Weapons are ready. Enemies are ready enough. It was time to put them together and see how this game was going to feel.
I setup a very simple level without many hard obstacles to avoid so I could focus on how the shooting felt. This was also the first time I started exporting to Android so I could test it on my tablet and phone. If there is ever any advice I can give it is to do on-device testing much, much earlier than I did. It can reveal a lot about your game and save you reworking mechanics that you thought would work on a touch device but really you had no idea.
Things were looking good! The weapon was nice and responsive, aiming was almost too easy, I was fairly happy with the animations and punch of the screen shake. But now it came down to one big question: What direction was I going to go for the type of shooter I was trying to create? Very quickly I realized that this style of weapon wouldn’t work in a more traditional shoot em up with lots of enemies on the screen at once. It was time to weigh up the many pros and cons of the various options ahead of me.
It has been a while since I was able to sneak a list in to the blog so here are some of the bigger inspirations I have from a shoot em up perspective. I think all of these games stand the test of time very well and are still worth a play. Also some amazing soundtracks. Looking at you, Thunder Force IV.
- 1992 – Thunder Force IV – Technosoft – Sega Genesis
- 1995 – Tyrian – Eclipse Software – PC
- 1994 – Raptor: Call of the Shadows – Cygnus Studios – PC
- 1992 – Aero Fighters – Video System – SNES / Arcade
- 1991 – Super R-Type – Irem – SNES
- 1989 – Gradius III – Konami – SNES / Arcade
Both Tyrian and Raptor are available for quite cheap prices on GOG in updated versions with modern system support. I can’t recommend either of them enough.
Recon Auth Signing Out