Making good Game-Feel

[trap15]

This is something that I notice a LOT of western STG miss mostly or entirely, and instead of repeating myself to everyone who makes these mistakes, I'm going to outline it all here now as a reference.

Sound Effects
One might pass this off as something secondary or unimportant, but sound effects are crucial to making enemy destruction satisfying, making picking up items feel worthwhile, making your shots feel powerful. Go and play any well-liked game and note how they all have very satisfying sound effects (e.g., Battle Garegga, DoDonPachi, Ketsui, Raiden Fighters 1/2/Jet) that really bring the fierceness and feel to the game.

Aside from just how the sound effects sound, your playback method is also important. If you have sound effects stack, the sound effects all muddle together and oftentimes the volume will grow out of control and clip output (due to the way sound works). What you want to do is have individual "channels" for each "type" of sound effect (explosions, powerups, shooting, bombs, score items, etc.) and only play one at a time per channel, canceling the old sound effect before starting the new one. This is a big part of what makes the score item collection sound in Ketsui and Mushihimesama/Futari so appealing.

Explosions
This should be obvious enough, that explosions are important, but I see plenty of them that don't look or feel satisfying, so I should probably talk about it here. It's important to have explosions that look satisfying. You don't need to be an artist to make satisfying explosions graphics. The key is to have maybe 3 or 4 frames of animation that can repeat nicely, and have a decent method of blending the explosion to the things under it. A common choice is alpha blending, which is easy to do on modern systems. Another, common for older systems without such blending systems, is flickering the sprite on and off at set intervals. One thing about alpha blending is that it often looks a bit "gaudy" if you have no other alpha effects, and flickering tends to look more "visceral".

Another thing is to make the explosions properly sized for the enemies that are being destroyed. Don't use your same explosion sprite for a popcorn enemy and a large enemy. If you can, do some cool multi-sprite explosions for larger enemies to make it feel really visceral. Look at Raizing games for good examples of multi-sprite explosions. It also helps if you can make your explosion sprites move a bit, so they look less static.

Dead Air
This has been mentioned before, but it's worth mentioning again. Dead air in a stage is almost always bad. There are times when it is acceptable (transitions, pre-boss segments, etc.), but for the majority of the time, you don't want places with no enemies on-screen for more than a second. Having too much dead space makes the game feel overly segmented, and boring.

Ground Enemies
This is common in more than just Western STG, and I'd like to blame a particular long-running series that also lacks this as a reason why this has become so common. They aren't absolutely necessary, but they add a lot of depth to what you can do for stage design, and are definitely worth adding. Every high-quality commercial STG has them, for good reason.



I think I've missed some other stuff, but that's a good general bit that I've noticed quite commonly.

[Ebbo]

Lots of good points. If you don't mind, I'd like to add a small pet peeve of mine:

Player Death

Every now and then I see games where the death of player ship feels very unceremonious. Player vanishes with a small explosion, returns to field instantly after death or the game over screen pops up immediately after the last extend has been spent. Whenever player dies or gets hit, it should be evident and also offer player some time to recover. Obviously sound effects and explosions play a big role in this one but a small delay between hit and death animation can also spice things up (e.g. Battle Garegga, Cho Ren Sha 68K).

[n0rtygames]

I just want to point out that Trap15 is pretty much responsible for the Chronoblast patch taking so damned long and it's something I'm grateful for.

Seriously, this is something you guys need to not hold back on. If a shmup doesn't feel visceral, you really have to say it. I understand that scoring and high level play are extremely important to a lot of people and there's always the argument that "graphics dont matter"

Well, I'm glad Trap is here to call bullshit on the "graphics dont matter" mindset, or rather specifically "Aesthetics dont matter". They do. A lot.

Having a nice violent aesthetic in your game can not only give everything more bollocks, but it can actually change the overall feel of your game. Sections that previously had lots of enemies to kill for points and keeping chains going become these gloriously explosive sections that are full of boom. Nothing beats the sound of popcorn exploding in rapid with that DODODODODODODODODODODoosH!! sound as your hyper revs up and your laser is screeching its tits off.

One last point, don't think that you need epic pixel art just to feel fun. Oh no sir. Look at Cagar's rendition of Giest's trig wars for how to add just that little bit more "bang".

Really. Do it. Give in to the explosions. They're lovely.

[emphatic]

Always plan ahead - aka the "speed kill plan B"

In most good games, you can speed kill midbosses by using bombs. If the programmer hasn't taken this into account, you'll end up with DEAD AIR. Use the midboss on-screen status to keep a flood of bonus enemies at bay then when the midboss goes down, you let the bonus enemies free (unless they're past their origin position at the time). Look at ESPGALUDA for some good examples.

[eebrozgi]

I like this topic.

I also often like when dangerous things activate their hitboxes only when they are doing dangerous acts. Though this applies more to enemies' possible melee attacks and less to shmups with all these bullets going around, at least for most of the time.

I also recommend to check out a bunch of Masahiro Sakurai's games, even though they too aren't shmups for the most part. Such as the Kirby games he did (Dream Land 1, Adventure, Super Star), the Smash Bros. series and Kid Icarus Uprising. I think they all have some of the nicest game feel out there. For example, they have a lot of tiny detail in animations, such as things shaking violently for a few frames when hit and lots of other single-or-so-frame flashy details in explosions and such.

Though this might be just a bunch of fanboy-rambling... Oh well.

[DJ Incompetent]

Disguise the Scoring
The purpose of a score is to compare the level of skill between players.
Let's be honest. Competitive players care about score. A majority of gamers are not competitive. You know how the Amusingly Bad Reviews thread is filled with "I have no idea what's going on" boasts by the game journalist? It's probably because your meaningless medal/gold/jewel/dot/pig/gem icon isn't helping anything. Score is the most ignored portion of a videogame by a large margin, yet, score is pivotal to competitive players when deciding a good game is great. A basic solution is to ensure scoring icons reflect the objectives, personality, or desires of the player character. Kirby loves food. Meat Boy loves bandages/Bandage Girl. Sync the scoring to the objectives of the quick loose story. Add a personality next to the score counter to comfort or embrace the player depending on performance. Look at original Donkey Kong stage 2. Jumpman collects Pauline's hat, purse, and parasol. A competitive player says "these icons will add to my score in my optimal scoring route." A regular player is saying, "When Mario's girlfriend was kidnapped, she dropped her stuff. I better be a good boyfriend and pick it all up along the way."

Small-Time Build-Ups and Pay-Offs
The most engaging scoring objectives normally derive from plotting around a mechanic and then letting it all go in a satisfying short-term conclusion. Akai Katana Shin has its giant swords. Later DoDonPachis have their Hyper. Geometry Wars 2 has guiding enemies around a black hole or gate. Deathsmiles 'n Mushihimesama Futari Maniac build and spend a counter. Ikaruga shouts when you successfully chain. These moments are significant in keeping players engaged in what Stages 1-4 would otherwise be repetitive ventures. They keep players on the lookout for doing something constructive throughout the credit.

Deaths and What Killed Me

Every now and then I see games where the death of player ship feels very unceremonious. Player vanishes with a small explosion, returns to field instantly after death or the game over screen pops up immediately after the last extend has been spent. Whenever player dies or gets hit, it should be evident and also offer player some time to recover. Obviously sound effects and explosions play a big role in this one but a small delay between hit and death animation can also spice things up (e.g. Battle Garegga, Cho Ren Sha 68K).

STGs are the hardest and fairest games around, but mainstream players often disagree. A game delivering the proper feedback of what, how, and why the player failed are significant tools to increase the chances of a player trying again. Checkpoint games like Gradius deliver this because death freezes the screen. Sexy Parodius goes as far as to point out the bullet that hit you. Danmaku Death makes the effort to freeze the screen and highlight where your ship is, giving a moment to spot your error. Games have come out that let players rewind time, but none can just show an instant replay when a player dies?

A Boss's Lifeline Matches Its Act
A boss fight should last about as long as the schedule of attack patterns. Did you program only two simple 'n short attacks? This fight shouldn't last longer than 12 seconds. This doesn't necessarily mean a dev must come up with original algorithms for each attack. Cave does a brilliant trick with extending its bullet patterns by slowly increasing the frequency, speed, and bullets per shot as the more time passes using the same bullet pattern.

Two Simultaneous Patterns, is The Magic Number
If you break down the bullet patterns of most engaging boss fights, you can identify that the complexity of many bullet pattern attacks boils down to just two designed attacks firing at the same time. One attack by-itself often seems too easy. Three attacks simultaneously starts to ride the line between vomit-euroshmup attacks, or the element of perceiving a pattern starts to break down. There can be tons of exceptions by great design. But as a base of designing a boss' bullet pattern, stick with launching two simultaneous attacks and fine-tune the difficulty later.

Destroyable Segments
A big jump in a game's perceived depth comes from enemies still functioning after blowing something off. A lazy dev doesn't do this at all. A competent dev only does this to bosses. A great dev adds this to a variety of standard enemies. Mind you, destroying a segment does not mean you always need to make the enemy harder by compensation. Just blowing the turret off a tank in Raiden then letting it drive off helpless doesn't add anything but player's satisfaction as a personal choice.

[trap15]

Very good points. Another bit about being able to blow off the heads of tanks: I've always found Flying Shark a lot more fun than Twin Cobra almost exclusively because of this. The ability to take only a short period of time to disable an enemy instead of having to completely kill it adds a fair bit of depth and planning to how you can execute a stage.

[emphatic]

Very good points. Another bit about being able to blow off the heads of tanks: I've always found Flying Shark a lot more fun than Twin Cobra almost exclusively because of this. The ability to take only a short period of time to disable an enemy instead of having to completely kill it adds a fair bit of depth and planning to how you can execute a stage.

^^This. Also, adding pure wow-factor stuff like being able to maim enemies like popcorn planes in Flying Shark to have them crash onto the ground enemies and do damage is so frickin' cool, even by today's standards. Or the burning little guy coming out of the smoldering remnants of the stage 2 boss at the start of stage 3 in Out Zone. I wish I could direct a shmup, I have lots of ideas for visual flair.

Oh, and Flying Shark (and Twin Cobra) cleverly use popcorn enemies taking pot shots to spice things up during Boss fights when the enemy isn't quickly destroyed (large plane in FS, or second boss of TC for example).

[n0rtygames]

Ground Enemies
This is common in more than just Western STG, and I'd like to blame a particular long-running series that also lacks this as a reason why this has become so common. They aren't absolutely necessary, but they add a lot of depth to what you can do for stage design, and are definitely worth adding. Every high-quality commercial STG has them, for good reason.

I just want to add something to this point. Ground Enemies. I fucking love ground enemies. So why aren't there many of them in Chronoblast after stage 1? There's a COUPLE in stage 2.. but other than that? Oh and the boats in Stage 3 I suppose.. Fine - but they really do go away in stages 4+5. WHY?! There's a very simple answer to this and since this is a thread on making good feel - I want to bring this to devs attention.

Ground enemies should be on the ground

Now this may not seem like rocket science, but there's actually a few implications with this. If you want to have mechanical tanks with tracks marching along the ground, it's probably no good if your screen scrolls at 200mph. They're going to sail past. Take a look at Raiden train stages for ways around this though if you simply must have a speed stage (more on them later!). So plan for this, use ground enemies or targets to fix the issues with dead air. Blowing up a screen full of buildings or unmanned tanks is pretty damned satisfying.

I would suggest quite literally designing your shmup from the ground up to make your life easier. Don't try to fit the buggers in when you're done with the air portion.

[Cagar]

Deaths and What Killed Me

Every now and then I see games where the death of player ship feels very unceremonious. Player vanishes with a small explosion, returns to field instantly after death or the game over screen pops up immediately after the last extend has been spent. Whenever player dies or gets hit, it should be evident and also offer player some time to recover. Obviously sound effects and explosions play a big role in this one but a small delay between hit and death animation can also spice things up (e.g. Battle Garegga, Cho Ren Sha 68K).

STGs are the hardest and fairest games around, but mainstream players often disagree. A game delivering the proper feedback of what, how, and why the player failed are significant tools to increase the chances of a player trying again. Checkpoint games like Gradius deliver this because death freezes the screen. Sexy Parodius goes as far as to point out the bullet that hit you. Danmaku Death makes the effort to freeze the screen and highlight where your ship is, giving a moment to spot your error. Games have come out that let players rewind time, but none can just show an instant replay when a player dies?

1. Make the screen freeze for a second upon death
2. Highlight the bullet/ship/whatever with red glow
3. Continue with death animation and stuff