Guys - I need your feedback on Vertical 2D Shooter' s LEVELs - at least check it:)

I got in touch with some guys on an interesting project for DS and then for Revolution

They really like my ideas so I got this chance to design a LEVEL first and then maybe the rest of it.

Since there are a lot of gamers who play oldschool games like 2D shooters I' d be grateful for any comments on :

1.What makes a cool Level in that kind of game
2.What' s the best 2D shooter feature you remember (anything)
3.The (one and only one) best 2D shooter you' ve ever played and WHY?.
4.What would you like to see in that kind of game.

thanks :)

Surely " Terry" can help with this...

While I have always liked horizontal scrolling shooters more than vertically scrolling ones, the same formula can apply to both.

For me the pacing of the game has to be brisk, nothing slow and catatonic like Nanostray and R-type Final.

The MOST important element to me in a shooter is for the entire screen to be covered with enemy fire. I want almost every inch of the screen covered with enemy bullets, leaving very little breathing room. Total nirvana I tell ya!

The Gradius 5 boss battle that took place within that asteroid field was just amazing in that respect! You had dangerous asteroids coming at you from the rear and at the same time the boss was bombarding you with a constant stream of bullets from the front, eventually wiping out everything on screen with its energy beams! YES!

I like vertically scrolling shooters that are colorful. Colorful graphics, great music, and huge bosses. If you wanna see total coolness in 2D vertically scrolling shooters than look no further than CAVE. They crank out some high energy stuff
that will test the skill of even the most skilled shooter veterans.

As for gameplay features, I enjoy good defense systems. One particular feature I enjoyed was from Capcom' s Giga Wing (more on that later!). If you held down the fire button long enough your shield would repel enemy fire, and during those brief moments of invincibility you could bombard the enemies with your own barrage of bullets. I liked that better than having the traditional screen clearing special weapons or super megaton bombs!

Another nice defense feature was from Chaos Field, you could use your ship' s wand to wipe away enemy bullets. Nothing fancy but it got the job done.

As for favorite shooters, one of my absolute favorite shooters of all time is Salamander 2 (aka Life Force 2). I love it because the game has both horizontal and vertically scrolling levels, so you get the best of both worlds. You also spend a great deal of the game dodging enemy fire and other hazardous objects. Plus the soundtrack was filled with Konami goodness, the graphics were pretty good and colorful and the power-up/weapons system worked pretty well.

Terry Bogard - currently the most Unhelpful member of the Kikizo forums.

make sure you have upgradable guns. that is a must.

why don' t you write what you have thought out so far, and then we can take it from there. it would be easier for us to help gangsta.

I' d love to share this with you but I guess I owe those guys some secrecy.

I did come up with a " Special Attack" that makes your ship invincible for some time - only in my option it' s possible when your " Super bad ASS power gauge" is 50% full - when it' s 100% you get the traditional bomb.

Oh and Terry - YOU' RE A FREAK :)

Thanks for your posts - I actually wanted to hear what terry had to say cause I knew he' s a 2D shooter MANIAC :)

I bet you' d want to be 2D yourself if you could ?

:)

Oh and Terry - YOU' RE A FREAK :)

Thanks for your posts - I actually wanted to hear what terry had to say cause I knew he' s a 2D shooter MANIAC :)

I bet you' d want to be 2D yourself if you could ?

LOL.. Hey I live for shooters! Heck I originally purchased a DS just for one game, Nanostray. While the game was a bit underwhelming, I didn' t regret the purchase.

Just feel fortunate that I was at work when I replied to this thread and not at home, otherwise you' d be reading through a 5,001 word reply!

While there are a few other things I wanted to mention earlier but didn' t get a chance to, the one game I must mention that has a cool gameplay mechanic is of course, Ikaruga. While the color switching gameplay mechanic wasn' t entirely original since Treasure' s used something similar in their previous games, it was still done pretty well in Ikaruga. I imagine such a gameplay mechanic would be a little difficult to mimmick without shooter fans screaming " Ikaruga rip-off!" but I imagine that there are less obvious ways of doing it. Instead of the focus being on colors, it could be on something else.

Terry Bogard - currently the most Unhelpful member of the Kikizo forums.

1.What makes a cool Level in that kind of game
-Good pacing, a level that isn' t too long, lots of changes in the enemies and scenery. Good music.

2.What' s the best 2D shooter feature you remember (anything)
-Starting over where you die instead of being placed waaaaay back.

3.The (one and only one) best 2D shooter you' ve ever played and WHY?.
The one I play the most is probably Thunder Force III.

4.What would you like to see in that kind of game.
Great graphics, great music, great control, reasonable difficulty, focus (ie: don' t do things just to show off the polygon graphics or whatever, make the graphics show off the gameplay instead, a sound test, stereo sound, a pause feature, secret codez.

On certain boards on Soul Caliber II (and the arena in Fable) as you fight and defeat enemies they give you a choice: take your money and run or continue fighting. The more enemies you defeat, the more the next one is worth. I' d like to see a 2D shooter that has a similar play mechanic. Say you play through a level to the end. At that point you' re given a choice: move on to the next board or fight through that same board for double the points! Who could resist? If you DO choose to play through again, though, the difficulty level goes up accordingly. Of course, if you lose you forfeit ALL your points from that level!! Couldn' t you see yourself getting addicted to trying to play through " just one more time!" Maybe you could earn a free ship after defeating it two or three times as well. If it was on Xbox then there could be leader boards for each level! It would be SUPER ADDICTIVE! To top it all off, you could have a secret that is revealed only after completing certain requirements, such as defeating level one five times, or defeating any level 8 times. Or maybe it could be point based, like if you make it to level 3 with X amount of points you get a super ship upgrade or something.

I don' t know. I' m tired (it' s 8:06 in the morning, and I got up at 1:00pm yesterday) so I might read this later and go WTF!!!