danbo wrote:yeah i'm very much against adding a shop or progression like that, though there'll be a lot of ship configurations to choose from (alternate special weapons, main gun, speed, bomb type etc) - i'm just simply not a fan of the design and would rather focus on core gameplay.
By all means design the game according to your own taste. Though I think that Arcade Shoot 'em ups and Bullet Hell Shooters are a smaller niche than they need to be because they elicit a single type of emotion ("hard fun"/"fiero") during playing, like a meal that consists of only one flavour. I still love the basic gameplay of Shmups, but there's not much motivation for me to keep playing anymore.
To clarify, it's not just the act of buying upgrades that I meant. It's also the additional motivation to play well, aside from increasing one's highscore, which is not sufficient motivation for lots of people. In Xenon 2, when an enemy formation swoops into the screen, the player ideally destroys the whole formation, because that results in a little cash bubble. So the game steers the player towards a playstyle that is fun and impressive. Also, sometimes the player will recklessly lose a life because he paid too much attention to collecting a cash bubble before it floats off the screen. Which is always fun. "Why was I so greedy? Aargh!... Let's play again!!" I wouldn't risk so much merely for a score increase.
At least for me, this motivation would already be there even if the upgrades were small. For example, if each of the weapon types has 3 upgrades that slightly increase their damage from 10 to 11, 12 and 13. And lots of classic Arcade Shmups have power-ups, it's just that the act of picking them up isn't designed in such a way that it motivates the player towards consistently playing with an enjoyable, impressive playstyle. Or if there are games like that, I don't know them.
Actually, will there be any power-ups in Blue Revolver?
danbo wrote:you say there are a lot of classic arcade shooters you can play anytime but i can think of a lot of upgrade/shop-based shooters that i can play anytime, too!
Off-topic, but could you recommend me good Shmups with shops? Xenon 2 has somewhat sluggish controls, I don't like Tyrian and Raptor, haven't tried Jets ‘n’ Guns but dislike its graphics. A game like Raiden, Strikers 1945, or maybe DoDonPachi (but slightly less extreme) plus a little shop would be nice.
A completely different additional motivation would be: trying to find secrets. Like in Doom and Quake. For example, shooting at a certain section of a midboss breaks off its wing, and if the player times it just right that the wing crashes down into a specific spot on the landscape below, let's say a gas tank, the resulting explosion opens up a cave. The player can hover over the cave to enter it, which opens a short secret level. When he exits this level, he returns to the main level.
Regrettably, this is a lot more work per secret than in Doom or Quake. It would be easier if the level is not completely without obstacles, but has walls or buildings that the player ship collides with. Then some sections of these walls might be destructible, allowing the player to fly into a small room in the building to pick up a secret bonus item. Maybe you have a better idea.
This kind of feature might be very antithetic to a score attack Shmup. But that's what I'm getting at, the Shmup genre has been reduced to a too small palette. Well, I should try to make such a game myself rather than griping to you.
Some more issues after playing a bit more:
- I have overlooked the ammo pickups for the special weapon until now. They should be more visible, and they should be presented in the "How to play" section.
- When the special weapon ammo is full, the ammo pickups can't be picked up. In the situation shortly before the boss battle where a ship drops lots of ammo, I thought at first that the ammo pickups fell down to the background and couldn't be picked up anymore. How about letting the player always pick them up, giving some bonus points when the ammo is full?
- The numbers font is difficult to read.
- The game should remember across sessions that the player chose "No" on the "Post to Twitter?" prompt and pre-select it.
danbo wrote:i do want to make a nuclear throne clone someday though...
I'd very much like to play that, and that genre is not as overrun yet...
Edit: I've read your
post about the Daily Challenges. It's a promising feature, though I personally would maybe not be motivated by it, because it's still only a highscore-run. I don't care about unlocking cosmetic stuff like ship colours or art galleries either. But it might work very well for other players.
Suggestion: you could call them "2-Minute Challenges" and design them such that they can't last more than 2.5 minutes. By setting the player's expectations this way, he might be more eager to play the challenges, because each try is bite-sized, like a single level in Super Meat Boy, and the player already knows that he can give the challenge 5 tries in 15 minutes.
After playing some more, trying to play in the way the scoring system intends, I notice that I have to constantly remind myself to switch to the special weapon after each 8-hit chain, and to collect special weapon ammo afterwards. It doesn't come natural.
danbo wrote:i do like the notion of having the special weapon look a little different at 8x though it might be misleading since it won't do any more damage... might have a play around with it
What if the special weapon actually is more powerful after an 8-hit chain? For example by adding splash damage. Then the playstyle that returns the most points is also the most powerful, and the player will try to play like that even if he doesn't care much about points.
