Bullet Design

[ShmupSamurai]

Amazed no one has made a topic about
Well, I'm curious as to what everyone's thoughts are on bullet design...and no, I don't mean bullet patterns. I mean the ACTUAL APPERANCE of the bullet(s) in question.

Thoughts like:

1) Do you like them simple, or detailed/intracate?

2)What colors attract your attention the most or which do you prefer?

3)Animation, effects.

4) Shapes, and styles.

5) What should kind newbie shmup devs stay away from/or avoid?

etc...

Share your thoughts!

[n0rtygames]

Amazed no one has made a topic about
Well, I'm curious as to what everyone's thoughts are on bullet design...and no, I don't mean bullet patterns. I mean the ACTUAL APPERANCE of the bullet(s) in question.

Very very important point and well raised. There are times even the big boys get this wrong with bullets that don't stand out in certain sections of the game. My advice to start would be to make all your bullets White circles with black Borders. 1px stroke effect in Photoshop works well for this. But this is only for development purposes. Making your bullets pretty can come later.

Thoughts like:

1) Do you like them simple, or detailed/intracate?

a mix of both. Use multiple frames of animation to make your bullets pulsate and come to life, but adhere to the bright core with dark edges rule overall. You can reverse this if you want the ikagura dark bullet look. Just make sure the edges are identifiable and make the contrasting section of the bullet roughly reflects the hitbox of the bullet.

2)What colors attract your attention the most or which do you prefer?

use colours that are opposite each other. Red/blue etc. This helps the player identify the patterns amongst the mass and make good decisions.

3)Animation, effects.

simple pulsing in size works well and a bit of rotation. Effects wise, dont add transparent alpha glows. When your bullets start to overlap it begins to look horribly and you may end up masking visible bullets. Stick to alpha blending on the foreground layer and if you have the budget on your games draw, draw additive glows *behind* the bullets. This will double your draw calls though, so keep your bullets simple.

4) Shapes, and styles.

circles, round based triangles and gradient rectangles. Throw in a shuriken too.

5) What should kind newbie shmup devs stay away from/or avoid?

keep all your bullets on a single sprite sheet and draw all your projectiles in one pass. Don't use multiple files for individual bullets. This will destroy your performance. The xbox is horrible for texture swapping, for example and older pcs will hate you!

Hope that helps. I wrote this from my phone so formatting may suck

[Rozyrg]

I can't speak for anything beyond GM; but here's a few things I've learned, anyways:

- It's better to just redraw your bullets than just toss on some effects after-the-fact (ie alpha shadows), although those can be a simple, useful way to see what works. Even if you're not planning on filling the screen with projectiles, that very slight performance hit from adding superfluous draw/step functions to each one adds up quick.

- Blinking is a pretty easy way; but don't overdo it. If the contrast between the lightest and darkest frames are too stark and/or the animation is too fast, it can have the opposite effect you're going for. I would also avoid cycling between too many colors (although it does look very pretty), as they could potentially match up to any variety of background graphics, rendering them practically invisible to the player momentarily.

-When in doubt, use outlines. It's not the prettiest solution; but it works.

As for general aesthetics, I always liked those ZANAC style spinny almond shaped bullets.
(Although with those, I would again recommend making the spinning part of the bullet's animation rather than having the game actually rotate the sprite on the fly.)

[ShmupSamurai]

Cool. I personally like spinning round bullets or ones that look like blades/"X"s or jacks . Some pusling globes are nice too. Though more organic designs, like stars and clusters can be fun too. Ever thought of making bullets that look like sword "shadows"? Ring shaped bullets are also a great way to mess with players' heads...

[EmperorIng]

I like variety in bullets: long, thing lasers, big globes, small bullets, those "almond"-shaped bullets... I think it keeps things interesting instead of dodging the same blinking dot the entire time.

Now, some games pull off the one-bullet not-too-shabbily, like Under Defeat, at least in my opinion.

Sometimes even gimmicky stuff can be cool, like boomerangs, shearing stuff, etc.

But obviously, the trick is to keep it always visible and in the forefront of the action. The player-craft and the enemy bullets are the two most essentially-important things in the game, in that order.

[ZarroTsu]

Personally I think Hellsinker has one of the best bullet designs.

Something you have to realize is the sole purpose of the bullet graphic is so that the player is made aware that it exists, and its location, without having to look directly at it.

A reason I hate Touhou is how bland and uninspiring, and often unrecognizable its bullets are. Getting struck by one because you didn't see it coming is something that should be synonymous with the game being poorly made.

A good idea, as Hellsinker tried in a number of different ways, is to animate the bullet graphics so they draw more attention to them.

After all, bullets are (in most shmups) a form of substantiated energy. They aren't marshmallows.

[ShmupSamurai]

It's been awhile since I last played Hellsinker, so I can't recall what they were like...but yeah, Tohou could use some variety in it's bullet design. Their patterns are nice,granted...however the actual projectiles are as plain as fudge.

Radio Zonde also had some I liked, though my eyes are really attracted to the hand-shaped "ESP" bullets from ESPRa.de..Those are really niffty.

Akai Katana's bullets are an interesting blend of glowing missles, metal slugs(no, not THAT KIND of metal slug), and round bullets with spinning crosses in them.

[Ixmucane2]

I like seeing a variety of bullet styles in a game, matching the simple fact that different enemies shoot different stuff.
The technically easiest addition to plain round bullets, requiring only management of different sprites, is elongated shapes, aligned with their direction of movement; popular for things like laser bursts. There are also instances of wide and short bullets, usually shock waves or something of the sort.
If you can afford the necessary multiple frames and/or rotated draw calls, spinning bullets (either oblong or star-shaped) can be a visually distinguished and important minority; consider the traditional convention of representing destructible bullets as large and spinning, contrasted with small non-spinning ones.
The next level of complication is steering bullets, requiring some animation logic; needed for guided projectiles but also good-looking for fixed curves.
Large laser beams are on a class by themselves, but you should consider them together with bullets in your design of layer priorities and contrast.