Newb seeking help before beginning

[elroid]

Hi, first of all I would like to apologize for my poor grammar in English... I am interested in developing shmup game, but I have fairly decent knowledge in programming a game as I only knew how to use Flash (AS2) and I am aware that Flash isn't very suitable for developing a shmup as it could not handle large amount of bullets in game... Hence I am seeking guidance for direction of where and how should I start.

1)What compiler/engine would be recommended to be used for developing a shmup game?
Is it better for me to create my own game engine so I could have full understand of all the functions and controls so it would be more benefit for me to reuse the assets if I were to continue to develop more shmup game?

2)Is it okay for me to develop a shmup game if my skills in playing it is poor?
Actually my confidence is a little weak because my skills are fairly poor as I haven't been able to clear most shmup games without relying on continues and bombs even in Normal difficulty. However, as a game designer a believe I understand what elements/mechanics make those games I have played fun and I have also watch many replays of different games in past years so I am at least confident for the knowledge I have for shmups.

3)For starters, do I have to consider the aspect of scoring system when I design the game?
So far, I had a rough idea for the game I'm planning but I have not considered how to implement the scoring system into the game as I think I would be satisfied if the game is completed and fully workable. However, I am also aware that scoring system means a big deal in a shmup game so I need advise on this too.

4)About assets
when I am prototyping the game, is it okay for me to leave out the art/graphic assets until I have completed the game? I could create the assets the bullet that are used in the game but other than that, stuffs such as background, character sprites are really difficult to do I am planning to leave it be and refine them later by requesting help from my friends or maybe learn to draw myself otherwise if the request failed.

I also managed to obtain the sound effect assets from some Japanese free music websites. However regarding the background music, is it okay for me to use the musics that are obtained from various sources such as albums, soundtrack of game/anime, etc. Although I dont plan to use the finished product for commercial purposes, I would like to host or put a download link in my blog so that my friends or anyone who visits it could play the game. Hence, I would also like to consult opinion about this too...

5)Recommend my some resources please?
I am still browsing through this Assistance forum to look for more information bookmarking tutorial and links that I think are useful. I just read this "C++ Startup Thread" in shmup-dev.com and right now I am considering developing the game in C++. However, since I have not started so if there is any better suggestion I might change my decision. Anyway, it would be helpful if anyone could recommend me some resources so it would be easier for me to look for them Cheesy

I think that is all for the questions I currently, and I would be really thankful if you could help me out. Anyway, nice to meet you all!

[Rozyrg]

#2 : Being an equally poor (if not worse) player, I can confidently say it's really not as much of an issue as you might think. Having more skilled players on hand to give you feedback will definitely help later on, though.

What *I* do under testing circumstances is to play the difficult parts only in small chunks... if you can verify that they're at least possible seperately, that's enough I think. Also, if you do enough testing, you'll start to adapt to any challenges you've laid out the same way you would with any other shooter. It just sinks in a little deeper since you'll already know what's going on mechanically on top of having acquired the pure muscle responses. From that point, you can go pretty much as far (evil and sadistic) as you want.

It also kinda helps to put yourself in the mindset of a greedy arcade manager. Those are YOUR quarters, dammit!


#4 : Simple programmer art is nothing to be ashamed of, you could have plain colored shapes if necessary. Establishing the correct scale of everything first is what matters anyways. As for music, using songs from various sources might not be considered optimal; but it's still pretty widely accepted. You should, however, be sure to state -

• A: That's it's not yours
  B: Who and/or where it came from

I would still only recommend using them as a temporary solution, though. Use them to help get your sound/music engine running as well as you like and then find something better. If you know where to look, it's not that difficult to find people willing to do some free music for an indie game project.

[BPzeBanshee]

Welcome to the Shmups Forums, and especially to Development.

1)What compiler/engine would be recommended to be used for developing a shmup game?
Is it better for me to create my own game engine so I could have full understand of all the functions and controls so it would be more benefit for me to reuse the assets if I were to continue to develop more shmup game?

Game Maker is a common engine that people have used here. Rozyrg uses it, Alluro uses it, S20-TBL uses it, various other people in the past have used it, and I use it. In fact, this might seem like a shameless plug but take a look at GMOSSE if you decide to have a look at Game Maker because from what I'm reading it might just be your thing.

If you go the create-your-own engine idea that can work too but make sure you plan out exactly what functions you want it to have. Stuff like TATE and joystick support *could* be difficult to implement if you leave them as an afterthought, so plan your choice and then plan what engine functions you want to have within it.

2)Is it okay for me to develop a shmup game if my skills in playing it is poor?
Actually my confidence is a little weak because my skills are fairly poor as I haven't been able to clear most shmup games without relying on continues and bombs even in Normal difficulty. However, as a game designer a believe I understand what elements/mechanics make those games I have played fun and I have also watch many replays of different games in past years so I am at least confident for the knowledge I have for shmups.

I haven't cleared many games myself but I consider myself an 'okay' player. Bombs are a resource to be used so don't consider them a bad thing - just remember that depending on the mechanics you decide to have in-game bombs may be seen as either a tool to be used or a tool to be avoided at all costs unless you're left with use-or-die. For example, Yagawa games do the former, Raiden games do the latter.
Other than that pretty much what Rozyrg said - you don't have to be great but you gotta know when and where to take advice from testers too.

3)For starters, do I have to consider the aspect of scoring system when I design the game?
So far, I had a rough idea for the game I'm planning but I have not considered how to implement the scoring system into the game as I think I would be satisfied if the game is completed and fully workable. However, I am also aware that scoring system means a big deal in a shmup game so I need advise on this too.

Absolutely. It doesn't need to be complex but you are going to have to think about it rather than shoehorn it in later. The methods of scoring could be really simple like what I did in GMOSSE (basic enemy chaining which their added score upon death is multiplied by) or could be really complex. Consider this like an engine function - think this one out carefully.

4)About assets
when I am prototyping the game, is it okay for me to leave out the art/graphic assets until I have completed the game? I could create the assets the bullet that are used in the game but other than that, stuffs such as background, character sprites are really difficult to do I am planning to leave it be and refine them later by requesting help from my friends or maybe learn to draw myself otherwise if the request failed.

I also managed to obtain the sound effect assets from some Japanese free music websites. However regarding the background music, is it okay for me to use the musics that are obtained from various sources such as albums, soundtrack of game/anime, etc. Although I dont plan to use the finished product for commercial purposes, I would like to host or put a download link in my blog so that my friends or anyone who visits it could play the game. Hence, I would also like to consult opinion about this too...

This is where you'll find views differ here on this forum going by past threads. Leaving out art/graphic assets until game completion is generally okay but whatever you use in the meantime must set the precedent for how the enemies work. If you have a placeholder graphic of a small box and suddenly that changes into a huge screen-width sphere you're going to leave people going "WTF".
As for sounds/music, you have me worried already. "Obtaining sound effect assets from Japanese free music websites" is what several developers here have done in the past and personally it makes me cringe every time I hear the same sound over and over - and for music if you're going to have a commercial game this is a total no-go for obvious reasons, but if its a free project (not for profit) and listed as taken from somewhere I don't think you'll have any issues. I recommend you make your own sound effects using sfxr since it's really easy to do, and you have a wide range of choices in terms of programs to make music with. I believe S20-TBL uses a specific program on Linux somewhere (sorry I don't remember it but it's listed in Papilio's readme if you play it), Rozyrg either does his in GarageBand or gets Raigon to do it and I believe he uses a module tracker for his stuff (correct me if I'm wrong though). The choice is yours there but do put some effort into it if you're serious about trying to get paid for it.

5)Recommend my some resources please?
I am still browsing through this Assistance forum to look for more information bookmarking tutorial and links that I think are useful. I just read this "C++ Startup Thread" in shmup-dev.com and right now I am considering developing the game in C++. However, since I have not started so if there is any better suggestion I might change my decision. Anyway, it would be helpful if anyone could recommend me some resources so it would be easier for me to look for them Cheesy

This forum in itself is a great assistance.

Like I said, if you go the Game Maker route there's a lot of us here who have experience who can help you out, plus there's another forum (Yoyogames) who have got a shitload of scripts and everything in terms of code examples. There's a few here who are into the C and C++ stuff too (Udderdude uses Allegro libraries if that helps) but I find they're not all that active so you *might* be a bit more lonely in that regard.

Nice to meet you by the way. See you around.

[elroid]

Hello, thanks for replying. The feedbacks are really helpful and they really increased my confidence in many ways.

I just stumbled upon Touhou Danmakufu, a Touhou fan-made engine. In terms of bullet hell engine, is this a better engine than Game Maker. I read about this when i saw a topic in a forum which mentions that GM has difficulty managing huge amount of objects or bullets if it is not scripted carefully and I also saw that TD has most of the shmup script functions readied. However, I'm not sure whether this approach is recommended as it is convenient but seems like it reduces a lot effort value in creating a game, not sure how to describe this though...

[BPzeBanshee]

Hello, thanks for replying. The feedbacks are really helpful and they really increased my confidence in many ways.

I just stumbled upon Touhou Danmakufu, a Touhou fan-made engine. In terms of bullet hell engine, is this a better engine than Game Maker. I read about this when i saw a topic in a forum which mentions that GM has difficulty managing huge amount of objects or bullets if it is not scripted carefully and I also saw that TD has most of the shmup script functions readied. However, I'm not sure whether this approach is recommended as it is convenient but seems like it reduces a lot effort value in creating a game, not sure how to describe this though...

No, it's not.

Firstly if you're a fan of having control over appearance and such you'll run into serious issues with boss healthbars looking the way you want it (unless Danmakufu's changed that). Secondly the engine's frontend is not as userfriendly as something you could make yourself within Game Maker (if memory serves having to run an app with AppLocale to get it to work on most people's machines is a bit stupid too).

Thirdly, if memory serves Danmakufu has no TATE. Their userbase is also considerably smaller than GMs too.

Fourthly and lastly whatever you heard about GM having difficulty with huge amount of objects is either bullshit or relative to the amount. No sane shmup should be having object counts in the thousands (I try to keep the worst of my bullet patterns to total to around 200 objects at any time and I think I use more bullets than most GM users on this forum) and you'll have sufficient freedom to do what you like without needing 999999999 objects.

[Dave_K.]

Fourthly and lastly whatever you heard about GM having difficulty with huge amount of objects is either bullshit or relative to the amount. No sane shmup should be having object counts in the thousands (I try to keep the worst of my bullet patterns to total to around 200 objects at any time and I think I use more bullets than most GM users on this forum) and you'll have sufficient freedom to do what you like without needing 999999999 objects.

Same could be said about the Flash comment earlier. It all depends on how much work you are willing to put into the engine.

[elroid]

Okay, I just gotten the Game Maker, I'll start by learning from the tutorials provided first. It seems to be really different from adobe flash but I think I should be able to adapt to it once I have completed the tutorials. I hope...

Do I open another thread when I begin the shmup the project or do I continue to post the questions here?

[BPzeBanshee]

Fourthly and lastly whatever you heard about GM having difficulty with huge amount of objects is either bullshit or relative to the amount. No sane shmup should be having object counts in the thousands (I try to keep the worst of my bullet patterns to total to around 200 objects at any time and I think I use more bullets than most GM users on this forum) and you'll have sufficient freedom to do what you like without needing 999999999 objects.

Same could be said about the Flash comment earlier. It all depends on how much work you are willing to put into the engine.

This is true too. I think if you want to potentially get your game going onto multiple platforms Flash isn't as much of a good idea as it used to be though - with GM Studio coming soon and GM:HTML5 out now there is potential to target a much larger audience in terms of platforms which Flash doesn't completely support (or said platforms don't support it).

Okay, I just gotten the Game Maker, I'll start by learning from the tutorials provided first. It seems to be really different from adobe flash but I think I should be able to adapt to it once I have completed the tutorials. I hope...

Do I open another thread when I begin the shmup the project or do I continue to post the questions here?

Feel free to post any other questions here, and when you're ready to talk project-specific make a thread for it. That's exactly what I did with GMOSSE.

[elroid]

Currently I'm still in the designing phase and I have a question regarding control scheme and would like to ask about opinion about it.

1)The control scheme I plan to make involves more buttons than most shmups I had ever played as mine has 6 buttons whereas most of the games I played uses around 2-5.

a)My plan is to use the button A,S,D to allow the user to switch into respective weapon mode. The initial design is only 2 buttons which only has Next or Previous mode but I think splitting each mode to individual button would be better.

b)Z,X,C are used for shoot,bomb and focus. However, I'm still lost in thinking up a design for focus mode. Is it okay if the focus mode to only allow the player to move at a slower speed without changing the attack pattern? Alternatively, I have thought of increasing the damage but in what ratio do I scale the damage? I tried to think of methods such as allow focus shot to have a benefit of increasing damage depending on the distance between the enemy. However I think there are still flaws for these methods but I'm not sure what are they though... Furthermore I still haven't started the programming and stuffs so the implementation might come to another aspect that needs to be considered...

Oh btw, how do I call the weapon/option which the weapon/bits follow the movement of the player and other bits? Not sure how to describe it but its kinda like the Snake game.

[BPzeBanshee]

Oh btw, how do I call the weapon/option which the weapon/bits follow the movement of the player and other bits? Not sure how to describe it but its kinda like the Snake game.

Take a look at GMOSSE MK-V - Busterhawk (the third ship) has 7 different choices of options, one of those I believe is what you describe. Furthermore, there is a "Shmup snake algorithm in GML" thread by Alluro in this forum somewhere though you may have to search for it.

Currently I'm still in the designing phase and I have a question regarding control scheme and would like to ask about opinion about it.

1)The control scheme I plan to make involves more buttons than most shmups I had ever played as mine has 6 buttons whereas most of the games I played uses around 2-5.

a)My plan is to use the button A,S,D to allow the user to switch into respective weapon mode. The initial design is only 2 buttons which only has Next or Previous mode but I think splitting each mode to individual button would be better.

b)Z,X,C are used for shoot,bomb and focus. However, I'm still lost in thinking up a design for focus mode. Is it okay if the focus mode to only allow the player to move at a slower speed without changing the attack pattern? Alternatively, I have thought of increasing the damage but in what ratio do I scale the damage? I tried to think of methods such as allow focus shot to have a benefit of increasing damage depending on the distance between the enemy. However I think there are still flaws for these methods but I'm not sure what are they though... Furthermore I still haven't started the programming and stuffs so the implementation might come to another aspect that needs to be considered...

Focus mode generally slows the ship speed down, whether it changes weapon or not is generally up to the developer. These kind of design decisions I think you'll have to decide for yourself in terms of button options though. If you're going to have a ridiculous amount of buttons you'll need to allow for customisation (GMOSSE currently does not do this but it does allow for configurable joystick support, you may have to figure out how to do this yourself or find an example somewhere else) as the abnormal control scheme will surely leave people feeling inclined to want to change the control mappings to whatever suits them.