Space Phallus is a one level (with multiple stages) demo of a new, very retro, fast-paced shmup by Charlie (of Bullet Candy fame). It’s pretty unique, being a game where a dog’s head faces off against various phallic symbols. It’s also a very fun and extremely challenging, and there aren’t as many horizontal shooters made these days.
Charlie gets several things right in the game, mainly the proper use of gravity in a horizontal shmup. The various archetypal enemies have shots that are affected, ensuring that no spot is safe for long. With good level design, and we see a great start to that here, the game can herd you into different areas.
You’ll find yourself memorizing the patterns and their scripts, much as you should with the classics. You have 3 weapons, including your main shot, a limited supply of missiles (you can collect more), and a big flame-thrower super weapon. It’s a fast game, and life is cheap.
The graphics are great, very different from Bullet Candy and somewhat reminiscent of several Cactus games. The music is also very well done, 8-bit in style as well and like something out of Megaman.
While I think the idea of guiding friendly craft against the enemies is pretty good, the implementation has some serious flaws. Easiest to fix are the rather hard to see bullets that blend into the background. A little more difficult, though more understandable given the time pressures, is the AI of the novice pilots. They’re just not smart, and “nudging” them to stop them doesn’t make much sense. A proper AI here would really help.
One more thing I’d like to point out here. The game suffers from a variety of inconsistencies. Players like consistency, though, and the game needs it. The novices cannot collide with enemies, but can with the enemy bullets. The reverse is true for your own ship. As well, the novices can fly “over” the environment, you cannot. Given the 2 week time frame, these are not easy problems to solve without perhaps changing the way the game fundamentally plays (such as controlling both ships as in Bomber Escort).
Xevious Resurrection looks pretty good, though the pacing seems too slow. Just looks too easy. But I do like how the invincible barriers and the various lasers subtly direct your movement. Via Sixty Hertz.
Allied is Mr. Explode‘s entry in Session 9: Friendly Units. It’s a vertical scrolling shmup, with some perspective thrown in. I usually don’t like perspective, but in this case I’m neutral (more on this later). The game is written in Python, and does require a few extra installs, so be sure to follow the instructions in the Shmup-Dev post.
Game play is straight forward, arrows to move and ‘Z‘ to shoot. The theme mechanic manifests in certain enemy ships that can be shot and “turned” to your side. They then flip around and start shooting with you. I like the idea, but I think it needs a bit of fixing. I actually think a more abstract style would fit, and turning enemies to your side becomes literally that… the presentation is such that they are physically flipped around. It’s a subtle difference I think, and would help the perspective feel more part of the game. The popcorn enemies “slide” toward you, automatically shooting in the direction they face.
The game succeeds as a prototype, though, and is nicely packaged. It has power-ups and a boss. If the allies can be made to feel more like part of the game rather than an aside, it’s got some great potential.
Bean sent me a link to his new blog, SHMUPtheory. It’s a little different, with an interesting and unique approach. As the title suggests, there’s a little theory there, some humour, and a varied approach to topic selection (see Galaga: When going left isn’t always right). I enjoyed the articles a fair bit, they’re quite well written. I’ll be checking this Bean‘s blog each week.
LittleBear
says: You're singing to the preacher.
