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[BlueSweatshirt]

Hello everyone!

For a long time, shmups have been sort of *doing their own thing*, the genre has become more Indie/doujin, rather than mainstream. I can't say I have any complaints to that. But what that does mean, is that shmups have a very small target audience, and such, few titles make it mainstream.

Long-time shmup players and etc. can note that ever since Space Invaders, shmups have followed very much the same ideas and concepts.

You generally have lives(+1 hit KO), infinite ammunition, a fixed axis of fire, and that's it. Few games have gone off the tangent. Radiant Silvergun, Geometry Wars, and Gradius as example. On the Indie field, we have rRootage, Linley Henzell's games, and Clean Asia!
I'm sure someone could make a better list, feel free to mention games.


Once shmups hit the 90s, they started to cater towards the hardcore players only. Why? Well, it's a thing like 'this is our ball game'. More advanced bullet patterns, more powerful waves of enemies, more everything. This was when the more casual audiences split off, and games like FPSs and adventure games took over. I'd like to go back to the beginning, and discuss the whole idea of shmups from the ground-up.

Now, to start things off, I'd like to bring up a few points and questions.

All(most) shmups have three four things in common, as I mentioned:

• 1-Hit KO + Lives
• Infinite Ammunition
• Fixed shooting axis
• Repititivy(pointed out by moi)

What would happen if we went off the tangent on these? Space Invaders was great, but most of it's design decisions were due to technical limitations. Albeit, maybe not these.
Why not try a game with finite ammunition? A bit of micromanagement.
Why not try something without a fixed axis? Okay, well. Non-fixed axis shmups are actually pretty common. But I hardly ever see them done efficiently and 'properly', it might just be me.
And finally, why not try to deviate from 1-hit deaths and live counts? Sure, from my experience, health bars don't work so well. But what else could we do?

And in a more broad subject, what can we do to make a shmup that both caters to hardcore players, yet is welcoming and fun to newer or less experienced players?

And finally. Why is it that hardly any shmups are story-driven? It's a rare commodity to see, and in almost all cases, it's only made me just as interested in playing the game through as any RPG or Adventure game,(with a good story) instead of just playing the same stages over and over to perfect myself and get a higher score. I'm not talking about those funky overlays between stages, I mean the genuine stories you actually care to see the progression of.

Let's make this topic go places. 
(hopefully)

[Gorgoo]

It seemed to me that The World Ends with You's battle system seemed very much like someone added shmup gameplay elements to a beat-em-up. It's definitely a niche game in itself, but it doesn't play anything like a traditional shmup (or RPG for that matter).

The main character's attacks weren't all straightforward bullets, and there were some pretty strange ones (like barbed wire that would form a line across the entire battlefield and damage enemies that collided with it), but survival was often based on dodging complex attack patterns, especially in the final boss battle.

Personally, though, I think that one of the problems with shmups is that playing in a spaceship makes the gameplay extremely linear, in that it always needs to keep moving forward. Some games get around that, but most don't. It might be interesting to see a game that does, though, like a Metroidvania where the player character can fly at will and enemies have shmup-style attack patterns.

[moi]

All(most) shmups have three things in common, as I mentioned:

• 1-Hit KO + Lives
• Infinite Ammunition
• Fixed shooting axis

What would happen if we went off the tangent on these? Space Invaders was great, but most of it's design decisions were due to technical limitations. Albeit, maybe not these.
Why not try a game with finite ammunition? A bit of micromanagement.

Weapon management would only be interesting if the level was not linear and if you could navigate around (to look for ammo and stuff), but I think linearity of ther level is a lso a key element for a schwump.
I mean if you just navigate a maze or something it would become more some sort of metroidvania than a schwump wouldn't it?

that's why I think you couldn't change to much over the traditional weapon management, or else you'll just go into another genre. But I do think there is room for change with the other "rules".

BTW, here is another key point of this genre:
-repetitivity

[BlueSweatshirt]

That's a good couple of points, moi.

I've always noted a shmup to be a game that heavily relies on reflexes, and dodging bullets. Whilst at the same time shooting enemies. I've never really noted shmup for their linearity. But it certainly is something to think about.

Repetitivity, I agree.
While some shmups deviate, this is certainly a key point to the genre.
Funny, I've always found the shmups that *mixed things up*, to be the funnest. GoCL by Linley Henzell is an example. The enemy pattern is never quite the same as the previous time you played. It feels fairly new every time.

@Gorgoo
I can't say much to what you brought up, since I've yet to play TWEWY. I feel compelled to pick it up now. Let's see if my DS still works. 


So, linearity and repetitivity. These mix in to make the game, well, repetitive. Therefore not giving any but the same experience every time. How can we eliminate such linearity, and therefor the repitition, to provide a dynamic experience?
Linearity could be easily destroyed by leaving the ship/player's progression entirely to the player's decision. As Gorgoo pointed out, the linearity is heavily based on the fact the ship is always scrolling on it's own. But is that an effective method? Is linearity in levels generally that bad?
I don't think so, necessarily. A level's linearity is almost a key point of a shmup. So with that, how can we eliminate repetitivity?
There is, of course, mixing up the enemy's spawn patterns. But that would be either laborous work, or a lot of small messy deviation. Procedural generation of enemy patterns could be interesting.

[Gorgoo]

I think the repetitiveness is a result of the linearity, really. The movement in shmups is constrained enough (you can dodge while you're moving, but really you're always moving in the direction the game decides) that levels can often only be taken on in a certain way, or in a few similar ways.

And I'm really not saying that shmups are bad. They're just made for a niche audience, and I think that breaking from the complete linearity while keeping most of the other elements of the genre would do a lot to broaden the genre.

I used the example of Metroidvania-style games, but really, that was an extreme example. A game could be as linear as Mario, with straightforward levels played in a (mostly) set order, but still allow more ways to play than most shmups do, simply because the pace of the level isn't preset, allowing for things like branching paths that the player doesn't need to know about in advance to find, or the ability to backtrack as another way to escape enemies.

Actually, I think that, a few years ago, an RPG was released where the player controlled a spaceship. I only ever played a small part of the demo, but if I remember correctly, it played a lot like a freeroaming shmup. There's also Sigma Star Saga, an RPG with shmup bosses and enemy waves instead of the traditional turn-based battle system.

[moi]

I think the repetitiveness is a result of the linearity, really. The movement in shmups is constrained enough (you can dodge while you're moving, but really you're always moving in the direction the game decides) that levels can often only be taken on in a certain way, or in a few similar ways.

Yeah but repetitivity is the key element for some players, more precisely those who like to one-credit the game and optimize/abuse scoring.

[easynam]

There is, of course, mixing up the enemy's spawn patterns. But that would be either laborous work, or a lot of small messy deviation. Procedural generation of enemy patterns could be interesting.

I actually did this in the shmup I made, but it was really simple. I think I'll try and do something more complex next time.

[Gorgoo]

Yeah but repetitivity is the key element for some players, more precisely those who like to one-credit the game and optimize/abuse scoring.

Oh, definitely. I'm not saying that shmups which are built for a niche audience are bad. I like them myself. I'm just trying to help think of ways to make games which are still recognizable as shmups (or shmup-influenced), but which break from the (in my opinion) overly narrow genre conventions. Something like what Spelunky is to roguelikes. There's definitely still a place for traditional shmups, and there are a lot of great ones.

EDIT: Now that I think of it, replacing the memorization for the sake of not losing a life with memorization for the sake of getting through the game faster than anyone else could be an interesting change, too. Not that speed run-based games haven't been done before, of course.

[Montoli]

Actually, I have seen some Shmups that allow for more than 1-hit KOs.  (Gradius allowed for a shield that absorbed one or more bullets as a powerup, and I know I've seen some with actual lifebars.  (Maya Kai for example.)  Although, that being said, I personally find the ones with lifebars to be more annoying, but that might just be because of presentation.  (I often feel like I don't get enough feedback that I'm being hit, since there is so much else going on.  At least with one hit kills, you know as soon as you fail to dodge, and it even usually clears the screen of bullets for you.)

Re:  Non-fixed-axis shmups - I think you could argue that things like Geometry Wars (or even its grandparent, Smash TV or Robotron) fall into this category.  So they definitely exist.  The fact that most are done poorly I think can be attributed to the fact that any successful formula generates imitators, and in keeping with Sturgeon's Law, 90% of them are crud.

Re: Shmups being story driven.  I'm actually not sure what you mean by this.  Many shmups put [frequently bad] story scenes in between their game levels.  Is this not what you're thinking of?  It seems like they're at least reaching a Ninja Gaiden (NES) level of storytelling there?  Not saying that's the best high-water mark, but it's there at least?

The biggest problem here I think is that there aren't enough places for the story to branch in the traditional model.  Since you either survive or die, the story either goes on, or stops, with you dead.  So while many shmups have [frequently fairly bad] stories overlayed on top of them, there are seldom many decision points or player interactions.  A few have experimented with "good endings vs. less good endings" based on how well you did in the game (Imperishable Night, for example, has a different final level and story ending, depending on if you were able to make it to the end without continuing.)

Shameless self plug:  My current project [nearly complete!] is at least somewhat relevant in a conversation about exploring the bounds of a shmup.  This may not technically be part of the shmup genre any more, the main gimick is that you play as the boss instead of the fragile little ship.)

[BlueSweatshirt]

Robotron was a fun game. I still have a copy of it, actually.

When I said story, I didn't even consider those games. 
I was more talking about shmups actually following a story, not simply having the story as a simple overlay to explain the game's progression.

Moreof, a story that you actually care about, instead of spamming the blue button to skip through.

[genericuser]

The problem with story in shmups is that most shmup players play that genre precisely because it's straight-to-the-point action; in short, the shmup crowd is unlikely to care about the story because LAZERSPAMDANMAKUDODGEDODGEDODGE.

^{The Hardcore Gamer laughs at your
attempts to distract him from the gameplay.}

EDIT: More shameless self-plugs; my current project, Seismobomber(not at all complete!) deals with finite ammo- in fact, the game ends once you fire your single "shot"(well actually it's a bomb but yeah but no but yeah  )

[Montoli]

Heh.  Really?  I would argue that the



to which Touhou fans go would seem to suggest that at least some of them are paying some attention to the story and characters.

(Actually, its kind of funny - if you go to the shmup forums there was a thread there a while ago complaining that people like Touhou for the wrong reasons - they claimed not enough people appreciated the excellent, challenging gameplay, and far too many only played it for the characters and story.  Which struck me as an odd argument to be making, but maybe the poster was the fellow you found a picture of.

[genericuser]

I was talking more about the "story that you care about" part- it's very difficult to create an engaging story for a shmup when it needs to be explained quickly, and when you're not even sure if the player cares about it.

[Triplefox]

Well, the number one element that the present-day shmup has to offer is level design: beautiful showers of ships and bullets presented in a way that is challenging but not impossible to navigate through.

Most bad shmups basically ignore the level design aspect and spam enemies randomly or nearly so.

Something that I think has been lost is a balanced emphasis on shoot skill vs. dodge skill. Space Invaders and Galaga are all about getting high accuracy out of slow and limited quantities of bullets. But it looks like most new games lean towards danmaku proportions, which are considerably more impressive, but also all but remove shooting from the equation.

Something that I feel has barely been explored is the inclusion of more "stat-based" or "simulation" elements. There are games with upgrades, but they're mostly done in the extremely straightforward "earn money to buy bigger gun at the shop" fashion. Tyrian did a little bit better and at least made it so that you had level branching where different levels gave you different shops and story text. And as for the simulation part, hardly anyone tries that. It's always "one ship vs. world" with no semblance of realistic motivations for the game scenario - I think it would be awesome if you were part of a squadron and you got into one-on-one duels and the ships were mostly evenly matched or something along those lines.

I did a prototype for a shmup which was like "Elite" and let you retraverse areas any number of times. That part was mildly interesting. I also tried a mechanic in it where you could switch from a fire control mode(launch and maneuver missiles) to a movement mode(regular shooting). That part didn't go so well - too confusing.

I think there should be more horizontal-scrolling shmups using physics engines.

The game I'm doing right now has definite shmup elements to it, but they are set-pieces that occur within the context of an environment you explore, and they aren't the only gameplay on offer.

[Montoli]

I was talking more about the "story that you care about" part- it's very difficult to create an engaging story for a shmup when it needs to be explained quickly, and when you're not even sure if the player cares about it.

True, although none of these problems are unique to Shmups.  Most games that try to have stories suffer from these.  Only games that openly claim to be something like RPGs or Interactive Fiction can really get away with just having whatever story they want, since they know that most people know enough to not play the game if they don't want a story...

[Ego_Shiner]

allowing for things like branching paths that the player doesn't need to know about in advance to find, or the ability to backtrack as another way to escape enemies.

http://virtualnes.com/play/?id=NES-68&s=9

[ElijahKatz]

You guys should check out Captain Forever...

[Bones]

I've been secretly working on a sandbox universe RPG top-down shmup with my buddy General Leo.


keep it on the DL. (he doesn't know about this video)
ATM it's kind of like, a really big pimped out Asteroids universe.
But soon there will be AI running around in the world doing their jobs.

http://www.yoyogames.com/games/show/598
We're re-making an old project of Leo's called Spaceship Outlaws
I was re-making all the old sprites he had there was more done, but I think I lost them. 


So keep an out for this one.

[kappa]

Tyrian had a nice story too, although not told ingame but through mail that you received on the menus. It was completely optional, so you could just ignore it.

[Bones]

Or if you take a look at Paul Eres' "non-violent" shmup Saturated Dreamers.
That's an example of using the story and artwork instead of the quick thinking dodging of bullets.
Which I guess in the end game is not a "Shoot em up"