Shmups have become stale - former shmup lover - for devs

[Never_Scurred]

+1 this thread for sik troll lolz
Request raging lockage this thread.

[DEL]

^Never lock! Always Flame!

Anyway, Sven put it very well when he wrote that market forces drove shoot'em ups from the top spot. Things used to be arcade driven, so when fighters started taking fast money it was the first death knell for the genre. Fighters like Tekken 6 still do now, bigtime.
Then there's the double whammy of western developers never programming 2D shooters, so they push their stuff on the consumers, not STGs.

But to say its dead is totally wrong and to say that its stale is also wrong. I'm still getting a buzz from shooting and dodging decades after starting.
They can be deep and take a long time to master - if at all .

[Twiddle]

I'm not going to trivialize the discussion like an arrogant elitist by calling the topic starter a troll. Please continue, w00ts.

committed fan of ignorant shit posts^

[mrtie]

I cannot imagine what, say, Mushihimesama would have been like if we'd have been able to freely roam around the environment in all directions and interact with scenery, land and walk around on the ground, perhaps even hide behind trees to snipe at enemies as they pass by so you can pick up their dropped weaponry to upgrade your own...

It would be Fantasy Zone high on speed and mushrooms, and I for one would love it.

[Kiken]

W00ts, I couldn't disagree more with your posts. Constrained, minimalistic gameplay is a major part of what makes these games so appealing. I cannot imagine what, say, Mushihimesama would have been like if we'd have been able to freely roam around the environment in all directions and interact with scenery, land and walk around on the ground, perhaps even hide behind trees to snipe at enemies as they pass by so you can pick up their dropped weaponry to upgrade your own... Well, it may have been an interesting experiment, but it would not be a shmup any more and I am fairly sure that I would not find it any where near so enjoyable.

Wouldn't that make it Herzog Zwei?

[Never_Scurred]

but we as shmup people should be wanting to be widening the genre enough so that we can get serious shmups made on the level of Gradius V and Ikaruga.

But yet....

I played ikaruga and I thought it was pretty much ho-hum and bordering on average.

sik troll lolz.

but my point is Ikaruga is the symbol of why the shmup genre died out.

sik troll lolz

whenever I play ikaruga for an extended period of time and my annoyance factor at the constraints of ikaruga reaches its pinnacle

sik troll lolz

Many devs (i.e. team behind ikaruga) seem focus on highly constrained and unimaginative gameplay, sometimes to the extent of other aspects of the game - story - feeling, etc.

Psycho quest lolz

Ikaruga was so bland if you stripped it of its graphics and bullet absorbtion... there would be no game there at all... nothing worth selling anyway, it would be like an early alpha of some other shmup game.

Dark lolz increasing

With Ikaruga...it just shows me how unimaginative a lot of people capable of developing games really are.

Sik lolz bang!

[captpain]

You don't "get" shmups.

[Danbo]

shmups are dead because arcades died. 1 run of a shmup, which is THE ENTIRE GAME to the casual observer, might take half an hour on average. generally, shmups are fast-paced from start to finish, place high emphasis on perfection from the player and have simple gameplay mechanics.

this makes them perfect for arcades where it costs a coin to play and the adrenalin ride makes you keep putting coins in when you die, but nowadays everyone has home consoles or pcs or whatever and now you're paying $60 for games, which i maintain is way too much for any game in the world ever, and suddenly 30 minutes - regardless of how cool those minutes are - doesn't seem like good value for money. hell $20 is pushing it really

a lot of people are gonna go "but it can take lots of time to get a 1cc!!" yeah that's true but Joe Public dont give a fuck about 1ccing a game he just gonna credit feed to the end

so yeah people will always enjoy blowing up things no matter how stale the gameplay may get in terms of innovative mechanics, the only difference is that the games industry now expects you to pay 240 times as much to play the games and shmups don't work well in that place

also yeah the op is a troll. you ain't fooling me heh

[Never_Scurred]

Danbo, my n1gga! Whats crackin'?

[indstr]

I wish I had the skills to go about implementing them, it seems a lot of game dev's are lacking in imagination...

Come over to my website (link in my sig). We'll show you the ropes on how to develop and we run frequent rapid prototyping sessions which focus on trying to come up with new ideas as well as building people's confidence and experience with game development. If you truely are so bursting with great potential then show us.

Yeah I was definitely going to mention checking out shmup-dev.com as well...

And please play "Clean asia" if you think there is no innovation
http://indygamer.blogspot.com/2007/02/clean-asia.html
This game won the AutoFire 2007 Shooter Competition and is incredibly unique, innovative, and addictive

The innovation is just in more underground places because shmups faded out of the limelight a long time ago.

Also play Dodonpachi by Cave, if you haven't yet. It sounds like you don't have much exposure to the manic genre, but this game is an absolute must play for everyone in america. There have been massive amounts of innovation in the shmup genre in the last 10 years, pushed forward in a large part by Cave. If Dodonpachi doesn't get your pulse going, I don't know what will...

[j^aws]

(...)
There have been massive amounts of innovation in the shmup genre in the last 10 years, pushed forward in a large part by Cave. (...)

I'm playing Devils Advocate here: What are these "massive" innovations by Cave?

[ZOM]

Uhhh... what the hell is going on here
...
...

-_-

[w00ts]

I wish I had the skills to go about implementing them, it seems a lot of game dev's are lacking in imagination...

Come over to my website (link in my sig). We'll show you the ropes on how to develop and we run frequent rapid prototyping sessions which focus on trying to come up with new ideas as well as building people's confidence and experience with game development. If you truely are so bursting with great potential then show us.

Yeah I was definitely going to mention checking out shmup-dev.com as well...

And please play "Clean asia" if you think there is no innovation
http://indygamer.blogspot.com/2007/02/clean-asia.html
This game won the AutoFire 2007 Shooter Competition and is incredibly unique, innovative, and addictive

The innovation is just in more underground places because shmups faded out of the limelight a long time ago.

Also play Dodonpachi by Cave, if you haven't yet. It sounds like you don't have much exposure to the manic genre, but this game is an absolute must play for everyone in america. There have been massive amounts of innovation in the shmup genre in the last 10 years, pushed forward in a large part by Cave. If Dodonpachi doesn't get your pulse going, I don't know what will...

cool stuff, I dl'd and loaded up clean asia, pretty neat. It took me a few seconds to figure out what needed to be done. How you explode portions of the enemy then suck up the debris. Reminds me of Katmari for the PS2... As for dondonpachi I'll check it out.

[joeboto]

w00ts, i could be wrong but, you havent played dodonpachi?

[Rob]

beam battles on DoDonPachi Daifukkatsu, bullet buzzing in Psyvariar, and time slowing on ESPGaluda are all interesting additions to the basic flying, dodging, and shooting mechanic.

not new, 1999, SLOWDOWN TIMES SLOWDOWN HELL YEAH!

Ikaruga's minimalist design was breaking new ground.

No, you just mentioned Psyvariar. Mars Matrix's 0 power up items and 1 button game design was... in 2000. Or all of the other minimalist games in the genre 20 years before Ikaruga, which it took more than a little inspiration from. It was following an existing trend.

Playing Ikaruga without chaining is like playing Tetris without knowing that clearing multiple rows simultaneously is worth more points.

Tetris involves in the moment strategy. Ikaruga is about making every game identical to the last. People shouldn't ignore chaining, they should acknowledge it and realize how shitty it is and play something good. So much "stuff" in this thread...

[nimitz]

. As for dondonpachi I'll check it out.

There goes any sort of credibility you might have had.

[Rob]

No doubt but it's still a puzzle solving game involving memorization, ikaruga I refer to it as a "puzzle game" rather then a shmup the mechanics of ikaruga are more akin to a puzzle game then a hardcore video game,

Ikaruga is the worst puzzle game ever. No random puzzle elements like Tetris would have, "solving it" in an auto-scrolling field is its incredible challenge. There is nothing complicated about enemies circling around a screen!

[Udderdude]

Personally I'm still waiting for OP to spill his brilliant game ideas that will revolutionize the shmup genre ..

[Rob]

Better idea than waiting for Cave to do something original (mode, omg).

[w00ts]

. As for dondonpachi I'll check it out.

There goes any sort of credibility you might have had.

Amount of shmups played or certain types of shmups has no relevance to whether something is true or not.

[jpj]

ikaruga killed the genre

[Rob]

Ikaruga killed 800 of my Microsoft Points.

I cannot imagine what, say, Mushihimesama would have been like if we'd have been able to freely roam around the environment in all directions and interact with scenery, land and walk around on the ground, perhaps even hide behind trees to snipe at enemies as they pass by so you can pick up their dropped weaponry to upgrade your own...

Awesome.

[Udderdude]

. As for dondonpachi I'll check it out.

There goes any sort of credibility you might have had.

Amount of shmups played or certain types of shmups has no relevance to whether something is true or not.

You say shmups are dead and haven't evolved, yet haven't played something that redefined the genre .. from 1997?

You just made yourself a big fat failwich, pal.

[jpj]

cave don't really need to do much different - they're the ones who started in the nineties and didn't go tits up

when i started playing ikaruga, i didn't even know about chaining. i just played easy mode like a regular shooter, but with the added depth of changing polarity. but when i learned how to chain and shit, it opened up another layer to the gameplay. sort of like an onion. but at least it's take-it-or-leave it. and unlike chaining in a game like mars matrix, you don't need to *constantly* chain, and chains aren't worth much points and don't take long to max out even if you do fuck up. ikaruga is way more forgiving. mars matrixs chaining i just can't get down with.

[captpain]

. As for dondonpachi I'll check it out.

There goes any sort of credibility you might have had.

Amount of shmups played or certain types of shmups has no relevance to whether something is true or not.

Yeah, having lack of information doesn't have any relevance to forming an informed opinion. Oh wait

[Rob]

but at least it's take-it-or-leave it.

Ikaruga is not consistently challenging as a regular shooter. It goes from an obvious non-firing enemy chaining section to a mildly challenging overlapping spread and back.

[jpj]

oh yeah, it's way too easy. but that's usually the way for a memoriser (puzzle game is a bit of a misnomer really). if you took out polarity changing so your ship is vulnerable to all bullets, all enemies fire bullets, and the bullet patterns were like five times thicker ... you'd have DOJ lap two - and that's really no fun

i always saw ikaruga as a beginner friendly game though. which is why i think it was a lot of people's first point of entry into the shooters, but there are a lot of grumpy old gits i know who just cannot get into it for love nor money

[iatneH]

Thread tl;dr, but let me put this in an evolutionary perspective. I will liken game genres to "species", and individual games to individuals within a species.

All current game genres, descended from a common ancestor "Pong".

Developers created variations on this game, which were then subject to non-random selection, with those that game players enjoyed becoming successful and causing developers to make more games based on their modified template, and those that people did not enjoy fading into the past and becoming "extinct" or supplanted by more successful variations.

It is important to note that any species/genre still in existence today is quite obviously not extinct. Furthermore, the shooter genre as I see it is quite happily at a point where large-scale macromutations such as the "innovations" you suggest are very likely to be detrimental to the success of the individual game possessing them. Under the selection of shooting fans, there may be a general dislike of that game, and although there may be small pockets of appreciation, it will not be enough for that mutant individual to leave any offspring, so to speak.

As an aside, one must be careful not to fall into the trap of believing that there can only be one successful species in the end. Any ecosystem holds many species, each of which occupies a specialized niche. Video gamers are not homogeneous - different gamers have different tastes. The shooting genre may be small, but it does thrive in it niche audience. Genres survive when enough people like it, and there are plenty of people who like shooters as they are now.

Cats may be more numerous in the world than albatrosses and surely more people like cats than they do albatrosses, but you cannot take a cat and throw it off a cliff and expect it to do better than an albatross (as you suggest that such changes to the genre are improvements).

tl;dr my own post: Change is good when everybody likes it. Not so when only a minority of the community wants it.

[MathU]

I'm not going to trivialize the discussion like an arrogant elitist by calling the topic starter a troll. Please continue, w00ts.

committed fan of ignorant shit posts^

committed to being a jerk^

[RackGaki]

Try Senkou no Ronde. (...but wouldn't air-melee be "a fighting game in the air" instead of "a shooter"?)

My point was having more things one is able to do in the game and up the amount of things you can do (possibility space), it is not any one specific thing, since when you are designing a real game your prototype and iterate to see if it "works" and whether or not you can tune it an work on it to get it to where you want it to be in terms of fun and interactivity.

Holy shit, you just described Senko no Ronde! Try the fucking game, get back to us.