Why shmups are such a niche genre

[TrevHead (TVR)]

Is it just the port or is the arcade original as bad?

[dai jou bu]

Based on what icycalm said about it, it's the same:

The problem is mainly the controls. Though you can't tell this by watching a video, the game feels as if the stages were submerged in a slightly viscous fluid. The backgrounds zoom in and out and whizz by all over the place of their own accord, often giving the impression of great speed, but this can't hide the fact that even the fastest Rounders move far too slow. Dodging some of the fiercer bullet patterns is impossible for this reason. There is a dash you can use to speed yourself up, but it's a very imprecise and unreliable move: use it at the wrong time and you'll likely end up dashing right into a swarm of bullets.

The feeling is definitely amplified more in the 360 port and DUO because the camera is zoomed out even further, so the bullets don't feel like they're flying at blazing speeds.

[TrevHead (TVR)]

cool site, thx for the link. If memory serves i visited it once before where i read a good article about video game reviewers, i never bm it and have been hoping to come across it ever since

[shmupsorrow77]

I think you're misinterpreting his message. Note that he says "Of course, I hope I'm wrong, but there it is.". So yes, he is saying that most games are tailored towards the tastes of millions of other people, because that's how you make money.

I'm not misinterpreting him. He's saying "wouldn't be it great if... a developer could make the kind of game the developer enjoys, but making games is about giving MILLIONS of other people enjoyment"

This means shmups no longer give MILLIONS of people enjoyment and there must be a reason for their lack of joy when they used to play these games.

A smart game developer if he wants to continue to see the genre played by more people would try to figure out how to give enjoyment to a diverse group without leaving either in the cold, that is ultimately the game design challenge. I don't think there's anything wrong with taking that approach since the "Why are shmups niche?" comes up enough and it seems to bother some people among those that love them.

Games are about having fun and I think the shmup community as gamers should want a large enough audience of people having fun and enjoying the game as possible. If they are ever to see more money thrown it's way to develop more/higher quality shmups the genre needs to appeal to more people.

Anyone who is a game designer should be aiming for that goal of a diverse group of people having fun with their game.

[Herr Schatten]

Games are about having fun

No kidding:

and I think the shmup community as gamers should want a large enough audience of people having fun and enjoying the game as possible. If they are ever to see more money thrown it's way to develop more/higher quality shmups the genre needs to appeal to more people.

This is like saying that fans of the Coen brothers, as movie fans, should hope that the Coens become Jerry Bruckheimers. The fallacy of this line of thought has been pointed out in this thread a couple of times already.

More money thrown at a project does not equal higher quality.

Anyone who is a business man, who wants to get filthy rich, should be aiming for that goal of a diverse group of people having fun with their game.

Fixed.

[Taylor]

Why do they still broadcast The Wire when Spongebob Squarepants gets more viewers? At the very least The Wire should include Squidward, as it would bring joy to a larger demographic.

[RGC]

Why shmups are such a niche genre

They're not. Everyone in my world likes them. The others just need to stop living in the future.

[lgb]

A smart game developer if he wants to continue to see the genre played by more people would try to figure out how to give enjoyment to a diverse group without leaving either in the cold, that is ultimately the game design challenge. I don't think there's anything wrong with taking that approach since the "Why are shmups niche?" comes up enough and it seems to bother some people among those that love them.

Games are about having fun and I think the shmup community as gamers should want a large enough audience of people having fun and enjoying the game as possible. If they are ever to see more money thrown it's way to develop more/higher quality shmups the genre needs to appeal to more people.

Anyone who is a game designer should be aiming for that goal of a diverse group of people having fun with their game.

that doesn't work when the game is changed to the point that the original players do not want anything to do with them; anyone who is a paid game designer should worry about targeting a diverse group of people, because that is how they are going to make money

[hermitC]

A smart game developer if he wants to continue to see the genre played by more people would try to figure out how to give enjoyment to a diverse group without leaving either in the cold, that is ultimately the game design challenge. I don't think there's anything wrong with taking that approach since the "Why are shmups niche?" comes up enough and it seems to bother some people among those that love them.

Games are about having fun and I think the shmup community as gamers should want a large enough audience of people having fun and enjoying the game as possible. If they are ever to see more money thrown it's way to develop more/higher quality shmups the genre needs to appeal to more people.

Anyone who is a game designer should be aiming for that goal of a diverse group of people having fun with their game.

that doesn't work when the game is changed to the point that the original players do not want anything to do with them; anyone who is a paid game designer should worry about targeting a diverse group of people, because that is how they are going to make money

My question as game designer/producer is: What does the audience really want? Which groups of shooter fans exist and what are their expectations for fun gameplay?

[Davey]

Warning Forever is a fun game and that kind of approach has intriguing possibilities, but the scoring system will remain wonky. I can see people trying to score in this sort of game by manipulating the game using the "randomizing" factors to produce certain enemy patterns that give better scoring opportunities. i.e., if it is decided that enemy X gives the best scoring opportunities and enemy X is spawned by action Y, players will do action Y to make X appear.

This doesn't sound like fun to me. I'd rather have the solid, carefully designed levels that test players' mastery of mechanics in a game like Raiden or Espgaluda. A good game will have a carefully-planned flow that could not be generated randomly.

(emphasis mine)

I'm not sure if this is necessarily a bad thing, though. In a way it's sort of like manipulating rank or milking a boss; instead of going for straight survival you play a trickier way to get something in return (more points, lower rank, etc.).

In the end it'd come down to the quality of the implementation, and unless a commercial shmup dev tries something like this (fat chance), how well it would actually work is unknown.

I think you're misinterpreting his message. Note that he says "Of course, I hope I'm wrong, but there it is.". So yes, he is saying that most games are tailored towards the tastes of millions of other people, because that's how you make money.

I'm not misinterpreting him. He's saying "wouldn't be it great if... a developer could make the kind of game the developer enjoys, but making games is about giving MILLIONS of other people enjoyment"

But the "wouldn't it be great if" part means that he'd actually like to see more games that don't have mass appeal. He's not saying that catering to the biggest possible audience is a laudable goal. He's saying that, unfortunately, that's the only way to make money. For mainstream big budget games that's probably true, but that's not the case for shmups. Despite having a small fan base, these games do sell enough to be profitable, otherwise nobody would still be making new ones.

Others have already covered the "making something you like vs. catering to the lowest common denominator for maximum profit" issue, so I won't go into that.

[Zeether]

Why shmups are such a niche genre

They're not. Everyone in my world likes them. The others just need to stop living in the future.

Why did this just pop into my head?

[Pirate1019]

Games are about having fun and I think the shmup community as gamers should want a large enough audience of people having fun and enjoying the game as possible. If they are ever to see more money thrown it's way to develop more/higher quality shmups the genre needs to appeal to more people.

Well I'm sold! I'll surrender my fun so everybody else can have theirs. Viva la communism.

[Exarion]

The main complaints about senko were A: dodging felt weird, B: lack of attack variety, C: odd controls. I didn't like it because winning by a landslide every time isn't fun.

Also, the idea of varying stages has made my still in concept phase shmup even more esoteric. Here is what I have so far:

A six color system, in which your ship and pilot each have a color which can be the same and all enemies have one color. Bullets have the same color as enemies that fired them. Your bullets are a mix of your two colors, depending upon the levels of both gauges. You are not immune to same color bullets.

There are two gauges. One acts is the pilot gauge, and you get a game over if it empties. There is a maximum it cannot increase beyond. It is slowly decreasing at all times, with the exact speed dependent upon the relation between your pilot and ship colors. The other is your ship gauge. When this gauge is at 50% of your pilot gauge, it is considered neutral. As this goes down, your hitbox becomes larger and your shot is more heavily influenced by your pilot. As it becmes larger, your hitbox shrinks and your shot is more influenced by your ship. If it exceeds your current pilot health gauge, you enter requiem mode, in which your hitbox disappears, and your pilot health gauge starts dropping faster, dropping even faster as it exceeds by more. If it empties, you enter free mode, in which you cannot graze and your hitbox is at it's largest. You have only your pilot color in free mode.

Enemies will drop two kinds of item: ship items, which raise the ship gauge, and pilot items, which raise the pilot gauge. Ship items are the same color as the enemy that dropped them, pilot items are of a different color, which is constant for all enemies of one color. In requiem mode, only ship items drop. In free mode, only pilot items drop. Between these two, the balance is affected by how close you are to either mode. The amount of points each item is worth depends upon how close you are to the mode in which it will not drop, with max points being awarded when the item is least common.

When not in free mode, you can destroy your ship for a bomb effect, which causes you to enter free mode. You can also, at any time, exchange your current ship with a nearby ship, exempting certain large enemies. Doing so will set your ship gauge to the value of that ship's health gauge, and your old ship is destroyed. Switching ships will damage your pilot gauge. In free mode, you can take control of a nearby ship as well, but the amount of pilot gauge lost is increased.

Grazing will raise the item multiplier. How much the multiplier increases depends upon the amount of time the bullet is grazed, pilot, ship, and bullet colors, the two gauges, and how close the bullet gets to your hitbox. Each color has a relation with each of the other colors, which each have a multiplier. These are multiplied by the base bullet value to determine how much the item multiplier goes up. They are also used in calculating the value of destroyed enemies and collected items, though those use 1/bullet color multiplier. The normal graze multiplier are also used to determine how quickly your pilot gauge drops. Increases are calculated per frame. The balance between the color multipliers is determined by the value of both gauges. A high ship gauge means your ship's color is more important, and a low ship gauge means the pilot color is more important. As the bullet gets closer to your hitbox, the pilot color becomes more important, and the ship color becomes more important as the bullet is closer to the edge of graze range.

Grazing and getting hit reduce the gauges as well. The same color multipliers as are used for graze value are used to determine how much. Grazing is only affected by the relationship between bullet color and ship color. Getting hit is affected by the relationships between bullet, ship, and pilot colors.

Enemy appearance are dependent upon player actions.

On top of all this, there is a story that makes David Lynch films seem comprehensible.

To shmupsorrow77: would the above described shmup work for you?

[Ed Oscuro]

Q: Why shmups are such a niche genre
A #1: That's not a question.
A #2: Damned 19 page threads about nothing at all
A #3: Major Stryker is too awesome for most people to handle

[ColonelFatso]

I'll take answer 4: GORDAMMIE I CAN STILL FIGHT YEW

[Ed Oscuro]

#5 "pimpin' ain't easy"

[Udderdude]

#5 "pimpin' ain't easy"

But you make it look goooooooooood >_>

[dai jou bu]

A: dodging felt weird

Yeah, the isometric viewpoint makes it pretty hard to gauge where the bullets are. B.O.S.S. mode reverts it back to overhead which is a lot easier to tell, hence why DUO is stuck on that viewpoint unless both players get within CC range.

B: lack of attack variety

Bullet patterns change depending on what the Rounder's doing (ie- barrier shots are different from dashed ones) plus each have special moves that fire off different danmaku patterns (plus the nuances between the A and B cartridges), B.O.S.S. forms have bullet patterns that can't be used in Rounder form, and there's CC attacks.

I'd say it's pretty varied.

C: odd controls.

Another common complaint I hear often, which was as I expected it to happen since your fighting game friends are too accustomed to the street fighter II template and were expecting such. It also doesn't help that the controls are based off of Virtual On's system, but made to fit a standard arcade stick layout, and they're still kind of having trouble with that since they're doing radiant silvergun-esque button combinations to pull off certain abilities in DUO.

I didn't like it because winning by a landslide every time isn't fun.

Well, you're only starting. It takes awhile for players to get good at it for matches like these to happen.

That's not a good video though. I really wish I could find that specific one I always show people at how the game would look like if two good players went at it. Just my luck it happens to disappear right when I need it.

[JoshF]

I thought the point of that game was to cut your losses, damage-wise. If you guys are expecting to dodge every bullet, well how can you make a versus game out of that? That would be like a fighting game without chip damage. And you couldn't turn on a dime in Virtual On either. Or Armored Core or whatever. And fighting games have these weird things called "startup frames."

[Exarion]

B: lack of attack variety

Bullet patterns change depending on what the Rounder's doing (ie- barrier shots are different from dashed ones) plus each have special moves that fire off different danmaku patterns (plus the nuances between the A and B cartridges), B.O.S.S. forms have bullet patterns that can't be used in Rounder form, and there's CC attacks.

I'd say it's pretty varied.

Lack of variety was their complaint, not mine. I got virtual on since it was on sale, and it is somehow much more liked than senko. This one I knew would have at least two fans, as there were two people who tried Dissidia: Final fantasy, and both of them picked the projectile specialists, but I didn't expect anyone else.

[dai jou bu]

Lack of variety was their complaint, not mine.

I never implied that you said this in my reply. I just pointed out that the statement is flawed.

I got virtual on since it was on sale, and it is somehow much more liked than senko.

Because it's more simpler. Getting Chanpo to play like this is counter-intuitive compared to the simple fire-your-weapon-while-dashing or jump/jump-canceling to get your weapons to home in on your opponent. Some Rounders don't even have tracking weapons.

Plus the game's also faster because the projectiles don't have danmaku-esque properties to them and the camera is positioned right behind the mech instead of zooming the game out like in Senko to view both players. However, if you get the live camera to zoom all of the way out, you'll notice that the dash speed for the mechs is almost the same as Senko's.

[Zeether]

At least the guy isn't being Erinu.

[shmupsorrow77]

that doesn't work when the game is changed to the point that the original players do not want anything to do with them; anyone who is a paid game designer should worry about targeting a diverse group of people, because that is how they are going to make money

I don't believe you at all, since many earlier gamers enjoyed early shmups. The great irony for people who are defending the niche status of shmup land is that they are outright saying "you shouldn't have fun! you have no right to say anything about the genre you formerly enjoyed!".

This kind of gaming elitism and snobbery is just offputting, if many people fondly remember Area 88/Gradius 3 and early shmups but no longer find modern ones fun, this means something fundamentally is was lost for the vast majority of gamers.

I think balking at the challenge of designing a non-niche shmup is just giving up and is the result of a lack of imagination. Gamers should want their fellow gamers to experience joy in playing games. The topic is shmups being niche means _there is something wrong_ that killed the fun for a lot of people.

[BIL]

if many people fondly remember Area 88/Gradius 3 and early shmups but no longer find modern ones fun, this means something fundamentally is was lost for the vast majority of gamers

What was "lost" is shooters being up to par with all the other games for bells, whistles, flash and general mainstream hooks. Nothing of value, in other words.

The topic is shmups being niche means _there is something wrong_ that killed the fun for a lot of people.

"Lack of cutscenes / Hollywood production values" is the fatal flaw you're looking for.

And enough hand-wringing over "other gamers" and their fun, seriously. They're well catered for, trust me. Live and let live.

[Taylor]

My heart sinks every time I see this thread back on the front page.

[Schrodinger's cat]

The great irony for people who are defending the niche status of shmup land is that they are outright saying "you shouldn't have fun! you have no right to say anything about the genre you formerly enjoyed!".

No one is telling anybody that "you shouldn't have fun". There'd be no point to this forum if nobody had fun playing these games. You're making generalizations about what other people like based off your own opinion of the genre.

This kind of gaming elitism and snobbery is just offputting, if many people fondly remember Area 88/Gradius 3 and early shmups but no longer find modern ones fun, this means something fundamentally is was lost for the vast majority of gamers.

I don't know about that.... I'm having a lot more fun with the genre now than I ever did about 10 years ago.

[xris]

This forum focuses on ONE genre.
Ask a sensible question in the proper thread, and you will get all the help you need.
Make a vague assumption that's out of place, get laughed at.

[EPS21]

This kind of gaming elitism and snobbery is just offputting, if many people fondly remember Area 88/Gradius 3 and early shmups but no longer find modern ones fun, this means something fundamentally is was lost for the vast majority of gamers.

Rather, what was lost was your youth, now you have grown older and do not find the current offerings fun. This is called nostalgia.

Also, you talk as if absolutely everyone loved shmups to death back in the day, but that wasn't true, there were just more out there available. Then with new hardware changes, devs could make different kinds of games, and most gamers followed suit to try the new stuff. And some of those old shmup fans decided they liked these newfangled games better, and stuck with them. This is you. We are different from you. Most of us I think like to follow what's new in gaming, but follow with caution and know that shmups can offer us something no form of modern gaming can anymore, unless the nature of console and arcade gaming changes drastically in the west (so basically never).

Shmups will NEVER appeal to you again, and they don't need to because you prefer your 3d flight action games.
Now please kindly gtfo.

[orange]

i've always wondered what the hell is up with people who are too stupid to separate the theme of a game or genre from its mechanics

[Exarion]

i've always wondered what the hell is up with people who are too stupid to separate the theme of a game or genre from its mechanics

Occasionally the two are really heavily intertwined, but it's rare. The game game I can think of that can't have the theme removed is Battle Garegga, because the gameplay would change a lot if you could easily see the bullets.