What kind of Shmup is this?

[SgtSepticLemon]

Is it a scoring shooter like Star Soldier...

or is it a bullet hell like Ikaruga and Touhou?

[p : saturn burg]

I would like to know this, too.

For what it's worth, it is tagged as a bullet hell and screenshots/some of the reviews support this.

[SgtSepticLemon]

Originally posted by Pen. ghossamaghoulcuraga:

For what it's worth, it is tagged as a bullet hell and screenshots/some of the reviews support this.

Thing is, I'm getting bored of bullet hell shooters, I'm looking for something a little different, maybe something more retro, like a Star Soldier Shooter, or even like a Galaga/Space Invaders style shooter. And before people post it, yes I do own Titan Attacks :P

[Drilian]

At the risk of losing my tiny. tiny amount of shmup street cred, I honestly am not sure what category the game fits into. I'm not, truth be told, a heavy player of modern shmups - I've played a few (Ikaruga, Jamestown, Resogun, which I loved; Sine Mora, which I didn't).

I tried to pattern the game off of the aspects of shmups that I liked - but my tastes veer a little more old-school, back to Gradius/R-Type/Raiden. So Procyon is similar to those, in ways.

Of course, it's also more like a vertical shmup than a horizontal one (no environmental obstacles, top-down perspective) -- I tend to think of it as a veritcal scroller turned sideways.

For what it's worth, I've never really considered Proycon a bullet hell. True, there are some beefy waves of bullets later in the game, but they don't really have the elegance that a true bullet hell's patterns have. Also, the hit box in Procyon is actually closer to the shape of the ship (though I mercifully made the wings non-colliding because it does feel cool to slide between bullets that you didn't think you'd clear), rather than being the single-pixel standard for bullet hells.

Also there's the shield which you have to use strategically (especially on the later levels/higher difficulties) which adds a bit of a wrinkle to the gameplay.

But, yeah, as to what variant it fits in? I have absolutely no idea :)

[SgtSepticLemon]

Originally posted by Drilian:

I tried to pattern the game off of the aspects of shmups that I liked - but my tastes veer a little more old-school, back to Gradius/R-Type/Raiden. So Procyon is similar to those, in ways.

Ooh... that sounds good!

[shrewdlogarithm]

I can't speak much as I've not played it - but I can say that after watching the trailer my first reaction was

"HOW MANY BEAMS AND BULLETS!?!?!?!?!?!?"

If it's not bullet-hell - it's certainly bullet-purgatory - or bullet-hell's-waiting-room perhaps - or bullet-idol perhaps ;0

[Den]

Despite the name, it's not raccoon related. That's all I know.

[Drilian]

Yeah, it may have been a bad idea to name it after a star whose name is also the genus of raccoons. There's very little raccooniness to be found in the game.

[Jeneki]

Originally posted by Drilian:

Also there's the shield which you have to use strategically (especially on the later levels/higher difficulties) which adds a bit of a wrinkle to the gameplay.

Is that what's going on in the gameplay video where the ship flies right through a swarm of bullets without dying? Or is this a lifebar game where you take several hits before dying?

As for being not-quite-bullethell, there's nothing wrong with that. Many of my favorite arcade shmups come from the late 90s that bridged the gap just before full-on bullethell became the norm. (currently running Cyvern in my cab)

[Drilian]

The game is classic one-hit-one-kill.

The shield is something you can trigger (with a button hold) to block enemy projectiles (but not enemy ships). It has a limited energy pool (via a meter on the back of the ship, which you can't see in the trailers because I pulled the HUD elements out for coolness), and it's also tied to your weapon overdrive, so you have to balance "how fast do I want to mow down enemies" with "how much do I want to not die the next time I get cornered" - at least, if I did my job right :)

If you don't trigger the shield (either because you don't press the shield button or because you ran out of energy) and you touch anything (enemy bullet, enemy beam, even a soft downy duck feather) you'll explode.

Hope that clears that up :)

[Jeneki]

Heck yeah! :D

[GrundleBuster™]

Drillian, this game is great! Really well done.

[Rizzeld]

Originally posted by Drilian:

At the risk of losing my tiny. tiny amount of shmup street cred, I honestly am not sure what category the game fits into. I'm not, truth be told, a heavy player of modern shmups - I've played a few (Ikaruga, Jamestown, Resogun, which I loved; Sine Mora, which I didn't).

I tried to pattern the game off of the aspects of shmups that I liked - but my tastes veer a little more old-school, back to Gradius/R-Type/Raiden. So Procyon is similar to those, in ways.

Of course, it's also more like a vertical shmup than a horizontal one (no environmental obstacles, top-down perspective) -- I tend to think of it as a veritcal scroller turned sideways.

For what it's worth, I've never really considered Proycon a bullet hell. True, there are some beefy waves of bullets later in the game, but they don't really have the elegance that a true bullet hell's patterns have. Also, the hit box in Procyon is actually closer to the shape of the ship (though I mercifully made the wings non-colliding because it does feel cool to slide between bullets that you didn't think you'd clear), rather than being the single-pixel standard for bullet hells.

Also there's the shield which you have to use strategically (especially on the later levels/higher difficulties) which adds a bit of a wrinkle to the gameplay.

But, yeah, as to what variant it fits in? I have absolutely no idea :)

My ♥♥♥♥♥, I loved raiden and r-type, you sir have just taken my money tyvm

[kewlbns69]

Originally posted by shrewdlogarithm:

I can't speak much as I've not played it - but I can say that after watching the trailer my first reaction was

"HOW MANY BEAMS AND BULLETS!?!?!?!?!?!?"

If it's not bullet-hell - it's certainly bullet-purgatory - or bullet-hell's-waiting-room perhaps - or bullet-idol perhaps ;0

"bullet hell purgatory" haha that's pretty funny...and kind of accurate i wouldn't say "curtain fire" comes to mind playin this but there's definitely a lotta stuff on the screen that can hurt lol

[SgtSepticLemon]

Originally posted by Drilian:

Yeah, it may have been a bad idea to name it after a star whose name is also the genus of raccoons. There's very little raccooniness to be found in the game.

Maybe a later game update where you can collect gold raccoons kinda like collecting hidden gold bees in Dodonpachi! :P

[SuperSoca®]

Drilian, your work is great. I really apreciate this game.