Player - Enemy Collision in a bullet hell shmup?

[Edge]

I remember there are some games where the player can not collide with enemy ships. I actually forgot what game(s) that was.

Thinking about it, having no collision with enemies kinda makes sense. Because the gameplay is sorely focused on dodging bullets and enemy collision could be seen as a distraction.

But I can't help to think it feels kinda counter-intuitive. Of course you can hover over ground layered enemies, but if things fly around I expect that I could crash into them. Also it makes the dodging part more challenging, because you can't just fly through attacking enemy waves.

What are your thoughts about Player - Enemy collision in bullet hell shmups? Is that a relict of it's shmups history that is not needed in this sub-genre anymore? Or is still a good feature, even in bullet hell?

[Cagar]

It is good, as long as the enemies are easily disguisable from background.

[Spyke]

In the Gunbird games (and maybe some other Psikyo titles?) colliding with airborne enemies reduced your weapon strength by one power-up per collision.

Ant

[moh]

you can't collide with enemies in Mars Matrix, but that game is still impossible.

[null1024]

you can't collide with enemies in Mars Matrix, but that game is still impossible.

here we go again

I can't say I'm against player-enemy collision in bullet hell games. I can't say I'm for it either, but eh.
It'd be interesting to have environmental obstacles in a bullet hell though.

[KAI]

Milestone was doing a great job until they included collision damage in their games. That's why Noah sux.

[Pallerå]

Don't most of the games anyway have ground / aerial enemies to make them slightly three dimensional? At least in cave games, you can't crash your helicopter to a tank.

[n0rtygames]

Ground based enemies for 'filler' segments where the player can sit back and rake up points (or point blank for more points!) - low thread

Air based homing enemies - low-mid threat, can collide, take a little more seriously

Airbourne heavy enemies - These guys just sit there going "Mah house!" denying you part of the screen. To be taken seriously

ANNOYING SNAKE THINGS - The worst kind.



To be honest, I think it's a really important element of shmups and if it were removed - would remove a large element of having to set priorities for targets in games. For instance, you need to keep a chain going - you need to keep the popcorns alive to chain to the next segment, so your only way is to focus your fire on the large enemy coming in on the left. But the popcorns are not only firing bullets - they're homing in on you, so your time is limited. At the last moment, you inch to the right and clear out the popcorns after redirecting them towards where you need to be and a few shots of the fire button - then proceed to the next segment.

If none of those enemies could kill you, you'd pretty much only have to nudge your stick in some random direction of your choice every so often to avoid the targetted attacks they throw out.

[Udderdude]

I think it depends on the game. Anything with point blanking is made more tolerable with enemies you can't collide with.

It also removes the potential for enemies that try to run into you intentionally. Although I think most players hate those anyway.

As for my own games .. in XOP you can't collide, in Sphere Shift you can, in Twin Reaper only some enemies damage you on hit, and in Zero Cross (still in development) every enemy damages you on hit.

[O. Van Bruce]

In Touhou 12.8 - Great Fairy Wars your ship doesn't collide with enemies during the stages. you collide with the bosses though.

[Ed Oscuro]

In the Gunbird games (and maybe some other Psikyo titles?) colliding with airborne enemies reduced your weapon strength by one power-up per collision.

Ant

Pretty standard to be powered down in Psikyo games actually (Strikers games, Sengoku Ace games, etc.), and also some "pre-Psikyo" games by the same team I think, like Aero Fighters (not 100% sure on this)

[Obiwanshinobi]

In Guardian Force - where "tank" looks like half hoovercraft, half flying carpet - you can safely rub it even against bosses. Screen scrolling can make it explode, though.

[NzzpNzzp]

Can't say I've ever missed collision damage whenever I've been playing Mars Matrix.

I guess it's pretty funny when you get rammed by guys coming in from the left side of the screen in R-Type though. In a bullshit kinda way.

[Drake]

I don't see why there necessarily has to be a logical aesthetic reason for you to be able to collide or not collide with almost any given enemy. If it isn't relevant to gameplay then sure do whatever you want, but the game's mechanics and systems and how it plays should be the primary determiner of whether or not collision is possible, not aesthetic coherency.

[manatworks]

In Touhou 12.8 - Great Fairy Wars your ship doesn't collide with enemies during the stages. you collide with the bosses though.

touhou 'ship' ftw!

[Udderdude]

When you collide with enemies in Touhou, you should get into a tickle fight when them and have to mash buttons to win. >_>

[BulletMagnet]

Then there's the occasional oddball like Vasara (which, it should be noted, places a good deal of emphasis on short-range combat), where touching an enemy doesn't kill you, but you do go "clank" and bounce off a bit, which can sometimes force you into a bullet; some people are annoyed by this, though my stance leans more towards "well, in most shmups you'd be dead on contact in the first place, at least here you have some chance of making it alive".

[Hagane]

Pretty standard to be powered down in Psikyo games actually (Strikers games, Sengoku Ace games, etc.), and also some "pre-Psikyo" games by the same team I think, like Aero Fighters (not 100% sure on this)

In Aero Fighters any air based enemy will kill you on collision. Sengoku Ace limited this to popcorn enemies (allowing riding based speed kills of mid/large aerial enemies), and Gunbird finally introduced power downs. Pilot Kids and Space Bomber are the only Psikyo games I recall where you die if you collide with an enemy.

[RNGmaster]

Deathsmiles only deals you a half-unit of damage if you touch an enemy.

[Edge]

Thanks everyone. Some very good responses.
Yeah, the game without collision i was thinking about was probably Mars Matrix.

And the half-unit damage in Death Smiles is pretty interesting.

Because I think Death Smiles is probably the only Cave game where all enemies are on the same depth layer than the player. Even in Progear, Akai Katana they have enemies in the background that you can't touch. Or in Guwange Enemies flying above you [EDIT: And I think in Guwange you also take half-unit damage on enemy collision, but in this game most enemies are on the same layer like the player.]. So in Death Smiles they need all their filler enemies in the foreground, hence the masses. Also they have enemies often incoming from the back.

Drake, I think that the gameplay is the most important factor too. Otherwise you could argue that the player hit box should be the complete ship, because it's more logical.

But I also think that the enemies on two layers is actually a gamepaly advantage. And this concept is also an easy to understand visual language, so the player can easily understand the concept.


The filler and popcorn enemies appear as ground and air enemies. But they acutally have quite some differences:

Air Enemies:
Move around more hectic than their ground counter parts.
Can collide with player.
Therefore they usually need to be incoming from the upper part of the screen.

Ground Enemies:
Move very slow.... if at all.
Appear in masses and caravans
Don't collide with the player
Can be point blanked, i.e. if you hover above them they will never shoot at you. Close-Shot Protection to avoid cheap deaths.
Appear out of buildings in the background. And from all borders of the screen.

[ChainsawGuitarSP]

Pretty standard to be powered down in Psikyo games actually (Strikers games, Sengoku Ace games, etc.), and also some "pre-Psikyo" games by the same team I think, like Aero Fighters (not 100% sure on this)

Nope, you still die from collisions in AF but you do get more rank lowered than from any other death.

When you collide with enemies in Touhou, you should get into a tickle fight when them and have to mash buttons to win. >_>

I'd honestly love to see this happen. Too bad ZUN is getting lazier and lazier.

[Udderdude]

When you collide with enemies in Touhou, you should get into a tickle fight when them and have to mash buttons to win. >_>

I'd honestly love to see this happen. Too bad ZUN is getting lazier and lazier.

What happens to those foolish enough to try and melee Touhou characters.

http://cdn1.gelbooru.com//images/707/12 ... f76954.jpg

[shadowbringer]

reading this thread made me remember two games: Aero Star (game boy) and Ether Vapor (pc), both have enemies on different planes (in the former, even the bullets have their own plane, the game has a jump mechanic, but your shots still hit enemies on both planes; in the latter, you can -- with the homing missile iirc -- hit opponents on different planes.)

off-topic: hitting enemies on different planes with different weapons in turn makes me remind of Xevious and Twin Bee.

on-topic: Gengetsu (Touhou 4 a.k.a. Lotus Land Story) has no hitbox, certain patterns in other Touhou games (Yukari in PCB, Mokou in IN) also have no collision hitbox for the boss sprite, certain Touhou bosses have a larger hittable box (example Yuyuko's fan in PCB, Mokou's phoenix aura in IN), at times (in other bosses) it's possible to damage them from above (for example, an alternative way of shooting EoSD stage 5's midboss -- Sakuya -- on her first nonspell iirc). In IN, youkai playable characters aren't hit by familiars but can't hit them as well (not sure if they can in the solo mode), and in PoFV, certain characters (the Prismriver sisters) don't get hit by ghosts.

[KAI]

IN is so broken.

[RNGmaster]

IN is so broken.

Why do you think this and why the hell is it relevant to what we're talking about? Please don't spew your opinions everywhere.

[ChainsawGuitarSP]

>SHMOOPS FARM
>Not being outspoken about polarizing opinions even in uncalled for situations


@Udderdude: I'm getting a 403 on that link. Try another URL.

[Temia Eszteri]

@Udderdude: I'm getting a 403 on that link. Try another URL.

Hotlink protection. Load it without a referrer (such as via copy-pasting) and it should be fine.