I’d really like to see a vertical scrolling shoot’em up as good as Xenon, Xenon 2 or Wing of Deaths, but with a modern 3D engine & effects.
I did a quick look and actually there are a ton of retro shoot’em up games, but I couldn’t find any one close to my liking.
The particularity of the 3 shoot’em up listed above is that the background plays a role ; in most games I found, it could show about anything, it’d not matter in term of gameplay. Also, they tend to oversaturate the screen with tons of enemies and projectiles till the readability suffers, with a scrolling that is way too fast.
So I wonder if anyone created a modern shoot’em up to my liking.
I relist the needed features:
a medium paced vertical scrolling
a background that is part of the gameplay, not just a scrolling whatever
not so much enemies & beams & balls that the background is almost invisible
modern effects = real time lighting on the 3D models, with shadows, post screen effects and whatnot
for PC (so it’ll have the 3D power to look totally awesome )
play area should be 16:9, or at least 4:3, but not 3:4 nor 9:16
Videos:
Xenon
there you can both be on ground or in the air, and the gameplay changes
Xenon 2
there are walls, with dead-ends
Wing of Deaths
there are stuff to avoid in the background (volcano, etc…) and enemies taking off from the background, turrets, etc…
Thanks in advance to anyone who could point me out in the good direction !
And if it doesn’t exist & you want to create one, let me know !
Vertically … I don’t know. There are a few though it seems (very subjectively, mind you) that most people today make these kind of games deliberately retro and pixelart style.
There are a few though not all are super new or vertical:
And then there’s the all time classic Ikaruga of course. Though it really seems there aren’t that many, at the moment. I was thinking of making a simple one just for fun myself, laterly.
Xenon was cool and popular, although at the time the framerate was a bit slow… not sure i can think of any modern versions of this in a vertical direction, but there have been a few good-looking/effect-laden side-scrolling shootemups in the past few years. Humans must Answer, for example.
Yes, there is one on the app store called iFighter 2, which is not only an excellent shmup, but a good example of free to play monetisation done right.
@imaginaryhuman_1 ,
Humans must Answer seems to be sprite based (ie: the lighting effects are pretty basic on the ships)
@Meltdown ,
same, iFighter 2 is sprite based ; it seems pretty nice, though, for a mobile game!
But actually, I’d like a PC game with millions of polygons (I clarified this in my OP).
So it seems there’s no close match of what I’m looking for… Is there a market to take ? Or it’d just need too much effort without bringing extra sales compared to the classic shoot’em up games we already have…?
There are some 3d ones for pc that are sort of verticle, flying upwards but actually flying into the screen somewhat. I forget what the one was that i saw but it was all 3d objects.
Tablets are a good fit as far as the screen orientation is concerned. But they’re abysmal from a control-scheme perspective. Standard vertical shoot-em-ups are usually about twitch-reflexes and prediction. They rose from the arcade scene. It’s hard to adapt them for modern displays, because you lose a huge amount of screen space. And very few users are going to be willing to tip their TV on its side just to get the optimal format.
I think there IS a market to cater to here. A lot more people these days appreciate games that focus on short but engaging play sessions. And the shoot-em-up genre lends itself well to that sort of experience. But you would need to figure out a way to make engaging gameplay that the player can grasp quickly, and overcome the screen issue. I’m confident that there is a solution to these issues. (there usually is)
One solution I’ve thought of for the screen issue is to make a multiplayer-focused vertical shmup where you use split-screen to make up for the odd aspect ratio.
I’m not convinced of the market. Maybe for casual mobile games, if you can get the control scheme right.
But for consoles or PC move left, right and shoot hardly make engaging gameplay anymore. The main reason to play these is nostalgia. And that works better with retro graphics.
There’s a side-scrolling one on the PS Vita which might also be on PS3/PC. I forget the name, I’m sure you’ll find it if you look though.
I doubt that vertical scrolling is likely to be a thing in today’s world of wide screen monitors, unless it’s a mobile-only title designed to play portrait.
I have a different view than many of these folks I am sure there is a market for a good solid scrolling shootemup. I don’t know about mobile because the controls just suck for action gaming. On PC and consoles where a player can use a joy pad it’d be a different experience. There is at least one awesome looking scrolling shooter being created by people on this forum. I saw it on the WIP or Showcase forum.
If you do a great job there will be a market for it. If you price it right and market it well you should make sales. It is true that many players have experienced these kind of games many times so making one now you should go all out with it. I’d recommend checking out videos / emulators of Neo Geo shmups to see examples of how to do these with class. But really you could do a solid shemup period and people may love it. I think many people think people only like the styles of games from the 90s because of nostalgia. Sure there is appeal in that but there is another completely different and very valid reason for liking these kind of games: simply wanting something different. When all you mainly see are FPS, RPGs, Tower Defense/RTS, puzzle games, racing games and so on nearly all in 3D… people just want something different. That is a big reason why I still play my NES and Genesis from time to time. Because although the games are old they are unique compared to what is most common these days.
Of course, a lot of Indys have realized this so there are many games being made in recent years that are similar to the 90s games. Which is great. We need more unique stuff even if that means going back to games from 25 years ago and reviving them.
@Ryiah ,
6 years old 3D gamer card can pump up millions of polygons per frame at 60 fps, which means about 80% of buying gamers on PC can get awesome visuals ( => Steam Hardware & Software Survey ), or maybe even more as recent Intel IGPs (ie: 4400 and above) give pretty decent result as well.
I guess this kind of games can appeal to a lot of different people, so the possible buyers might not be all stuck with 10-year old PCs…
@RichardKain ,
yup a dual mode with a splitscreen on a 16:9 TV would work pretty well !
@Kiwasi ,
they are a lot of people who enjoy simpler games to play, at least from time to time ; such game might not sell million copies, but it could go into the 10k-100k range, no …?
One of the challenges inherent in this genre is the separation between foreground and background elements. It’s one of the hurdles you have to consider when producing a title like this with modern graphics. With these types of games, it’s important that the player has the visual feedback necessary to distinguish which elements can be interacted with, and which can’t. This is harder when using 3D graphics. The more detailed you make the background, the more likely it is that foreground elements will get lost in it.
Wise color choices are one way to compensate. You could also use some post-processing effects, like blurring or soft focus, to make the background less distinct while maintaining sharp detail on the foreground elements.
)
