Tag Archives: shmups

Cybermanga

Plenty of people have asked about my game project – what is it really about?

I’ve always let them know, that it’s a 2D shooting game set within a cyberpunk universe, with anime/manga influences.

Response has been mostly positive. After all, shooting stuff, cyberpunk worlds and big eyes with speed lines are things of great interest to game fans. Of course one could also add anime, manga and sci-fi enthusiasts in there too.

The beauty of anime and manga is the sheer amount steeped in cyberpunk lore. At a drop of a hat I can think of several titles: Akira, Angel Cop, Appleseed, Battle Angel Alita, Black Magic M-66, Bubblegum Crisis, Cyber City Oedo 808, Cybernetics Guardian, Dirty Pair, Genocyber, Ghost In the Shell, M.D. Geist, Megazone 23, Roujin Z, Serial Experiments Lain and Silent Möbius. And that’s just the short list.

cybercityodeo808 — In the future, everyone has great hair

I would recommend, anyone who has even a passing interest in cyberpunk, anime and manga to check out some of the above. If you’ve been playing video games for the past 20+ years, it should not surprise you how much of an influence these have been on your favourite medium.

It’s quite harrowing to pick just one or two titles that have had the biggest influence on me, personally. However, the Appleseed manga just clicked with me two decades ago when I picked up my first copy. Likewise, Akira and Cyber City Oedo 808 both had a profound impact, visually stunning masterpieces that they were and still are.

When I commenced with development of my game, I opted for a cyberpunk theme. Due to the fact that there weren’t too many traditional shooting games based in such a universe. Most tend to be space shooters, which is perfectly fine but didn’t inspire me much to follow suit. It’s not that the concept of a cyberpunk shooting game is terribly original but far less common.

Nevertheless, still a window of opportunity to indulge and create a cyberpunk world with interesting characters that fit the bill. This presented a challenge on how to best depict all this within the boundaries of a two dimensional, top-down viewpoint. How the rich tapestry of manga-infused hyperreality would be brought to life as a shooting game, regardless of confines.

Fortunately pixel art lends itself beautifully in helping formulate such a world within a retro game format. The tinny, metallic sound of FM synthesis provide the ideal, aural backdrop of a future make-believe dystopia. Cataclysmic electropunk, new wave, synthwave or industrial beats for ersatz cyborgs. All angles are covered.

Sticking feverishly to 80’s neon-noir and anime aesthetics. This was always meant to be a brightly coloured dystopia. The dour mood brought about by modern grey/brown first person shooters have no place in a 16-BIT Shock production. As cheesy and trite as this may sound – I wear shades because the future is bright.

Bass Cadet 02 – Musha Aleste

Welcome to yet another edition of Bass Cadet!

This week I’ll be showcasing another one of my favourites. Compile’s seminal Aleste series was lucky enough to get the Toaplan treatment. Two of the world’s greatest shmup developers united and gave us the mighty – Musha Aleste or M.U.S.H.A as it was known in the States.

There are no words to describe what a phenomenal game this is. Boasting fast-paced shooting action within a stunning futuristic-oriental world setting. Unlike other shmups where the player often pilots a spaceship of some sort. Here we get something way cooler. The so-called metallic uniframe super hybrid armor happens to be a fully fledged mecha. Manga and anime fans, rejoice!

This is a vertically scrolling shooter with some impressive parallax, particularly on the third stage. It was a fairly early release for the Sega Mega Drive / Genesis since it came out in 1990. Which just make some of the technical achievements in this game, even more notable.

Another stand out point is the music. Composed by Toshiaki Sakoda, he managed to deliver the ultimate shooting game soundtrack of the early 90’s. Everyone who loves the genre is still reminiscing Musha Aleste’s hard rocking, heart pounding, synth-assault of an allegory of an electric metal orchestra.

It seldom gets any better than this. Few game soundtracks get the blood pumping like this one does. I am not aware of an actual OST album for Musha Aleste ever getting released. An unfortunate oversight that I hope will be rectified, one day.

Die-hard fans probably have the cart rammed in their Mega Drives permanently, the volume set to max. They get to enjoy the music every time they try to make it through to the end, on hard mode. It’s quite the experience. While the above video doesn’t even come close to recreating the exhilaration, the music is there for all to enjoy.

Shooting & Dodging

When Space Invaders was released way back in 1978, invariably it would lay down the fundamentals of the shooting game genre. We may refer to this genre simply as shooting games, shmups or even STG’s as the Japanese prefer to call them.

However, I wish to clear something up first. A game like Space Invaders is not a shmup in the true sense. This is often a reference to shooting games that have a forced scrolling background either horizontally or vertically. At the very least, Taito’s Space Invaders can be defined as a proto-shmup for lack of a better term.

Genre categories and deviations are not that important right now. The core game mechanics of all shooting games are similar. As the title of this post clearly indicates, it’s all about shooting and dodging. Simple really, almost primal. That’s the main draw after all, shooting the enemy while avoiding getting hit yourself.

Computers have always been able to handle shooting games incredibly well. It’s a piece of cake for even underpowered systems to make things appear and disappear on screen. All this may give the impression that developing a shooting game is easy peasy!

If only that were the case. Simplicity should never be underestimated in regards to making things – easier. It takes some deft skills and an elegant touch to piece together a playable shooting game. Developing one for commercial release will often require months of play-testing and polish.

Shooting games also demand a sharp eye for detail. Not just the visual aspect, but also every single enemy placement, every movement and every pattern. And it doesn’t stop there, every bullet that will be fired, direction of fire and even colour, size and damage it can inflict all have to be taken into account. In some cases, these can all total up to over a hundred sprites on screen at once.

With so much happening on the screen, there is plenty that can go wrong. The worst in my opinion is leaving very little wiggle room for the player. So incredibly confined that a direct hit is often unavoidable, thus rendering the game either unfair or unplayable. Reducing the size of the player sprite hitbox is a common solution. My preferred method to solve this issue is smart enemy placement and firing rates.

There are various other solutions, but I won’t go further now. What’s vital is ensuring that shooting and dodging are both fun. It’s essentially the yin and yang of the majority of shooting games and what makes them addictive.