Hey guys.

How about Scrolling shooters niche? How popular is it compared to puzzles/logical niche? Who do you think are main guys in Scrolling shooters?

Appreciate your input.

Will find out in the Autumn. My next game "Toidoidal Cave Fighter" is a scrolling shooter of the simple sort. (And Puppygames hopes to be the big guns when it comes to shooters in due time ;))

Cas :)

My next game "Toidoidal Cave Fighter"
Cas :)

Cas,

Whats "Toidoidal"?, it's a joke right?

Alfie

Hey guys.

How about Scrolling shooters niche? How popular is it compared to puzzles/logical niche? Who do you think are main guys in Scrolling shooters?

Appreciate your input.

I like them! ;)

I have my doubts whether I represent a fair sample of the gaming population however!

Well.. I think that if the product is polished you will get nostalgia-induced sales!I think most late 20's, 30 somethings have a soft spot for shooters.. but that's my 2 cents.

Hm... puzzles aren't really a "niche".

And shoot'em ups... I wrote here a lot:
http://www.dexterity.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2964

That was after doing some basic research. And my conclusion was that it would be right now just way too much work for me. But I think I'll do one at some point in the future.

The competition:
http://www.shootthecore.com/PClinks1.html

The latest from the retail front (Shikigami No Shiro II):
http://www.gamespot.com/news/2004/06/29/news_6101577.html

Demo:
http://www.4gamer.net/jump.php?http://download.bbgames.jp/4gamer/demo/shikigami2.exe 17,3 MB

Key legend:

Normal shot: Shift or C
Shikigami shot: Ctrl, A or Z
Special attack: Alt, B or X
Pause/start: Enter or S
Movement: direction keys

edit: gamepads are of course supported

I'm sure I typed "toroidal" :P It's going to be another 80-hour development. I like the 80-hour technique.

Cas :)

The following observations come from analyzing the recent download stats of a shareware game download site: Puzzle games make up 33% of the total games available for download (most prolithic). Shooters make up 2% (least prolithic). Puzzle games get 14% of the total downloads each week (2nd top). Shooters get 6% (3rd top). On average, each puzzle game on the site gets 19 downloads per week (worst), while each shooter get 124 downloads per week (best). The most downloads a single puzzle game gets is 799 (3rd), while the most downloaded shooter gets 755 (4th).Disclaimer: This isn't as scientific as it might sound.

"toroidal"... hmm.. still a bad title. The word is rarely used and 0 out of 10 people (non native english speaker) know it. [quick survey on irc]

Ah well... guess it doesn't matter. Eventually you'll come up with a great name just before the release (as it happend with "hallublabla...") ;)

Hm... puzzles aren't really a "niche".

And shoot'em ups... I wrote here a lot:
http://www.dexterity.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2964

That was after doing some basic research. And my conclusion was that it would be right now just way too much work for me. But I think I'll do one at some point in the future.

The competition:
http://www.shootthecore.com/PClinks1.html



That's a nice collection.

Hey, I got in the PC shmup database! Neat!

Shooters are alive and well. Don't think they ever went away, really. Loads of people like them, but they can be a tough crowd...

And making a shootemup is very liberating for a game designer. Sprites moving freely all over the screen; you can tweak and modify the gameplay so easily. Not exactly the easiest kind of game to develop, but you could do a lot worse.

There is a market for these games, i LOVE them, and there arent vaguely enough of them. IMHO the greatest so far is Star Monkey (although im biased, i work with the guys who did it. There was a follow-up (Ultra Assault) whichw asnt as good.
These games are (relatively) easy to make and GREAT fun, the problem is they have to have pretty good graphics and a lot of levels to justify the price.
I've seen quite a few efforts since I finished Star Monkey, bu none of them have been good enough to get my cash.
But I think there is a market, and its not all retro either, people like quick shooters they can pick up and play.

Horizontal is better than vertical.

The following observations come from analyzing

I think a lot depends on a title. How good it is. Like I know AirStrike3D and such as AlienSky sell pretty good.

Though, I'm wondering what's the most popular niche? Neutral action/pullze games?

I think a lot depends on a title. How good it is.
Sure, good games sell. Generally, shooters tend to have higher production values than a typical puzzle game.

Those stats tell me that people are downloading lots of shooters, despite there being so few available. Shooters appear to me to be a very popular niche.

Though, I'm wondering what's the most popular niche? Neutral action/puzzle games?
On the site I analyzed, 'Action' games got the most downloads, but 'Action' games also accounted for 30% of the total games available, which hardly makes them a niche.

I'm sure I typed "toroidal" :P It's going to be another 80-hour development. I like the 80-hour technique.

Cas :)

Toroidal Cave Fighter, aka "Bagel Blaster" :p

Seriously though, I like scrolling shooters. Give me Star Force over Doom any day.

--- Rod

While we are at it, what's the difference between Action and Arcade? I always classify Betty's Beer Bar as an Arcade in download sites, I assume Action is about shooting and explosions, is that right?

[list] Puzzle games make up 33% of the total games available for download (most prolithic). Shooters make up 2% (least prolithic). Puzzle games get 14% of the total downloads each week (2nd top). Shooters get 6% (3rd top).
Similar to what we generate here but of course we are "Arcade" town so not best comparison. Kids make up a lot of gaming traffic and gravitate towards shooters and arcade games while adults that have credit cards gravitate to the puzzles. Our latest game BLOX Forever is already down to # 15 for popularity but it's hands down our top seller and bet will stay that way. As far as arcade / shooters, Mike's Platypus is selling well. Think because it's unique with cute graphics that an adult can enjoy plus the game play is good.

Here's a niche think that is under explored (HINT!)...World Domination (http://www.arcadetown.com/worlddomination/) is a nice simple strategy game with good depth that anyone can start playing and enjoy plus it sells really well. Could be the simpleness lends well to online audience while as an offline only game could do differently, hard to say.

Horizontal is better than vertical.

Thought that for a while, too.

But vertical is by far better (vertical letterbox that is). Ever played on a rotated 70cm tv? It's awesome! :D

Toroidal? Hmmm... I'd definitely think twice about using that... unless of course "toroidal" means "awkward controls" :p sorry... i just couldn't help myself

I love shooters too (horizontal, please), but I'm now writing a puzzle game. What does that say? :)

My next game "Toidoidal Cave Fighter" is a scrolling shooter of the simple sort.

What about calling it "Hemorrhoidal Cave Fighter"? People talk about how Doom 3 is supposed to be so scary, but travelling into that deep, dark underworld...now that would be seat-of-your-pants terrifying.

- Roulette

The latest from the retail front (Shikigami No Shiro II):
http://www.gamespot.com/news/2004/06/29/news_6101577.html

Demo:
http://www.4gamer.net/jump.php?http://download.bbgames.jp/4gamer/demo/shikigami2.exe 17,3 MB



Sweet! Is this Mobile Light Force? I'm a huge fan of all things shooter. Everyone should make one sooner or later(Sooner). I think everyone has their own design. As for mine I alwasy wanted to mix RPG with shooter gameplay.

I'm suprised that no one has mentioned Gridrunner ++ from Llamasoft (Jeff Minter). It's by far the best shooter I've played for years, he designed it orginally for WinCe so the controls are really simple ( mouse and one button ) but the gameplay has amazing depth.

Probably more for the hard core market as most people I've shown it to can't handle the tripped out visuals and it's intensity.

http://www.llamasoft.co.uk

I'm aiming for a end of year release for my horizontal shooter Rhys Quest, I'm aiming for a younger audience with nice big cartoony graphics and low violence, the gameplay trick is that you don't destroy the mutated enemy creatures (Koalabats) with your zaps (bullets) you transform them back into their original form and depending on how much power you hit them with they may need additional saving to stop them from plunging to their doom by either zapping them again or catching them.

It's comming together well but when play testing with my Nephews I've come to realise how hard it is to scale the difficulty so that I can have fun developing it at the hardest level and they don't give up at the lowest...

The way I'm approaching that problem these days is to develop it at the hardest setting, and then progressively strip things out etc. to make the easier settings.

If the game plays well on hard, it should be easy enough to pare it down.

I'm a huge fan of GR++, except that it's very hardcore... and it doesn't scroll ;)

Cas :)

GR++ has too many distracting pyrotechnics. It wears me out trying to work out what's going on. That's not hardcore, that's poor visual design.

Grid Runner ++ and Star Monkey are good, but I haven't been so addicted to a vertical shooter until I found Parsec 47 (http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~cs8k-cyu/windows/p47.html) by Kenta Cho. It takes a while to get used to the visuals (as with GR++) and the collision system, but once you do, it's fantastic. I played through all of the extreme levels, and it took bloody ages. P47's development time certainly would have been much lighter than a game like Star Monkey's but I still got a good 50+ hours of playing time out of it.

It's something I would have bought if I had to pay to play it, so it may not be necessary to invest a lot of development resources into a shooter that can sell. And as cliffski said, there certainly isn't much competition in the genre at the moment.

I'm also looking forward to Kitty Hawk (http://www.armyoftrolls.co.uk/new_website/aot_website/html/) by Gunstar Red.

I'm also looking forward to Kitty Hawk by Gunstar Red.
Don't hold your breath for that one. Everyone involved have lots of other projects going, progress on Kitty has been slow, and people may be losing interest. It'd be a shame if it didn't make it to completion. GrahamG (http://www.dexterity.com/forums/member.php?u=689) could tell you more but he's lost internet access for a few weeks.

GR++ has too many distracting pyrotechnics. It wears me out trying to work out what's going on. That's not hardcore, that's poor visual design.

It's different I'll give you that but if you read up on it every little bit of those "pyrotechnics" are actually feeding you information, it's a little overwhelming at first but after a while it all becomes clear and you get "in the zone" (trance like game playing state - all too rare these days) when you snap out of it you realise you've blown half an hour or more!

Similar to what we generate here but of course we are "Arcade" town so not best comparison.



Hi, I couldn't install a couple of your games when I tried today, I have Flash on my system, but it is not MX version which is very expensive. It kept failing to load saying to check the extras folder.

Grid Runner++ is cool... I like how you described it as "very hardcore" Princec. Play Ikaruga, that's very hardcore. I'm surprised that no one has mentioned any of the more recent console shooters. Kenta Cho's games are great. Every Extend is also a lot of fun, although it's not quite a shooter.