I have a theoretical scoring system in mind for an upcoming SHMUP. It's more of a boss rush than a conventional gauntlet but I think the system is still rather traditional.
1) The boss fires a pattern of obstacles with varying degrees of AI - homing bullets, ambush bullets, random-bounce-around-the-screen bullets, bullets that fire bullets, what have you. They don't stop coming.
2) You need to dodge all of the above. You have no guns. You do have a special gauge and a sword. Grazing the bullets will gradually fill up that gauge [theoretically]. Occasionally the boss fires a present or 'friendly' bullet that gives a larger boost to your gauge [also theoretically - it could be one or the other, it could be both].
3) Pressing the fire button activates your gauge, which will drain until depleted. While the gauge drains you can deflect projectiles towards the boss with your sword. The more projectiles you deflect the higher your score bonus, though it tops out at 3200. This is your only method of attack, unless you pick up some guns. Wouldn't that make you feel like a badass, you sword-slashing gun-slinging Dante-alike, you?
4) [purely brainstorming] It could be made so that you can use your sword any time throughout the game to bounce stuff away, and the gauge basically lets you ram into enemies/ammo willy nilly like an invincibility phase. However at the start of the game the size of your sword would suck - to the point where you require almost pixel-point timing to make the swing - and you would have to rely on upgrades to increase the length of the blade and your life.
5) You're immortal (for plot reasons) but every time you die your score suffers, and you don't get to advance to the next level unless it's high enough. Encourages practicing and discourages credit-scumming.
I need to ask you all, given your advanced analysis of arcade/console SHMUPs - With the above system in mind, how many games am I unintentionally plagiarizing here and what can I do to improve/change that?
Thanks in advance!
Question On Scoring System
Re: Question On Scoring System
Swords are only badass if you use them as melee weapons, thrusting and slashing and hacking someone to pieces; if they only deflect bullets they are, for all practical purposes, serviceable but uncool sword-shaped racquets.
Not by chance, in many games that feature swords they are used as the focus of energy attacks, to allow a character to wield the sword at all times while performing both ranged and melee attacks.
Deflecting projectiles with a bat doesn't seem very appropriate in a bullet hell context: the sword is swung on one side, the other side isn't protected, but bullets come continuously from both directions.
Timing is also an issue: does the player need to activate the sword at exactly the right time to hit bullets? What if the timing required for successive bullets is incompatible?
Using a melee weapon to hit projectiles should work much better with major, isolated threats; it would be similar to baseball.
Shields, "eating" bullets and energy blasts are the more usual treatment of grazing bullets till you are charged up enough to attack. Shields work uniformly in an arbitrary area of effect; energy blasts are a natural consequence of capturing and storing bullet energy. On the other hand, being able to swing a weapon only when charged up doesn't seem plausible and/or heroic.
Attacking until the gauge is completely drained is quite constraining and frustrating (think of lulls in bullet patterns), as is being unable to eat grazed bullets for a long time while in attack mode.
I suggest an instantaneous attack (all bullets within a certain radius are shot at the enemy, draining energy proportional to the affected area) and, maybe, a similar instantaneous defense (all bullets within a certain radius become harmless and turn themselves in to be harvested, draining energy proportional to the affected area). Score can depend on remaining energy, rewarding players who shoot effectively; hits can reduce energy rather than "killing" (???) the immortal character, with the practical effect of dazing the character and making him unable to function well and score decently.
Linking progress to score seems unnatural: the next stage should be reached after killing the boss. Without death, failure can consist of letting the boss time out and escape.
Good and bad paths could be linked to stricter time limits (e.g. kill a 5 minutes boss in 3 minutes to face his evil brother for extra points) or special feats (e.g. don't hit the prison bridge of the starship to go to a Dangun Feveron-like prisoner rescue special stage).
Not by chance, in many games that feature swords they are used as the focus of energy attacks, to allow a character to wield the sword at all times while performing both ranged and melee attacks.
Deflecting projectiles with a bat doesn't seem very appropriate in a bullet hell context: the sword is swung on one side, the other side isn't protected, but bullets come continuously from both directions.
Timing is also an issue: does the player need to activate the sword at exactly the right time to hit bullets? What if the timing required for successive bullets is incompatible?
Using a melee weapon to hit projectiles should work much better with major, isolated threats; it would be similar to baseball.
Shields, "eating" bullets and energy blasts are the more usual treatment of grazing bullets till you are charged up enough to attack. Shields work uniformly in an arbitrary area of effect; energy blasts are a natural consequence of capturing and storing bullet energy. On the other hand, being able to swing a weapon only when charged up doesn't seem plausible and/or heroic.
Attacking until the gauge is completely drained is quite constraining and frustrating (think of lulls in bullet patterns), as is being unable to eat grazed bullets for a long time while in attack mode.
I suggest an instantaneous attack (all bullets within a certain radius are shot at the enemy, draining energy proportional to the affected area) and, maybe, a similar instantaneous defense (all bullets within a certain radius become harmless and turn themselves in to be harvested, draining energy proportional to the affected area). Score can depend on remaining energy, rewarding players who shoot effectively; hits can reduce energy rather than "killing" (???) the immortal character, with the practical effect of dazing the character and making him unable to function well and score decently.
Linking progress to score seems unnatural: the next stage should be reached after killing the boss. Without death, failure can consist of letting the boss time out and escape.
Good and bad paths could be linked to stricter time limits (e.g. kill a 5 minutes boss in 3 minutes to face his evil brother for extra points) or special feats (e.g. don't hit the prison bridge of the starship to go to a Dangun Feveron-like prisoner rescue special stage).
Re: Question On Scoring System
I like the idea of your combat system, though I'm not sure about the scoring. It seems to lack depth that can truly make a difference between a skilled player and someone who's just playing for survival.
You can't just take away score when the player is killed, I really dislike that idea (I dislike both idea 4 and 5 actually), instead the classic idea is to have some sort of counter/multiplier that you can build up in some way, and have that reset/take a hit when you "die". Especially if you're going to have infinite lives, scoring should be seriously damaged from deaths, I imagine.
You can't just take away score when the player is killed, I really dislike that idea (I dislike both idea 4 and 5 actually), instead the classic idea is to have some sort of counter/multiplier that you can build up in some way, and have that reset/take a hit when you "die". Especially if you're going to have infinite lives, scoring should be seriously damaged from deaths, I imagine.
Re: Question On Scoring System
Given that statement I'm reneging on giving the player a sword at all - the first idea I had was a racquet or cricket bat! To be serious though I would probably implement an independent melee attack depending on the kind of enemy used in the game - give the player a second striking attack, possibly with greater range but not 'bouncing' the target away from the player, thus less points in the end.Ixmucane2 wrote:Swords are only badass if you use them as melee weapons, thrusting and slashing and hacking someone to pieces; if they only deflect bullets they are, for all practical purposes, serviceable but uncool sword-shaped racquets.
Not by chance, in many games that feature swords they are used as the focus of energy attacks, to allow a character to wield the sword at all times while performing both ranged and melee attacks.
EDIT: I'm heavily considering giving the player a butter knife to start the game with - both to mock them and to give them an incentive to upgrade their melee/ranged weaponry (or stick with the knife for extra points/cred). The butter knife has the shortest range, the ladder (!) has the longest range, and there'd be 2 or 3 sweeping weapons inbetween.
When you say 'swung on one side' I assume you mean a 180 degree swing? I'd considered a full-up 360 degree swing so the player could parry in all directions - the animation would show a sweeping forward swing from the player and a dynamic circle implying the general direction of the sword. I'm kind of on-the-fence regarding use of the theoretical sword - whether the player should activate the sword every time he wants to hit a bullet, or whether the player should activate the gauge and then auto-hit bullets that come close to colliding, or whether he should have the choice to do both (with the former being much harder, obviously).Deflecting projectiles with a bat doesn't seem very appropriate in a bullet hell context: the sword is swung on one side, the other side isn't protected, but bullets come continuously from both directions.
Timing is also an issue: does the player need to activate the sword at exactly the right time to hit bullets? What if the timing required for successive bullets is incompatible?
Using a melee weapon to hit projectiles should work much better with major, isolated threats; it would be similar to baseball.
Considering the mention of baseball the original intention of the game was to have the player 'play tennis' with the boss characters, where the player could either parry the projectiles one at a time (with limited use of the gauge) for minimal reward, or build up the gauge and then execute a combo of parries for a much higher score.
This was my tenuous idea of a risk-reward system; please see below.Shields, "eating" bullets and energy blasts are the more usual treatment of grazing bullets till you are charged up enough to attack. Shields work uniformly in an arbitrary area of effect; energy blasts are a natural consequence of capturing and storing bullet energy. On the other hand, being able to swing a weapon only when charged up doesn't seem plausible and/or heroic.
The "immortal" character can be killed, but comes back to life shortly afterwards. Beyond that he's not a very capable fighter and the game takes advantage of that.Attacking until the gauge is completely drained is quite constraining and frustrating (think of lulls in bullet patterns), as is being unable to eat grazed bullets for a long time while in attack mode.
I suggest an instantaneous attack (all bullets within a certain radius are shot at the enemy, draining energy proportional to the affected area) and, maybe, a similar instantaneous defense (all bullets within a certain radius become harmless and turn themselves in to be harvested, draining energy proportional to the affected area). Score can depend on remaining energy, rewarding players who shoot effectively; hits can reduce energy rather than "killing" (???) the immortal character, with the practical effect of dazing the character and making him unable to function well and score decently.
I like the ideas you've put forth (the gauge being used to execute a blast radius on the field) but I'm adamant about the concept of the draining gauge. To give some context to my idea I should link you to my conceptual demo - it's obviously not the layout or presentation I'm considering for the final product (the final demo would have a more traditional vertical layout and allow for freedom of player movement), but it gives some idea of the gameplay I'm working towards - avoiding fire and returning fire effectively in the time you're given.
Gameplay Video (v0.1)
Gameplay Demo (v0.25)
A sound idea. I'd intended on relying on score alone, but implementing multiple/secret paths would be much more fun for the player in the end. I suppose I'm just concerned at the idea of the player beating the game in less than an hour (whatever the path he takes) and then going "huh, that sucked, guess I don't need to play it again then".Linking progress to score seems unnatural: the next stage should be reached after killing the boss. Without death, failure can consist of letting the boss time out and escape.
Good and bad paths could be linked to stricter time limits (e.g. kill a 5 minutes boss in 3 minutes to face his evil brother for extra points) or special feats (e.g. don't hit the prison bridge of the starship to go to a Dangun Feveron-like prisoner rescue special stage).
I've worked with the score multiplier in a previous game and found it to be a pretty effective motivator, so I'm not sure why I discarded the idea here. I should re-implement it for this game.Sumez wrote:I like the idea of your combat system, though I'm not sure about the scoring. It seems to lack depth that can truly make a difference between a skilled player and someone who's just playing for survival.
You can't just take away score when the player is killed, I really dislike that idea (I dislike both idea 4 and 5 actually), instead the classic idea is to have some sort of counter/multiplier that you can build up in some way, and have that reset/take a hit when you "die". Especially if you're going to have infinite lives, scoring should be seriously damaged from deaths, I imagine.
Re: Question On Scoring System
I made a functional engine test as an example of what we're talking about - download it to see what you think, give some feedback on the scoring system (what you like, what feels awkward, what should be changed, etc).
1) Graze enemy bullets to build up your boost gauge - the green circle is the default radius of your parry weapon, though the black circle [your avatar for the time being] allows for faster boost accumulation.
2) Hold down the S button to build up your multiplier (which drains your boost gauge), let go to cancel it out and the green circle flashes white momentarily. This is your opportunity to deflect enemy fire - any bullets caught in the green/white circle will be multiplied in turn and deflected back.
3) The S key concentrates your parry on a select area and provides a strong assault on all sides. The D key uses up your entire boost gauge and sets off all bullets on screen - however this fire is much weaker than your normal parry and should generally only be used if you're in a pinch, rather than as an offensive strategy.
4) If you get hit, you lose your boost gauge and multiplier. I'm not against the idea of score penalties but I will leave that up to play-testers and experts.
5) Bullets will upgrade in size depending on how large the theoretical total count would be (done to prevent a 1,000-bullet storm choking the game to a crawl) - the limits/transitions are subject to change. At high levels of fire the game may slow down deliberately to allow the player some breathing room.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/27392295/missilespamtest3.exe
TO DO:
1) Graze enemy bullets to build up your boost gauge - the green circle is the default radius of your parry weapon, though the black circle [your avatar for the time being] allows for faster boost accumulation.
2) Hold down the S button to build up your multiplier (which drains your boost gauge), let go to cancel it out and the green circle flashes white momentarily. This is your opportunity to deflect enemy fire - any bullets caught in the green/white circle will be multiplied in turn and deflected back.
3) The S key concentrates your parry on a select area and provides a strong assault on all sides. The D key uses up your entire boost gauge and sets off all bullets on screen - however this fire is much weaker than your normal parry and should generally only be used if you're in a pinch, rather than as an offensive strategy.
4) If you get hit, you lose your boost gauge and multiplier. I'm not against the idea of score penalties but I will leave that up to play-testers and experts.
5) Bullets will upgrade in size depending on how large the theoretical total count would be (done to prevent a 1,000-bullet storm choking the game to a crawl) - the limits/transitions are subject to change. At high levels of fire the game may slow down deliberately to allow the player some breathing room.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/27392295/missilespamtest3.exe
TO DO:
- More patterns
Score penalty on 'death'?
Possibly enhance/change the chaining/multiplier mechanics
Limit use of D Bombs - earn one per [10,000*rank] points?
Dynamic ranks/radius
Better audio/visual presentation
Lobster mode