Raiden DX 2 ideas?

[Furry Fox Jet Pilot]

This is just an idea I have, since I love Raiden DX so much. I do not have any experience in creating games or stuff, I just want to know your opinions on what would be good ideas and suggestions to put in a direct sequel to Raiden DX, if there ever was one. First off, in order to be considered a direct sequel, it would have to keep the course select from the original, because in my opinion, that's what set it apart from the other Raiden games, having multiple courses. I would love to hear feedback from people, regarding gameplay, scoring, music, graphics (should it keep the 2D style of graphics or transition to 3D?). Thanks a lot, I look forward to hearing everybody's input on this.

[Op Intensify]

If we had little custom titles under our names on this forum, I'd suggest that yours be "Obsessed Raiden Fan #1."

[Furry Fox Jet Pilot]

If we had little custom titles under our names on this forum, I'd suggest that yours be "Obsessed Raiden Fan #1."

Yes it would, and I don't care what people say, I would wear that name with pride. Raiden FTW!

[BPzeBanshee]

We need a thread in OT for custom title proposals. Op Intensify should be 'Master Of Gullible Hearsay And Statistical Bullshit', system11 can be 'Late to the banhammer party' and I'll be 'Loopy loopy'.

To the actual topic at hand I think Raiden IV did quite a good job at modernising the existing Raiden mechanics already, but the bullet wobble and air-based enemy behaviour while acceptable in the 90s when not so noticeable is a bit intolerable in this day and age. Raiden Fighters while good may be a bit too complex for the DX-style gameplay continuity you're thinking of.

You may say you're no good at developing now, but our Development subforum's a good place to start for learning to actually code your own games, and either here or there can be handy for considering mechanics or considerations that you alone might not think of. If this discussion actually gets somewhere good it'll be like the better parts of Drum's Armchair Developer thread and if you then use this to start an actual shmup - it won't be Raiden DX 2 by name but by gameplay it'll be pretty sweet. In S20-TBL's words: Speculation and wishlist threads are fun and all, but the proof of the pudding is in the eating. And we don't get no eating if we don't have no pudding.

[Furry Fox Jet Pilot]

To the actual topic at hand I think Raiden IV did quite a good job at modernising the existing Raiden mechanics already, but the bullet wobble and air-based enemy behaviour while acceptable in the 90s when not so noticeable is a bit intolerable in this day and age. Raiden Fighters while good may be a bit too complex for the DX-style gameplay continuity you're thinking of.

You may say you're no good at developing now, but our Development subforum's a good place to start for learning to actually code your own games, and either here or there can be handy for considering mechanics or considerations that you alone might not think of. If this discussion actually gets somewhere good it'll be like the better parts of Drum's Armchair Developer thread and if you then use this to start an actual shmup - it won't be Raiden DX 2 by name but by gameplay it'll be pretty sweet. In S20-TBL's words: Speculation and wishlist threads are fun and all, but the proof of the pudding is in the eating. And we don't get no eating if we don't have no pudding.

Sorry, but what exactly were you referring to about the air-based enemy behavior? Also, I agree, Raiden IV did do a good job of modernizing the mechanics and you're certainly right about that, the Raiden Fighters series is much too technical and demanding for a more old-school style game like Raiden DX. That's why I was thinking of keeping the old scoring system, while maybe adding a few changes. One staple feature that needs to be there is the secrets (the decaying value medals, the Sol towers, and hidden radar sites), that made DX a much richer and more interesting game than it's predecessors, Raiden and Raiden 2. As far as stages are concerned, adding more different courses and maybe even adding different mission types (objective based?) would increase the replay value. I also think including more longer endurance based courses like the Training course would give players a wide variety of score attack-type stages to play on. I don't know if these would be good ideas, after all I'm just putting together suggestions right now. Who knows if I decide to turn this into an actual project someday, I mean I would love nothing more than to create a fantastic direct sequel to Raiden DX, but it could be years before an actual game begins to take shape. After all, I am just a 17 year old high school kid with no programming or coding experience at all. I mean, I know how to work with computers pretty decently, but I would first need to learn the basics of game programming.

[Ed Oscuro]

They don't let preteen foxes into programming school. I should know, I tried. :((((

uhh anyway let's look forward to that new NG-DEV release for the moment!

[trap15]

The "17 year old" part is a lame cop-out, just fwiw. The lack of experience is the real issue. Actually, go start learning now before it gets even more difficult to do so

[Furry Fox Jet Pilot]

The "17 year old" part is a lame cop-out, just fwiw. The lack of experience is the real issue. Actually, go start learning now before it gets even more difficult to do so

You're right, it's never too early to start learning, and does anyone have any suggestions and input regarding the actual game itself?

[Op Intensify]

I mean I would love nothing more than to create a fantastic direct sequel to Raiden DX

They already kinda made one with Viper Phase 1.

[n0rtygames]

The "17 year old" part is a lame cop-out, just fwiw. The lack of experience is the real issue. Actually, go start learning now before it gets even more difficult to do so

You're right, it's never too early to start learning, and does anyone have any suggestions and input regarding the actual game itself?

See my reply in your thread in the development section.

Go to 3dbuzz.com - observe their XNA 101 course - acquire it by some means. This will give you the entry skills you need to code games in C# and won't require you to learn complicated graphics coding. You'll find that you can easily pick up other languages off the back of C#.

Work your way up to the shmup example they give - dont skip a single tutorial. Spend the next 6 months adding in every crazy feature you can think of that would "be awesome". Realise you've made a game with placeholder graphics - spend the next year scaling everything back to pure fundamental gameplay because you came to the realisation that nobody wants to play a RPG vertizontal 4 player WoW inspired massive hitbox nonsensefest.... and then crap your pants trying to get it released when helpful French people randomly pimp your efforts to shmup forums....

Also I'd recommend never asking anything that could be interpreted as "Please tell me how to make a game" - people will always point you in the right direction, but there has to be a bit of self educated experience and effort behind your question to get polite answers like the ones you've received so far!

[Furry Fox Jet Pilot]

They already kinda made one with Viper Phase 1.

Viper Phase 1 is nothing like Raiden DX, in fact it isn't even a Raiden game, it's a spin-off.

[Furry Fox Jet Pilot]

Go to 3dbuzz.com - observe their XNA 101 course - acquire it by some means. This will give you the entry skills you need to code games in C# and won't require you to learn complicated graphics coding. You'll find that you can easily pick up other languages off the back of C#.

Work your way up to the shmup example they give - dont skip a single tutorial. Spend the next 6 months adding in every crazy feature you can think of that would "be awesome". Realise you've made a game with placeholder graphics - spend the next year scaling everything back to pure fundamental gameplay because you came to the realisation that nobody wants to play a RPG vertizontal 4 player WoW inspired massive hitbox nonsensefest.... and then crap your pants trying to get it released when helpful French people randomly pimp your efforts to shmup forums....

Also I'd recommend never asking anything that could be interpreted as "Please tell me how to make a game" - people will always point you in the right direction, but there has to be a bit of self educated experience and effort behind your question to get polite answers like the ones you've received so far!

Thank you I will check it out when I get a chance, hopefully sometime soon.

[BPzeBanshee]

Sorry, but what exactly were you referring to about the air-based enemy behavior?

Imagine a tank on the ground and a plane in the air beside it. In the Raiden games (and in quite a few others) when you move to the right the screen shifts a bit left, giving you the perception of a larger-than-view screen. Normally you'd expect the plane would move left and the tank would also move left although maybe a bit less taking into account distance from ground-to-air. In Raiden IV, the tank moves, the plane doesn't - so when an enemy plane appears on the screen and you move to the other side of the screen it appears to move *with* you while the other tanks scroll left.

[Obiwanshinobi]

If you intend to make a game, please consider Game Boy Advance your platform of choice. Apparently it's relatively easy to develop for and, if you ask me, could use more shmups. Just don't make the sound bad. For some reason GB and GBC games tend to sound better than GBA ones, whether you choose to use the tiny mono speaker or something beefier.
Just be warned that, even around here, it's not easy to get people to test your GBA homebrew stuff. The guy who's making A Werewolf Tale - a game of great potential - got fewer responses than you so far. Other such threads of late (about Holy Hell, GORF and Goldrunner) didn't set the forum on fire either.
Strikes me as odd since I for one am more inclined to even pay for GBA games, let alone play them, than DC or Neo Geo ones we've been seeing coming out in recent years.

[Ed Oscuro]

The GBA sound hardware is pretty awkward to work with - us Castlevania fans were regaled with various BS rationales for why HoD's sound was so sketchy (in terms of quality) compared to CotM, but then it turned out that Aria was quite nice-sounding. Pretty serviceable platform, but I think a bit handicapped by the lack of many good control options (at least for non-handheld play).

[trap15]

GBA sound hardware is interesting. It's mostly the GBC sound hardware, with the addition of 2 (for stereo) 8bit sample playback channels at divisions of 32.768kHz. So yes, pretty awkward and limited.

[THE]

We have this on our eternal todo list Raiden 2/DX is probably my favorite vert ever

[Op Intensify]

Viper Phase 1 is nothing like Raiden DX, in fact it isn't even a Raiden game, it's a spin-off.

It plays very much like one, and the Judge Spear/Blue Javelin were a part of the Raiden Fighters series from the start.

[Obiwanshinobi]

I don't blame the GBA's sound limitations for the bad sound in GBA games. After all, even Super Mario Land's got trippy music and decent explosions... The problem seems to be that as the sound of games for bigger platforms became more film-like, devs tried to go there on a machine that wasn't quite up for the task. Rhythm Tengoku didn't disappoint, but that's about it. Also, Bruce Lee: Return of the Legend got those groovy '70s film tunes right.
It's a shame that Super Monkey Ball Jr. has the sound ripped out of its senior games, then downgraded rather than fundamentally reengineered. That game deserved better audio treatment.

[Op Intensify]

GBA has certainly been host to some great soundtracks in spite of its poor audio. The Megaman Zero series and Mother 3 come to mind.