Top Doujins (Pre-)Discussion + RESULTS

[Nifty]

@Limiting based on team size: I'm not a fan of this idea, partly because it's entirely possible to have several people working on a project regardless of scope and also because I don't expect everybody to know how many people were on a given dev team.

I might add in a qualifier to that "platform doesn't matter" statement and change it to no arcade original releases, for the sake of simplicity. Beyond that, it could just be better to go ahead and see what comes up, seeing as it's such a broadly-defined term and there isn't really any way to get around that, although I'm still open to adding in more qualifiers provided we can get together some examples of what they would include/disclude. Helps to be flexible when treading new ground.

[CStarFlare]

When I think indie/doujin games, I think of fanmade games created with no expectation or motive for the project to be viable from a financial perspective. You could argue that certain genre darlings don't fit this description (Touhou by this point is certainly capable of supporting ZUN, though I guess I still feel like he treats it like a hobby and not a business) or that it's not really applicable outside of our narrow genre (what about indie projects that become mainstream successes and continue in that vein?), but I think it's much easier than trying to wade through a mire of team size/budget/distribution method purity tests.

Of course, this is the real answer:

Beyond that, it could just be better to go ahead and see what comes up, seeing as it's such a broadly-defined term and there isn't really any way to get around that

[n0rtygames]

If there was ever a thread created purely for the destruction of my mental health.. this is probably it.. but let's give it a go.

--Cost of development ≤ $100 AUD.

Considering most platforms cost $99 (usd) a year and $100 AUD is $92.52 USD, this can not logically be a factor. You've just excluded anything not made in gamemaker for PC, basically. If I had to give a definition it would be: "Some shooting game made by a small handful of people in whatever spare time they can cram in, regardless of distribution methods/costs"

Indie isn't about distributing stuff online, or having less than eight employees. If you're running game development as a business, you are not indie

If you want to see what real indie shmups look like, take a look at our own development forum

!!!!! This is not at all what being an indie developer means. Indie developer means independent developer. Running a business is really a part of this if all you do is game development. You're just doing it independently of a larger company/corp looking after you.. There's literally no other meaning.

When I think indie/doujin games, I think of fanmade games created with no expectation or motive for the project to be viable from a financial perspective.

You're right here. STGs will never make a buttload of money and are mostly created out of some fucked up psychotic obsession. At best they can make a good portfolio piece if you wanna show a completed game to try and land a job - but generally need to have had a bit of sweat and blood poured in to them. Playing a major role in creating something that is professional quality and then released commercially is a requirement to get in to most game dev jobs.

So - if a guy spends 2-3 years living on a minimum wage job working shifts in a shop selling groceries and cigarrettes, then goes home to do a few hours on a game which he later charges £5 for and puts this on his CV as part of a job application.... Is this guy suddenly less "indie" and not to be considered indie/doujin simply because he had a commercial focus? He's still spending his spare time making the game, he's doing it out of a passion to make video games. Right?

Serious question - why is it so important to have a Japanese word associated with your game?

[CStarFlare]

So - if a guy spends 2-3 years living on a minimum wage job working shifts in a shop selling groceries and cigarrettes, then goes home to do a few hours on a game which he later charges £5 for and puts this on his CV as part of a job application.... Is this guy suddenly less "indie" and not to be considered indie/doujin simply because he had a commercial focus? He's still spending his spare time making the game, he's doing it out of a passion to make video games. Right?

Making some money doesn't make development of the game financially viable in any real sense. At £5/pop, that project isn't going to be a money maker unless it starts getting close to 5-digit sales figures (which isn't likely for most releases without some sort of backing from a larger publisher or buzz from mainstream press).

I'm probably blurring the lines between "indie" and "hobbyist" too much, though. The nice thing about the indie label is that anyone can use it because people treat it as an "I know it when I see it" label instead of a merit with qualifications to be met.

[God]

all other limitations still apply unless I've missed something.

Will not knowing anything about indie shooters disqualify me from voting or is this going to be less strict than the main top 25?

Development team of three or fewer.

I heard somewhere that Ikaruga had a team of only three or four people. Also I heard Turrican was made by only one dude.

[Nifty]

Will not knowing anything about indie shooters disqualify me from voting or is this going to be less strict than the main top 25?

There isn't going to be a background list (and couldn't really be much of one anyway with only a single list prior to this), but it, erm, would help if you have at least a few-odd games you actually want to vote for.

[ptoing]

I heard somewhere that Ikaruga had a team of only three or four people. Also I heard Turrican was made by only one dude.

Ikaruga was done mostly by 3 people, but they got some G.Rev help later on, I think 2 additional people.

Turrican was mostly done by Manfred Trenz, he did the game design, art and coding. But there were other people for music and sfx as well as sound and music routines. Most of this info is pretty easy to check on mobygames.com

[LordHypnos]

Serious question - why is it so important to have a Japanese word associated with your game?

You're talking about the word "Doujin" I assume, and apart fromt the fact that doujin shmups seem to have been a thing since quite a bit longer than the term "indie game" was a common part of our vocabulary (I didn't hear people starting to talk about "indie games" until a few years ago), I'm not totally sure. It seems like some people (in japan, but maybe also in the west) like to make a distinction between indie and doujin games.
In other words, I'm also kind of curious about this, as well.

[ptoing]

Doujin literally translates to "same person" and just means that you share interests/are fan of something. So in some regards the meaning of Doujin and Indie is quite different, though there is overlap in how things might be produced. All in all I think it does not matter as long as people make stuff they enjoy making and others might enjoy as well. If they make it for a living or just on the side for shits and giggles does not matter either, really.

[God]

but it, erm, would help if you have at least a few-odd games you actually want to vote for.

Shit, I can think of one or two I'd want to campaign for. Like a screen shot and a brief description or something.

[God]

(nobody says anything)

Alright, you talked me into it! (Rambling in lieu of voting.)

I haven't played enough indy shooters to have a good overall picture of what's out there, but I do have a good picture of a subcategory of them: open source shooters.

Most of them are really awful. Think: something a student, who doesn't play shooters, would bang out in a day or two. Really bad.

But there's some decent stuff:
-There's a galaga clone that seems to be high quality but I haven't played enough of the original to judge it properly. The ship designs are all from Star Trek. It's called xgalaga and there's a fork called xgalaga: hyperspace. Not my cup of tea but some people here like galaga, right?

-Kenta Cho has a bunch of games that are head and shoulders above the rest of the open source stuff. They're proper, modern, bullet hell type games. Games like rRootage, Noiz2sa and Torus Trooper. They're getting some votes and had a release on the wii called Blast Works.

-There's a game that's almost completely unknown called Tenmado. I'd put it in the same sub-genre as RSG and Ikaruga. Just like those two games: it's a vert that has bullet hell elements (like lots of bullets and small hit box) but it has other stuff too, like beam attacks, terrain, level design. More going on then just sequences of bullets like pure bullet hell games have. It has ikaruga style chaining too. When you install the game there's a high score board with only one entry: "developer" up at the top and it's exponentially higher than I can score. So it feels like there's a lot of depth there. I play it the way I play ikaruga: try to chain in the first level to get the extends faster then I just play for survival mostly. I should point out the graphics are abstract: just cubes, circles and other shapes.

That wraps up the open source stuff.

Other noteworthy stuff:
Nobody is voting for Hydorah and they should be. It's gradius like. It has cthulhu statues. Not gonna spoil the ending but it's pretty damn epic. Big points for that alone. Any of those things alone would sell me on the game.

I don't really know what's going on with Fraxy but it seems to be some kind of mugen situation? Someone used it to build the first level of gradius V as a vert and someone built a dobkeratops with it.

[ciox]

I don't really know what's going on with Fraxy but it seems to be some kind of mugen situation? Someone used it to build the first level of gradius V as a vert

That sounds amazing, got a link? I know about Fraxy but only seen bosses made with it.
Agreed about Hydorah.

[BPzeBanshee]

I thought I had Hydorah on my list, turns out I didn't. Fixed that shit fast.

[LordHypnos]

@God: regarding open source shmups, you ever tried Linley Henzell's stuff? I played Garden of Colored Lights and White Butterfly. They're way too hard for me, and I'm not a huge fan. Just wondering what someone else might think of them, 'cos you don't see them talked about too much here.

[Ebbo]

I don't really know what's going on with Fraxy but it seems to be some kind of mugen situation? Someone used it to build the first level of gradius V as a vert

That sounds amazing, got a link? I know about Fraxy but only seen bosses made with it.
Agreed about Hydorah.

I'm quite sure that level was recreated by Fraxy's creator. Here is a video of that stage, with small modifications: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULdM-NQnt9s

And here is another original project created by Fraxy engine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIKRqmYF2yw

[Blackbird]

I don't think I'm going to vote in this poll because my knowledge of Doujins overall is pretty limited, but I thought I'd drop a reminder for a few games that seem to be under-represented so far.

Hydorah
Leiria Stargazer
Twilight Insanity
Hellsinker

[Erppo]

Leiria Stargazer

Thanks, I knew I forgot a bunch of games and here's one.

[CStarFlare]

I made a point of reviewing everyone's lists as well as my own list of games I'd played while putting my own together. Lots of "oh yeah, that one was great!" moments (and lots of "oh yeah, I still need to try that" moments).

[Nifty]

Indeed, and thanks for the tip-off about SideLine, it'd slipped my mind that it fitted into the indie mold. Now I just need to get myself a copy of Vritra \o/

[Blackbird]

Shoot, I knew I was forgetting something important! This list needs

KIWAMI SHOOTING.

[God]

@ciox
At this point you know as much about it as I do.

@LordHypnos
Now I have! (They must be newish)
-Overgod. Needs gamepad support. Couldn't really give this one a fair shake.
-Garden of Coloured Lights. Seems well made but gets really hard, really fast.
-Excellent Bifurcation. Woah, that has a fun gimmick! It's like dualplaying Raiden 3 or Ikaruga but different. You play two different games side by side, using the same inputs for both! I don't know how doable that is but it's fun trying. There's a button that makes your two ships swap places with each other. Made it to the first boss, I think.

This guy's stuff seems to be the same caliber as Cho's. He even cited Cho as an influence in an interview.

[Squire Grooktook]

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the greatest doujin shmup ever.

He'll get you with his lasers

[Despatche]

-Overgod. Needs gamepad support. Couldn't really give this one a fair shake.

please use a keyboard for games with digital controls.

[Despatche]

I'm kinda afraid to consider Judgement Silversword (and DicingKnight.) as doujin. I guess you could say that it's like how Satazius et al are now on Steam, but I really do think there's a different dynamic between selling some disc or digital download for pennies versus selling an official entry for a game console. Were JSS or DK. even budget-priced?

...Ya know, I'm starting to wonder what "PlayStation Network downloads" really means (I mean right now TxK could be considered indie, maybe people need to start putting that one down)... and what about Crimzon Clover, that got turned into an arcade game of all things...

[LordHypnos]

I'm kinda afraid to consider Judgement Silversword (and DicingKnight.) as doujin. I guess you could say that it's like how Satazius et al are now on Steam, but I really do think there's a different dynamic between selling some disc or digital download for pennies versus selling an official entry for a game console. Were JSS or DK. even budget-priced?

...Ya know, I'm starting to wonder what "PlayStation Network downloads" really means (I mean right now TxK could be considered indie, maybe people need to start putting that one down)... and what about Crimzon Clover, that got turned into an arcade game of all things...

I think the thing to keep in mind is the original release. Judgement Silversword was originally a doujin WonderSwan game (I'm correct about this, right?), and Crimzon Clover was originally a doujin PC game. The fact that they were good enough or whatever to eventually get published (in a less doujiney way) is kind of unimportant, I think.

[God]

-Overgod. Needs gamepad support. Couldn't really give this one a fair shake.

please use a keyboard for games with digital controls.

What's wrong with gamepads? I find keyboards just unusable.

[Nifty]

Bump as a reminder that there's now a little over a day left for voting.

[Nifty]

In my infinite wisdom, I forgot to update the voting thread title to reflect the above, so I'm adding in a bonus day :V

[nasty_wolverine]

From the voting thread, people need to play Hellsinker more.

[Aleksei]

When will the results be published?