Mechanic/gameplay conventions
A common gameplay convention of retro shmups is upgrades/power ups that the player can obtain to make them stronger,this is done usually by increasing the players offence or defense.Offence is often increased via upgrades/power ups by either making an attack stronger or replacing it with a new attack and defense is increased by giving the player more HP/shields or a physical shield that surrounds the player protecting them from attacks from a certain direction. As seen in the image taken from Gradius 2 below the player is often given a wide range of upgrades/power ups they can get/equip,I also learnt from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gradius_II while doing my research that in Gradius 2 they take the mechanic of upgrades/power ups even further as the player can combine their upgrades to form a new and more powerful upgrade.Another gameplay convention of retro shmups is the inclusion of a scoring system which in a lot of cases is because the games first released in arcades and arcade games were almost always high score based,when the games got re-released on another platform the system was kept and so it became somewhat of a norm for older shmups to have a scoring system and even some modern shmups have included it to help mimic the older games.The player collected an amount of points that went towards their score for doing things in the game such as killing enemy’s,collecting power ups and completing the level.An example of a scoring system in use is 1942 as seen in the image bellow,I learnt this from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1942_(video_game) during my research about the game.A widely used gameplay convention of retro shmups is movement as its crucial to the game as it wouldn’t really be fun if you couldn’t move,movement is important and can be implemented with just basic movement in 4/all directions or other pieces of movement can be added such as being able to control your speed and stop.Movement can be seen in basically any shmup for example defender. Another gameplay convention of retro shmups is bosses at the end of each stage for players to fight in order to beat the level which gives the player a sense of satisfaction upon completing the fight.
I wrote about the common gameplay conventions of the shoot em up genre to help me understand what key mechanics I need to implement into my shmup for it to be considered a shmup, I found the task quite easy to complete and it has helped me in my understanding of the genre since I previously didn’t know much about it.
Target Audience
The Quantic Foundry gamer motivation grid helps show why people like playing games and puts them under the categories as seen above. The target audience of shmups according the the gamer motivation grid would be people who enjoy mastery and action due to the challenging nature of the genre as levels can get very difficult near the end of a shmup as there will be a lot of enemy fire to dodge and the constant dodging and fighting enemy forces appeals to those who enjoy action in games, Killing enemies appeals specifically to destruction and the thrill of dodging and winning would appeal to excitement. Since players can repeat stages and learn to complete them easily it appeals to the mastery element of the gamer motivations.
Another aspect of the target audience can be nostalgia as if someone grew up when shmups were at their peak of popularity then they would look back on those memories fondly and so some shmups may try to appeal to the nostalgia of some people and those who are fans of the genre.
Design Considerations
When creating my demo for my shmup I will have to take the 54 colour pallet into account as well as the 256×240 pixels resolution, my demo will include a rough version of my ideas within the game so that I can test how the hold up in action so I can decide if I need to change or remove it from my game. Due to it being a rough version it will have no sound and the artwork wont be the final polished designs. Since I am not that good at art I will have to design simplistic graphics for my game.
When it comes to the design of the gameplay I will include upgrades like that of Gradius 2 that permanently upgrade the player to reward the player, I will also include a health and shield system because I don’t like the lives system within the genre because it can be infuriating compared to a health and shield system which is more forgiving and would suit my game better. I will include a boss at the end of my level which was inspired by Gradius 2 which included a boss at the end of a level that has more health than previous enemies so that the player has a challenge and will receive a sense of satisfaction upon beating a level.. I will also include different weapons in my game which is seen in a lot of old shmups however for me the idea came from Gradius 2.Overall when designing my game Gradius 2 has been a big inspiration for me because I liked it gameplay quite a bit, I plan on my game being quite fast paced and perhaps difficult too.
Animation Considerations
When creating my demo for my shmup I will have to do simple animations as it will be my first time creating sprite animations so if I task my self with something too complicated I will have a difficult time creating it, I will also need to keep the animations simple so that they mirror the animations used in NES as my shmup is designed with an NES game in mind .I will need to include basic animations such as an explosion animation in my game. When creating animation for my game since we are using Construct 3 I could use the animation frames that you can add to a sprite to animate my sprites such as the player or I could use two separate sprites to give a rudimentary animation effect to my game , I think I might use the animation frames because it seems like it would work better and look nicer than two separate sprites and I can imagine that using two sprites could cause complications with my coding which I would prefer to avoid.
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