This summer I worked on making a shmup game for the iPhone and it finally got released worldwide! Super exciting. Here's a video of the gameplay: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvJ1-gOPzBA
it looks quite hard to guide precisely.
i think level design looks poor too, but i haven't got an iphone so i can try it out. these two opinions are based only on the video you posted there.
is there a scoring mechanics or is it plain shoot and dodge?
Thanks for your honesty. I too agree that the video doesn't do the best of service of showing off the graphics, but when you see it through the iPhone/iPod Touch, it certainty looks better! lol. I'll have to remake a better video in the near future.
The score board is very very simple. Every unit has a score amount when killed, so whenever you kill a unit, your score gets incremented that units value; obviously minions are worth the least while henchmen (mini-boss type units) are worth a lot more and the bosses are worth a lot! No top score is saved in this first version but if people would really like to see a top score board, maybe I could make it in the next version? So I guess this would be cassified as shooter & dodge (I think).
i think graphics aren't bad. the game looks a bit like a flash game, so you should emphasize this feeling. give a look at radirgy-radilgy-radio allergy to understand what i'm saying.
genecyst wrote:i think level design looks poor too
i mean there's not so much that happens during the level. This game without a scoring system and without "good" attack formations became not so entertaining for people used to play shmups games.
Yeah, I understand what you mean with not having to many specific formations, I suppose as my first game I must underpinned the value in it and thus not adding as much of them as I should have; granted, there are some patterns.
Could you maybe give me some examples of very memorable attack patterns from other games? I'll have a look, take some design notes and hopefully we might see them in the next game
it all depends in what kind of shmup game you like.
what shoot em up have you played? try starting out from them and study how all things happen without focusing on graphics.
i can suggest the basics games that you MUST play before doing a shmups yourself: xevious, gradius, r-type, aleste, batsugun, battle garegga, dodonpachi, giga wing, twinkle star sprite and ikaruga for their mash up of genres.
this list don't want to be exhaustive, but i think this games will give you a general overlook on how things work in this genre.
let me know how dev will go on. bye.
Heh wow, I've never played any of those shmups lol. The only ones I've played where:
Raiden, AeroFighters1/2/3, 1942 and Zero Gunner.
When I made this game, I was really inspired by the classic Raiden series, especially the first one; I love their style of gameplay. Back when I was a child I remember playing it in arcades and such and I really set out to make a game that brought back that nostalgia, you know what I mean? Raiden was really the legendary title that inspired me.
Too soon to say what I'll develop on next as I'm really busy with school now. If the current game catches on more popularity I'll release an expansion pack with all the suggestions/requests people made(example: new levels, enemies, game features, etc) . If the game catches on some serious popularity, I'd love to create story line mode, like in Tohou where as you progress a story gets told, in fact, I even a storyline ready for it. Well, I guess time will tell.
