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[Hajo]

In a moment of nostalgia, I decided to try my hands on a little shmup, in memoriam of a game that I once liked to play.

As a programmer I first focused on the technical aspects of the project, maps, ships, scrolling, player input, collisions and all that. Then I realized that I'll have a whole lot of options to present this to the player.

And now I feel a bit clueless. Starting with more technical questions like resolutions (320x200 like the old games, or use the capabilities of nowadays hardware?), the style (cartoony, realistic, surreal ...) the scenery (planet surface, space, submarine, tunnels of some sort) I feel puzzled, and uncertain which path to take.

I guess it is not that helpful to post such blurry questions here, but maybe someone has experiences with making shmups and can tell me what worked for you, or what didn't?

I can pixel to some extend, do some types of cartoony graphics, and if needed I can model and render realistic/surreal things. I'm just terribly undecided which path to go.

(Please forgive me the questions if they look stupid to you. I'm not a game designer, but mostly a programmer. That's why I ask for help with design, even if it's only graphics design and not game design.)

[december]

The first question for you is how you want your game to scroll if you want it to scroll.  This is the big one.  Modern shmup players tend more to go with vertical scrollers, but many classics were horizontal, like Gradius and Defender.  Heck, you could even go with no scrolling a la Robotron or wobbly scrolling where the game moves primarily in one direction but the playfield is larger than the screen.

Next decide whether you want the focus to be on environmental hazards, enemy formations or bullet patterns.  R-Type did a lot with the stage layouts.  Xevious is iconic for looking at a game based around enemy formations, and the Shanghai Alice games are good to look at for games defined by their bullet patterns.

About resolution, a lot of shmups are not in hi-res and a lot of players are okay with that.  Collision detection with hundreds of projectiles on screen at once could be a bit wonkier in higher resolutions.

As for style, do whatever is within your means that fits the flow of your game.  Everything for spaceships, to mermaids, to insects, to motorcycles to sexy witches to Kenta Cho's abstract vectors has been done in shmups and has its fans.

If you go to the front page of TIGsource you'll see a link to a site called "the2bears" which I highly reccomend for more detailed knowledge.  2bears also has a link to a forum entirely dedicated to shmup development called shmup-dev.  They're mostly good people even if there's a few I don't completely trust 

insomnia.ac also has a glossary of shmup terms that would be helpful to know if you go to shmup-dev.  Good luck, and look forward to seeing what you produce!

[agj]

Don't think of the graphics as a final coat of paint, think of it as the face of your game. What are you trying to do with your game? What kinds of concepts, ideas, messages, etc. do you want to communicate? Choose a visual style that best reflects what you're putting into the mechanics and inner workings of your game.

[GregWS]

Haha, it's funny to hear the opposite sentiment than what I'm used to; for me it's usually art first, programming second.

Hmm, coming from it the other way isn't exactly easy; I think what agj said is probably pretty spot on.  I'd say just go with something that you think is really cool, and all the better if it's an uncommon art style.  I'd skim the Uncommon Art Styles in Games thread in the Art and Design section for inspiration, we talked about a lot of interesting art styles there.

[Hajo]

Whee, answers and suggestions

@December:

My first testing code scrolled vertically, but currently I favor horizontal. Even with a 4:3 display, if one subtracts the status area at the bottom, the display is like widescreen, and actually the larger distance across makes it a tad easier to react to enemies and obstacles. I think I'm pretty much decided for horizontal scrolling.

What I had in mind was a mix of obstacles (parts of the scenery that will block the ships path), and formations/waves of enemies that move in interesting patterns. I don't know about bullet patterns, some of the enemies will shoot aimed at the ship, other will shoot in fixed directions, kind of curtain fire.

My first try was in 640x480, windowed mode. I think I'll stick with that, just because of not having a better idea. I'll try for a tile size of 32x32 to build the scenery and background. Must see how that works out. A test with a whopping two of background tiles looked alright.

Thank you for the pointer to "the2bears" that is looking very interesting. I'm sure I can draw a lot of inspiration from there

@agj

The idea was born from a discussion about the lack of games with cooperative modes, where two or more players play together. I don't really know if this "lack" is true or was just the impression of the people involved in the discussion. But it reminded me of an old shooter called "Blood Money" (Atari ST/Amiga, I think also on other systems), that had a nice two player mode.

The only real concept is, to let two players play together, cooperatively, and design the game at least in some parts so that they really need to play as team, not as two solo players. Besides that it is meant as easy fun. No big message to communicate there, I don't want to make political or religious games. In my past projects "peace" and "cooperation" have been messages, but "peace" obviously does not work in a shooter, so "collaboration" is left.

Considering this, I think I should make the game's artwork abstract, to escape or at least ease the moral impacts. Shooting things that resemble living creatures could trigger the wrong ideas, shooting inanimate things like robots is less problematic, ethics-wise, but still destructive. Shooting colored shapes might be the most innocent way to build a shooter.

Still this leaves the question of style. I have a few ideas, but must test what will work well in the game.

@Architekt:

I'll read through the thread, with some luck I can borrow some ideas from there. Thank you for the pointer

[TeeGee]

The idea was born from a discussion about the lack of games with cooperative modes, where two or more players play together. I don't really know if this "lack" is true or was just the impression of the people involved in the discussion. But it reminded me of an old shooter called "Blood Money" (Atari ST/Amiga, I think also on other systems), that had a nice two player mode.

The only real concept is, to let two players play together, cooperatively, and design the game at least in some parts so that they really need to play as team, not as two solo players.

I'm currently making a small game (as a short break from ArcMagi) based on the same idea. Cheers there, and best of luck - we definitely need more cooperative shmups  !

[Hajo]

I'm currently making a small game (as a short break from ArcMagi) based on the same idea. Cheers there, and best of luck - we definitely need more cooperative shmups  !

Thank you! Arc Magi looks like a great, but also very work intensive project. Good luck with that, what I have seen so far is really outstanding!

Going with the "shapes" theme, I've been working on some bubbly scenery tiles. The structure loosely resembles a tunnel, and the player will navigate the vessel from left to right, scenery scrolling leftwards.

The "diamonds" and the "globes" are enemies, the "coins" will be bonuses to collect.

[agj]

In my past projects "peace" and "cooperation" have been messages, but "peace" obviously does not work in a shooter, so "collaboration" is left.

Considering this, I think I should make the game's artwork abstract, to escape or at least ease the moral impacts. Shooting things that resemble living creatures could trigger the wrong ideas, shooting inanimate things like robots is less problematic, ethics-wise, but still destructive. Shooting colored shapes might be the most innocent way to build a shooter.

That's one way to go about it. But with some left-field thinking you can still make it non-violent. For instance, the players are bugs in a house, shooting jars and causing mayhem (and no one dies, of course). For cooperative play, light-hearted settings are usually best, with silly details to laugh at.

Hmm, you could very well make something up that stems from the very cooperation that's the reason you made this game. Like, a quest for love in divorceland, to say something silly. And if you go abstract, you could get inspiration from things that are always in pairs: pants, glasses, scissors, etc.

So, with all this said --which I actually wrote before I read your last post--, I think that those graphics are okay to work with, but could use some spicing up.

[Hajo]

That's one way to go about it. But with some left-field thinking you can still make it non-violent. For instance, the players are bugs in a house, shooting jars and causing mayhem (and no one dies, of course). For cooperative play, light-hearted settings are usually best, with silly details to laugh at.

Cool idea I love this forum for that, so many creative people here! Thank you for helping me with your suggestions.

[snip some more ideas]

Today my brain just isn't working. But I'll keep your suggestions in mind, an hopefully on a better day I can draw some inspiration from them.

So, with all this said --which I actually wrote before I read your last post--, I think that those graphics are okay to work with, but could use some spicing up.

On one hand I'm happy with them, since they trigger some memories of former games that I liked. But of course that is just me. And indeed there is room for improvement, some of them were made within a few minutes, just to get an idea how the elements will fit together if I go this route.

On the other hand, your ideas and suggestions are a whole lot more creative. Particularly the "things that come in pairs" theme looks intriguing to me. The idea of a split powerups, like a left and right boot, that both players need to collect, and which then will enable the "bad ass TIGer boot cannon" gives me a smile.

I'm not sure if I'm creative enough to get far on this route. But I like such fun and silly ideas. Once my head is easier again, I should also become more creative. Maybe I can make something like that

Thank you very much for the ideas and feedback!

[agj]

You're welcome, and I hope your game turns out great.

[GregWS]

I hope the game works out too; I love the idea of a peaceful shmup! 

I think an idea to keep in mind is that you could team up with an artist here at TIGS.  Collaborate to create a game about collaboration!   

Were I not so freakishly busy at the moment (and for about the next two months) I'd offer to help out myself.

Oh, and when I heard those suggestions for going abstract, I immediately thought of those really simple/cheesy early 90's CGI (pre-rendered) graphics.  No textures, bright colours, just simple shapes and low-polygon versions of objects.  I don't know if you've ever seen the show ReBoot (it's really bad/funny Canadian CGI show btw), but that's sort of what I was thinking of.  In case you're interested, here's how I'd create that style:

Fast low-poly models in SketchUp (free and very, very easy), probably of everyday objects, export straight-on views/images of the models from SketchUp (with "Perspective" turned off to avoid distortion), scale the images into the game's scale and use them as sprites.

I think you'd need to double (well, maybe not double) your game's resolution to be able to keep the images at reasonable sizes to get that "pre-rendered" effect.  Again, I really wish I had time to help you out with this game, because now I'm really enthusiastic for the idea of a surrealistic peaceful co-op shmup.

[Hajo]

Will be fine to work together with someone Usually this also spawns a whole lot of new ideas, and it's fun.

Bad is though that work will keep me very busy till mid or even end of next week

But I'll be back

[Pishtaco]

I would love to see a shmup based on baroque mystical illustrations, like this, say. You would be sending out rays of knowledge or something, rather than firing bullets. And all the source material is out of copyright.