Shmup idea: magical skywriting attacks

[Pretas]

This is an idea I got from the anime series Simoun that, to my knowledge, has never been used in a shmup before. (There is a Simoun game on PS2, but it's a SRPG.)

The gist of it is that you would be able to draw symbols from memory by moving your ship. When completed, they would trigger different attacks. More elaborate symbols would result in more powerful and/or versatile attacks. If anyone remembers the magic system from the old DS RPG Lost Magic, it would be pretty similar. Perhaps the craft would move faster when in "drawing mode," but would be unable to shoot.

I think that when combined with the need to dodge incoming bullets, this could create an interesting new risk/reward dynamic. You could try to go for a quick kill and/or a big score bonus by drawing that complex symbol in the middle of a bullet storm, or you could just play it safe and rely on your standard shot.

This idea might only work with a touch screen, though...I'd test it out if I had the adequate programming abilities and development resources, but those are far beyond me.

[Ed Oscuro]

I believe this kind of idea has been carried about as far as it seems reasonable to do in games that are littered with bullets which must be dodged with precision. Since moving your ship around to cast a spell could move you into the way of bullets, the whole design of the shooting game would have to be reimagined to make it worthwhile. As to games which approach this idea - I think Mystic Riders has some kind of comboing moves, dunno if I'm confusing that with remembering the tricks to reveal more gems. Perhaps some other games have it as well; I can't think of any at the moment, but I am sure there are. It would be nice to have some more interface with the idea of "preparing a massive power to be unleashed" but dancing in null space doesn't fit what I think of. Cave has a lot of games that have the timing of preparing a massive attack (i.e. balancing risk and reward) but oftentimes it is watching a gauge and doesn't feel very interactive. Perhaps bullet grazing / doing acrobatic feats (Seibu-style) around enemies or specific obstacles would be a good way to attain that feeling?

[Pretas]

Like in Cotton 2 and Ai Cho Aniki, Mystic Riders' special attacks are triggered by quick fighting game-like commands. Considering the added amount of time it would take to get them out, the attacks I have in mind for a drawing magic system would be more powerful and much larger.

And yes, it would probably lend itself better to games built around Raiden-style fast aimed bullets, rather than Cave-style slow moving spreads.

I definitely feel there should be more "stuntman shooters" like Raiden Fighters Jet. Since scoring in RFJ is so rooted to the fine details of level and enemy design, it feels like a natural outgrowth of the game, not an arbitrary, tacked-on system. (I also like how it prefigures the modern "achievement" fad.) To a lesser extent, this is also the case in Garegga/Batrider/Bakraid, but those games have much more obfuscated scoring and rank mechanics that you couldn't figure out without reading a guide.

[ciox]

Well there's two ways this would happen, either the game is very airy and casual so you can do your motions, or all the patterns are actually balanced around you performing your special move dances, meaning by dodging the pattern you're already almost performing the motion, which is crazy but possible. Still overall I wouldn't see this type of game becoming very popular, unless it has impeccable art direction to support it, which works for any game.
You can partially "fix it" and make it more hardcore-friendly by making the symbols/glyphs smaller, but the smaller you make them the closer you get to the simple fighting game commands.

[Ed Oscuro]

or all the patterns are actually balanced around you performing your special move dances, meaning by dodging the pattern you're already almost performing the motion, which is crazy but possible.

Then there would be an additional game of trying to figure out which spots between the bullets represent a direction to fly in order to start the attack, in order for it not to feel like you are shoehorned into doing things exactly one way and having no choice in inputs, but this all seems to point towards the game being...airy and casual in order to allow freedom to execute commands at will, or overly regimented and deterministic, in order to keep the player in line, especially if bullet patterns can effectively cancel any chance at executing a command. This would be odd to see...let's say that part of the command requires flying upwards for a period of time. To defeat this, the game could send out a massive bullet volley which only allows vertical travel, and prevents enough upwards movement for the duration of the next input check period (or the "drawing").

So, gigantic flying wedges of bullets. To be fair, some games already have patterns like this...

I don't see it as wholly bad. One way you could easily demonstrate the timing of inputs is by having the first stroke leave a trail across the screen, which slowly fades out. This could be a continuous effect trail (like PS2 Shinobi's famous scarf) or it could be activated and deactivated by a button press to create more artistic spells, although I rather more like the idea of the player stretching out the boundaries of an electrified net to destroy enemies or cancel / convert bullets. Many interesting ideas...

[Mortificator]

It's not quite the same thing, but in the horizontal shooting section in the PS1 version of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, you can draw vines for attack and defense. I've wondered how a system like that could be elaborated on in a full game.

[ED-057]

In Space Megaforce when 7 is powered up there are a bunch of options which follow the ship, and after moving in a particular pattern to position them you can lock the options in that formation. So I guess the "drawing" action could be similar to that. Although another idea might be to do the drawing without actually using the ship, but more like moving the shiki in Guwange, while the ship doesn't move much.

It could be an educational/puzzle shmup where bosses shout out their attack and the player has to write the correct kanji to counter it.

[Acid King]

I believe this kind of idea has been carried about as far as it seems reasonable to do in games that are littered with bullets which must be dodged with precision. Since moving your ship around to cast a spell could move you into the way of bullets, the whole design of the shooting game would have to be reimagined to make it worthwhile.

I think you could do it if you turned the attack in to something like Bakraid's bomb, where the ship/character is invulnerable while it is on the screen. Maybe something like DOJ's hyper system would work. Filling a meter adds 1 attack to your stock and more powerful spells require a larger stock of attacks to use. Perhaps using a hyper would drop a shield on the screen at the spot you use it, and the drawing would be contained to that field. Larger hyper stock = larger fields to draw in. I think something like that could work well if tied to an enemy chaining or combo system. You would have to keep the symbols pretty simple though.

EDIT: Some elaboration.

[KAI]

Okami The Shmup.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Sounds like Arx Fatalis.

[Vexorg]

It's not a shmup, but it sounds a little bit like what Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow does in the boss fights. To end the fight, you have to draw a gesture on the screen that seals away the boss, but if you get it wrong the fight continues until you do enough damage to get another chance.

[RNGmaster]

The method system in Akashicverse works in a way somewhat like this from the way people describe the game.

I also can't fail to mention adelikat's Gradius TAS which is really entertaining. Skywriting with options.

[Nana]

Check out Dandelion: Starchild Journey. It's not drawing different shapes for different attacks, but it is based around drawing shapes around bullets to trap them and then use them as attacks. If anything, it proves your idea is at least feasible, as it's similar enough.