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[hidechron]

Ladies and Gentleman, please welcome :
Shmupius

Nothing really, just the standard shmup, plays smooth, make noise, have fun on the 3 levels of that.

Download here
.gmk here

Some part are a bit rushed, but may interest learner who want to go a bit further after the wonderful tutorial from Derek.

The look of the game is ugly, I did not cared much for the music and level design in shmup is a new thing for me but it's fun to shoot things.

Thanks to Derek for his tutorial, mess_ and Spam_One from Nofrag/Quakenet for their music and DrPetter for his awesome Sfxr.

ps : It get pretty frantic on the end

[gunmaggot]

I died, respawned inside a wall, and then died an additional two times while inside it.
Didn't bother me much because you only really get one life in shmups like Gradius anyway, and I could never hold it against a game with a name as awesome as Shmupius!
***** A++

[DavidN]

Pretty nice, especially for an early Gamemaker attempt The graphical style reminds me of the DOS games that used to float about on the BBSes/compilation freeware CDs.

If you're looking for tips for improvement, there should be more of a delay when you lose a life (and it should wait for a safe time, as shown above! It's easy to lose all your lives instantly.) I found it difficult to distinguish between bullets and the bonuses that the round ships leave behind, although this could have to do with my colourblindness. And I think that the music for the first level could do with some... replacing

[ITS_Mike]

I have never been much of a fan of horizontal shmups (vertical shmups are the best game type in the world ) but you seem to have captured the essence of shmups in general.  You can upgrade your weapon, there is enemy fire all over the place, and you can kill tons of enemies.  The game is good for what it is

Now for the critiques.

It is easy to keep dying immediately after you revive.  This could happen because the revive point is inside of a wall/enemy or you revive right on top of enemy fire.  Most games (shmups included) resolve this by making you invincible for 1-3 seconds after you revive.  You could also have specific revive points which you know are safe, and have the player revive at the last one he passed.  A revive point could be obvious with a graphic and everything, or passive and the player has no idea he just passed it.

It is also easy to mistake enemy fire for an upgrade, and vice versa.  Perhaps contain the upgrade in a bubble or some other easily identifiable object.  The problem with trying to find a solution is that you need to be equally aware of both upgrades and bullets.

There should be some visual and/or audible clue that you have collected an upgrade.  Also, when you upgrade to the next power level (2.0, 3.0, etc) it would be cool if your ship changed slightly.

The credits system gives you the feeling of being in an arcade.  However, it is a little annoying to insert all 3 credits each time.  Maybe have a button which automatically does that and starts the game?  Alternatively, you could have something in-game change depending on how many credits you enter at the start...  After thinking about this, inserting credits is how you choose difficulty level.  Maybe make this a bit more obvious, perhaps with a menu.

A pause feature would be nice.  The "P" key, return, or the space bar would work well for this.

It took me about an hour, but I finally beat the game   Although it took forever, I had fun playing.