Walls and bullets can both be collided with to injurious effect. In my mind, dodging a stream of bullets being shot by a group of popcorns is similar to navigating a tight course in R-Type or some other hori. The only difference is the that the walls are always static, whereas the bullet formations change in respect to where the enemies appear (and considering that if one keeps to a consistent route as PROMETHEUS recommends, bullets will be in the same place every time, thus acting even more like statically-placed walls).Kollision wrote: I see gameplay as being comprised by (1) enemy placement, (2) obstacles and (3) enemy bullets. The influence from enemy placement is different from the influence posed by walls and such, which appear more frequently in horis. The kind of challenge in DDP is a lot different from, let's say, Ikaruga. DDP allows for more freedom, even if it demands more herding, fast kills, etc. Ikaruga is just balls claustrophonic in parts, and exactly due to physical, indestructible obstacles, which are totally absent from DDP.
Basically, a wall of bullets acts the same way as a wall in Gradius, and impassable walls of both kinds are to be avoided when designing levels. By placing enemies correctly (not to mention syncing them with the background - ground enemies can't walk over cliffs, and water enemies can't go on land or in the sky), you are essentially determining where the walls will appear. Correct placement of enemies can result in claustrophobic bullet flows with much the same effect as walls in Ikaruga. (See Stage 2-5 of DOJ, at the honeycomb section at 1:13, for an example)
