A shmup community project? (looking for contributors)

[t0yrobo]

Limitations are absolutely a good thing. Ask pretty much any artist or designer and they'll tell you that working within constraints is where the magic happens. That said, releasing on something like xblig would mean that someone would have to deal with a ton of bullshit they probably don't want to deal with. There's nothing wrong with a pc release, possibly a limited run of physical copies could be very possible though, making up some packaging wouldn't be very hard, especially with pre orders. But first... the game would have to be made, and be good.

I'd recommend first focusing on the base design of the project, and generate a Visual Center to help guide any designers that'd be contributing to the project. Having a strong aesthetic base is helpful when having multiple people involved. Just having basic information on location/time/setting would be awesome early on.

THIS x1000. Once teams are made and things start rolling coordinating everything will be huge. As far as art direction goes choosing location/time/setting ect, early on would be huge so everyone can start doing concept work right away and then it can be presented to the whole team to make decisions on.

[mrsmiley381]

Sounds like we need a private discussion center, online meeting times, and an SVN server. Right? Might as go well go all out if we're actually going to do this.

[trap15]

I can provide Git repositories on http://git.daifukkat.su/, secret or public.

Discussion stuff can probably be done best on IRC.

[Hagane]

Limitations are definitely a bad thing, because your end product will be limited, it won't reach its full potential.

For example, Recca is nice and all, but it would have been a better game if it was made on more powerful hardware. The NES was clearly not enough to deal with it, so the game ended up having a lot of flickering. And more powerful hardware would have allowed Yagawa to go even crazier with his ideas. So yeah, especially for a small project, self limitation is a bad idea.

[mrsmiley381]

Limitations are definitely a bad thing, because your end product will be limited, it won't reach its full potential.

For example, Recca is nice and all, but it would have been a better game if it was made on more powerful hardware. The NES was clearly not enough to deal with it, so the game ended up having a lot of flickering. And more powerful hardware would have allowed Yagawa to go even crazier with his ideas. So yeah, especially for a small project, self limitation is a bad idea.

It's not that limitations are good, it's that limitations sometimes force creativity. It's like how Flash compensates for limited data storage space by letting you layer and move static images. It was created to deal with that limited storage issue. Of course, we can now share data like it's nothing, so why use Flash when you can make actual videos and put them on YouTube? Overall, limitations can potentially spur some organic creativity; you change a mechanic to compensate for some bizarre limitation, that change spurs another thought, and then after enough iterations you get Garegga. Or maybe you get a shooter with no bullets.

That being said, Recca and Gun-Nac do look rather different without flicker and slowdown. So there are certain limitations we hopefully should be able to avoid, like rendering half our sprites every other frame because we only have a few kilobytes of RAM.

[DJ Incompetent]

I'd like to try to be useful for a lil somethin'-somethin'. Drawing loops of bullet animation frames or a small tile set comes to mind.
I am also willing to playtest.
I'd like to listen in on deliberations to learn more.

[Dave_K.]

Limitations are definitely a bad thing, because your end product will be limited, it won't reach its full potential.

For example, Recca is nice and all, but it would have been a better game if it was made on more powerful hardware. The NES was clearly not enough to deal with it, so the game ended up having a lot of flickering. And more powerful hardware would have allowed Yagawa to go even crazier with his ideas. So yeah, especially for a small project, self limitation is a bad idea.

It's Yagawa's trademark to push hardware to it's limits with his games. Even with Pink Sweets, his successor to Recca, he pushed the SH3 to excessive hardware slowdown.

[t0yrobo]

When it comes down to it, unless the engine runs on magic there will be limitations. It's not something I'd be terribly concerned with so early on.

Unless something magic happens and I land an awesome job soon I'm all about working on art for the game. I also know a couple people who may be able to character/portrait art if it ends up having any people in it. Not to get ahead of ourselves, but if it's possible i'd like to get the art people rolling on concept design asap. Of course, it has to be decided if this is actually happening or not first.

[viper_phase1]

I might also be interested in contributing some concept artwork for this project - and perhaps some in-game artwork depending on the direction that is taken. I can only offer pixel art skills in that regard.

Limitations are an unavoidable aspect of any game and it is wise to embrace them. Any sort of project - whether it is developing a game or producing a film, writing a newspaper article, or the curation of an exhibit at an art museum - must be subject to limitations otherwise it will be very difficult to complete. You need to set a schedule, a budget; you have to understand how to manage your time and effort. Life is essentially about rules, guidelines, restrictions - and learning how to work within them; bend them; and sometimes break them will lead to success.

Limitations force an artist to sharpen their sense of design and to think efficiently.
For instance, when you restrict colour count you force yourself to think more critically about each colour that you use. A sprite or a background that uses ten colours or less will have much stronger unity and impact than an asset that has an unlimited array of poorly chosen colours. Developing assets for a game is an exercise in puzzle-solving.

Game designers place limitations on themselves both consciously and subconsciously. Although it might not seem like it, choosing to develop assets for contemporary hardware is imposing limitations on your project. The difference between developing a game for contemporary hardware and Famicom-era hardware is that the limits of the Famicom hardware are greater in degree, easier to identify, and better known.

Severe limitations will cripple a project. Well-thought out restrictions will allow design concepts to reach their full potential within a given set of guidelines.

[Hagane]

Of course there will always be some kind of limitation, but imposing artificial ones upon yourself, needlessly handicapping your work, is silly. The only limitations you should work with are the ones you don't have any control of (in this particular case, for example, budget).

[DJ Incompetent]

Who is the target audience?

A. Veteran players in the community with established 360+Stick setups.

B. Everyone in the community.



If it's A, use Norty's XNA science or compromise using MonoGame (open source different XNA that allows multiplatform, recommended by Microsoft since they unofficially discontinued XNA support, says reddit gamedev). If it's B, the most accessible game portal with best performance I know about is Turbulenz, which goes by HTML5 or WebGL.

Or nimitz 'n trap15 just decree somethin'.

[jonny5]

I'd like to contribute music.

Me too, me too!

[nasty_wolverine]

okay...

1) I can help with C++, too a little extent C and C#...
2) Should be on PC, coz everybody on this board atleast owns one... maybe cross-platform
3) Why was OUYA shot down so fast???
4) Dropbox can be remarkable for code+resource sharing

[trap15]

2) Should be on PC, coz everybody on this board atleast owns one... maybe cross-platform

Definitely at least PC.

3) Why was OUYA shot down so fast???

System has so many problems that it's not really worth going into here, when I've said enough about it elsewhere.

4) Dropbox can be remarkable for code+resource sharing

Git is faster, easier and better than sharing over a simple file sharing site.

[Rex Cavalier]

Might help as stage/pattern/behavior designer, i suppose(If you want to see examples of my work, look at my YouTube channel ^_^), and playtester(I am pretty food STG player).
Also would help as music designer, but only if there's nobody else on that, considering i am beginner on making music at the moment.
Either way, i'll try my best whenever i will have free time ^o^!

[mrsmiley381]

Rex has some nice stuff in that YouTube channel of his.

I started thinking about target audiences, ranking mechanics, and whatnot. Is there a good example of a game that is really easy until you start scoring well because of really challenging score mechanics? The closest I can think of is Crimzon Clover Simple Mode. The difference is that its scoring mechanics aren't too bad but they trigger rank increase rather rapidly if you score well. I was trying to think of a way to make a game that stays easy if you don't score well, but then turns into a nightmare if you do. So the higher the combo/closer you are when you kill something/longer you go without dying/more lives you have/etc the more difficult the game gets, with your score getting linearly/quadratically higher and the difficulty get quadratically higher even more.



Imagine the green curve is difficulty on high rank over time and that the dark red is score over time. The game gets more difficult more quickly than score increases. The same is true if you imagine the dark red as difficulty increase during lower rank over time and the blue as score increase over time. This is just one idea of playing with risk/reward over time. Yes, I do spend time graphing game difficulty versus rewards. It's a side effect of playing Diablo, but I swear this kind of thinking is good. Really.

[Softdrink 117]

I'm very interested in helping out. I can contribute lots of concept sketches and design materials, but because of time constraints probably won't be able to add much in the way of finished, quality artwork. I'd also be interested in helping with the overall theming and pacing of the game, and playtesting stages.

I have a reasonable amount of experience in C++, so I may also be able to help on the coding side if necessary.

I've coincidentally been doodling a lot of shmup-themed art lately, mostly with a steampunk theme. If anyone would be interested, I can probably upload a small album of it.

[KAI]

YOKO, right?

[trap15]

I'd much prefer tate. My current engine already supports tate, and has rotation settings as well.

[Obiwanshinobi]

GBA please. Caravan or... just make it Zanac.
(I'd say Solar Striker gets the basics right.) GBA Zanac remake is one of my dream games.

[Hagane]

Oh, my ideas were for a horizontal game

[ciox]

Oh, my ideas were for a horizontal game

What if you rotated them 90 degrees?

[Hagane]

Wouldn't be the same.

[trap15]

It's not set in stone, I'm just saying that's my personal preference.

[jandrogo]

News or updates? I am very interested in what this turns out. There's enough potential and knowledge in the forum to develop a respectable shmup.
My programming skills are a little oxidized, but I could help in little parts of code if it's needed. I also have 15-24-31 Khz screens and PC for game testing

[Mr.Iff]

I would also really like to contribute something. Unfortunately i got no talents whatsoever
I give moral support! YAY!

[Eaglet]

I could help with music! My high school degree is as a professional musician to tell you the truth.
Could probably get it semi-professionally recorded.

For reference; what i consider great game music is stuff by Namiki, Yack, Taro Kudo, Sakimoto, Hosoe, Umemoto, Hiroki Kikuta, Mitsuda, Masanao Akahori, and Alex Brandon.

[mrsmiley381]

No one has contacted me about anything, but I'm still all for doing some serious design work and getting something off the ground. I just spent a quarter improving my organizational and design skills and I have another shmup project on the way for a class right now. I could get started as soon as I know how the engine works and what the limitations (there's that word again) are.

[KAI]

For reference; what i consider great game music is stuff by Namiki, Yack, Taro Kudo, Sakimoto, Hosoe, Umemoto, Hiroki Kikuta, Mitsuda, Masanao Akahori, and Alex Brandon.

Where's Tsukumo?!

[tokny]

If this happens I'd really like to be involved. I have some experience making shmups in game maker so have a good idea about design. I've also been doing music and production for ages so could help out in any area there.