, with marketing... Something which is probably too big a risk, and probably impossible for cave to fund...

But I could easily see cave games at $8-15 a go slowly carving out a real good download market and reputation as games are released at lower risk, slower but longer burn ... eventually leading to new games released on arcade and console at nearer to full prices... With cave announcing something 'new' with the 360; they could own the new game room - but I imagine microsoft will not let them get in there until much later if ever, but perhaps there'll be greater enthusiasm to get cave on xbox live?

Another long post - apologies!

I found those guy's voices so offensive I had to mute the video.

I guess I'll just throw this post out there.
*Hope i don't ramble!

Honestly, i believe not much has really changed other than the arcade decline as many people put it. Aside from that the only real difference is today's current generation of gamers. As a previous poster said, the PlayStation generation, those "gamers" from then till current that simply see gaming as technological progression, the gamers that dislike retro titles and see them as titles with a strict basic game design. Although designed for fun, compared with the titles such gamers grew up with, they just naturally feel foreign and archaic.

Now you talk to older gamers, and it's completely different. Gaming as a whole has simply just shifted, but the hardcore still remain, and i consider them the type of gamers that can go retro or current.

This is what i believe, that nothing has really changed in terms of STG popularity, just gaming as a whole has an extremely different and rapidly growing audience. Whom unfortunately, will naturally be exposed immediately to current games, and in turn simply not appreciate the form that is 'classic'.

Those guys in the giantbomb video accurately depicted how shooting love 200x was for me, aka what the hell are we supposed to do

To everyone here saying that 3d graphics were the downfall of shmups: my first experience with videogames was the nintendo 64 at a friend's house. The first game I really liked was Pokemon Red Version. Shmups were long dead before I really got into gaming, yet I discovered the genre when I saw a review of Ikaruga for XBLA (I'd played star fox 64 earlier, but didn't really like it until more recently). I spent a few months on the game, then spent a few months more playing rez, and then didn't get back into the genre until about two months before I joined, when someone told me about Touhou. That's what really got me into the genre, and now I absolutely hate the series after having seen the fan fiction, so I mainly play BWR+ and Eden's Aegis. All we need is a game that is A: accessible to most people (Ikaruga only works if you're willing to endure several hundred failed runs before succeeding) and B: fun (most of stuff on the market now qualifies as not fun euroshmups). Now, if only something like that would actually come out.

Was this post written before Left 4 Dead was released? OH WAIT.


What's up with this thread bringing out all the newbies?

Get the hell out of this thread and play some games, damnit

Havn't read the whole thread, just the begining where someone talked about "shooters" but wouldn't say "shmup". WTF? Do they play "shooters" at "hooters"? Reminds me of jello shots or something.


Anyways, modern games are the equivelent of the longest and most boring action movie possible, with audience participation included. Shmups are like animated gifs by comparison; less detailed, less content, less everything-- more control. in a culture that wants games for the audience participation, rather than personal expression (like trying to maintain control in shmups?). I think shmups are just too small for our culture. Nobody wants a nice painting in their house to scrutinize, they want a TV and 300 channels.

Ironically, I believe that ANY person who credit feeds through a rad shmup, and then pays a real quarter for it later, will be hooked for life. --maybe still not worth putting a disk into your xbox and warming up the TV, though.

Maybe it corolates to mass media and attention span stuff- when I was a kid, there was a telephone (no answering machine), 5 channels, and the people I saw in my town. Younger people grew up pocket cell phones, 300 channels, and the internet (all the people in the world). Even I would be bummed if I had an xbox and one game, and it was a shmup. (I need lots of shmups)

I had a theory that there's just too many nerds in charge. I mean, why was avitar anything less than perfect? Why did it get any bad reviews at all? Nerds made it. Nerds always work on big projects (like modern video games).

This is a great topic so I'll add my 2 cents:
I'm in total agreement with the fact that from a casual stand point, shmups are just too short. Your average MW:2/Halo/GTA player only sees a shmup as something that can be beaten in an hour (sometimes more or less).

Factor in point that they lack (long or very long) "beautiful" cinematics or an expansive dialogue that takes an hour to read and you lose a lot of the user base.

Granted if you made a Final Fantasy shmup it'd probably rocket into mainstream popularity for a moment. However would the people who built (and play) the genre really appreciate a shmup that would give you enough time to microwave a mini pizza before you started playing again?

Plus could you really tolerate fanatics spamming boards like this where Sephiroth is the last boss of a bullet hell game? "OMG L33T 1 WINGD ANGLZ BST BOZZ EVAR!!!!" Or an even better example of WTF Possibilities: "KOJIMA STUDIOS PRESENTS: A HIDEO KOJIMA SHMUP". The last one is actually (remotely) possible if you consider Parodius/Otomedius.

Up until one of my best friends introduced me to the depth behind the genre, I didn't think there was more to it than credit feeding the game, killing the last boss and then shelving it, thinking: "Wow, now that was fun but short". It's like one of those pictures that you have to stare at with your eyes crossed to see the 3-D image. At first glance it doesn't look that impressive (by today's mainstream gaming standards) but when you actually take time to examine it you see that it's actually quite amazing.

However the fact that the genre has become so niche and its fan base is so hardcore (almost exclusive) helps ensure that the companies known today for making famous shmups continue to produce them, even if the sales numbers are low because their fans (few among many) will continue to buy out what little stock is available. This also helps prevent junk from flooding a market where the ratio of quality far exceeds the quantity of games produced.

Besides, the developers give out a lot of fan love because they definitely appreciate us too.
Sometimes being small ain't such a bad thing. =]

Indeed - but arguably this is something like zelda?

Similarly I feel that as soon as you even make something like Canon Spike/Red Star you deviate more into another genre ... say 3rd person action/brawler...

I think - very legitimately - shmups genre is very limited in some respects; not to say you couldn't produce a blockbuster game that was a shmup with a huge budget; but that as soon as you changed its rhythm or structure too much you deviate from the genre and into another; and the scope is suprisingly narrow for the shmup genre - I mean there are/were people discussing whether ikaruga was more a puzzle game than a shmup... [whilst I think everyone still sides with the shmup verdict it does go to show].

That all being said I would love to see an episodic shmup ...

All you asking for STGs with "deep, complex storylines", animesque output and episodic layout, you know it'll happen sooner or later. You already have some signs in this eroge "adventure STG", aka, a Visual Novel mixed with schmukmup:

http://www.xuse.co.jp/main.html
http://www.xuse.co.jp/product/041_seirei/

Loliloliloli! Or at least they try to appeal to that crowd. Plus the L.E. is like 10k or something and comes with the OST and all that crap.

WELCOME TO VIOLENT CITY. That's all the storyline I need.

Now I really want Shooting Love.

Hmmm....dunno.Why IS it bringing up the nebies(my self included)?

currently in the middle of Samurai Sabre dev...