/vr/ - Retro Games

Now that I know how to get all of the bonuses on stage 1, I'll start grinding out stage 2.

I think I'm going to have the competition for this one be one week rather than two, so the new deadline will be February 15.

>CURRENT BOARDS:
>2 MINUTE
1. 348900 - NLM
2. 346500 - Cave owns bitch
3. 344900 - shmupg gang
4. 335500 - Character O
5. 333100 - jarpig
6. 205900 - Ricardo
7. 42700 - Feetsies
>5 MINUTE
1. 910400 - shmupg gang
2. 357300 - Character O
3. 227500 - Ricardo
>RAPID MEASUREMENT: 10 SECS
1. 88 - higgins.jpg
2. 86 - Character O

Fucking finally. Turns out my autofire really wasn't at max speed. I'm surprised how much easier it all was once I cranked that bitch up.

>CURRENT BOARDS:
>2 MINUTE
1. 348900 - NLM
2. 346500 - Cave owns bitch
3. 344900 - shmupg gang
4. 335500 - Character O
5. 333100 - jarpig
6. 205900 - Ricardo
7. 42700 - Feetsies
>5 MINUTE
1. 910400 - shmupg gang
2. 227500 - Ricardo
3. 137900 - Character O
>RAPID MEASUREMENT: 10 SECS
1. 88 - higgins.jpg
2. 86 - Character O

The man who fights for Cave's honor claws his way into second! But the 5 minute boards stay barely touched. Will everyone remain content playing the qualifying round?

>CURRENT BOARDS:
>2 MINUTE
1. 348900 - NLM
2. 346500 - Cave owns bitch
3. 344900 - shmupg gang
4. 333100 - jarpig
5. 255200 - Character O
6. 205900 - Ricardo
7. 42700 - Feetsies
>5 MINUTE
1. 910400 - shmupg gang
2. 227500 - Ricardo
3. 137900 - Character O
>RAPID MEASUREMENT: 10 SECS
1. 88 - higgins.jpg
2. 86 - Character O

>>6190262
If we're talking about the pink enemies that show up after the blue Xs right around the first powerups, whether they appear at the right or left of the screen coming from the bottom seems random, similar to what direction the first wave of the first stage comes from.

>CURRENT BOARDS:
>2 MINUTE
1. 348900 - NLM
2. 344900 - shmupg gang
3. 342900 - Cave owns bitch
4. 333100 - jarpig
5. 255200 - Character O
6. 205900 - Ricardo
7. 42700 - Feetsies
>5 MINUTE
1. 910400 - shmupg gang
2. 227500 - Ricardo
3. 137900 - Character O
>RAPID MEASUREMENT: 10 SECS
1. 88 - higgins.jpg
2. 86 - Character O

>>6190209
I do have a basic idea of what enemies will come from where and where I should be for every wave leading up to the face, if that's what you mean. But there's a good amount of randomness that makes the pink enemies in particular capable of being pretty vicious, combined with the powerups not floating where I want them to all the time. Also, past the face, I have a lot less familiarity and the level gets a lot more chaotic to read, so I don't have much of a plan.

>>6190212
I never considered this, funnily enough. I'll have to check next time.

>>6190198
I realize that this is meant to be an ironic post, but I will say that a big part of the fun of this for me is discovering a strategy but by bit. I'm cool with asking for help or looking at clips to get a sense of what higher level play involves or ideas to clear tricky parts, but the thought of sitting down and studying someone else's game to copy it verbaitun sounds fucking horrendous, and I am fully willing to accept being nowhere near the top of the board if that's the price I'll have to pay for having a game that feels like it's my own.

>>6190198
As a matter of fact, I've never cleared all of the blue enemies in the third wave, or killed all of the enemies as quickly as you have.

>>6190182
You got the boss to spawn way earlier than I ever have.

This shit is driving me out of my goddamn mind. Now my ship keeps flying underneath the middle platform. I have to time the enemies so that I can have this motherfucker show up before the platform appears so I can shoot him without flying underneath, and also still get the Z panel on the left side. I'm going to fucking kill myself.

I just cannot consistently get this motherfucking face killed. I feel like I'm doing the exact same strategy - go up underneath one of the corners and unload and then follow it to the center and keep dumping before it closes - but sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't, and I don't know why.

>>6189810
That's what I was thinking. Coming from the outside, it also seems like shmup threads on here are really volatile, so it'd be a bummer to see it get deleted because of some incoherent simmering flame war that we've got nothing to do with.

Boy is it depressing to keep restarting the same run because you're dying to easy shit.

>CURRENT BOARDS:
>2 MINUTE
1. 348900 - NLM
2. 344900 - shmupg gang
3. 334400 - Cave owns bitch
4. 333100 - jarpig
5. 255200 - Character O
6. 205900 - Ricardo
7. 42700 - Feetsies
>5 MINUTE
1. 910400 - shmupg gang
2. 372300 - jarpig
3. 227500 - Ricardo
4. 137900 - Character O
>RAPID MEASUREMENT: 10 SECS
1. 88 - higgins.jpg
2. 86 - Character O

>CURRENT BOARDS:
>2 MINUTE
1. 348900 - NLM
2. 344900 - shmupg gang
3. 334400 - Cave owns bitch
4. 333100 - jarpig
5. 255200 - Character O
6. 205900 - Ricardo
7. 42700 - Feetsies
>5 MINUTE
1. 910400 - shmupg gang
2. 227500 - Ricardo
3. 137900 - Character O
>RAPID MEASUREMENT: 10 SECS
1. 88 - higgins.jpg
2. 86 - Character O

I guess they deleted the other thread. Maybe I should just make the caravan its own thread?
>CURRENT BOARDS:
>2 MINUTE
1. 348900 - NLM
2. 344900 - shmupg gang
3. 334400 - Cave owns bitch
4. 259100 - jarpig
5. 255200 - Character O
6. 205900 - Ricardo
7. 42700 - Feetsies
>5 MINUTE
1. 910400 - shmupg gang
2. 227500 - Ricardo
3. 137900 - Character O
>RAPID MEASUREMENT: 10 SECS
1. 88 - higgins.jpg
2. 86 - Character O

>>6189192
A stunning upset heralds a new board leader! Will this be the end of the line for the two minuters?

>CURRENT BOARDS:
>2 MINUTE
1. 348900 - NLM
2. 344900 - shmupg gang
3. 334400 - Cave owns bitch
4. 259100 - jarpig
5. 255200 - Character O
6. 205900 - Ricardo
7. 42700 - Feetsies
>5 MINUTE
1. 910400 - shmupg gang
2. 227500 - Ricardo
3. 137900 - Character O
>RAPID MEASUREMENT: 10 SECS
1. 88 - higgins.jpg
2. 86 - Character O

>>6189164
Right. I suspect probably anything but Star Soldier would play over better with the crowd.

>>6189124
Hm. I admit that I didn't except such a bad reception for the game from so many people. Well, I'd at least like to take a more real shake at the 5 minute mode now that the 2 minute boards seem like they're pretty close to optimal, and I think that maybe people might warm up to it a bit if they try optimizing on the 5 minute. I'd also like to see if there are any other takers who might not have seen this yet. But I guess I'll shorten the time we'll spend on it and move on to another game. Maybe a week? 5 days?

>>6189041
I admit that part of why I went with SS for the first game was to be cute of having the first ever caravan game, but also because I figure that people in here would prefer something simpler to hop into rather than have to learn a whole new complex game alongside the shmups they're already playing just for a two week competition.

I'm planning to pull from this list along with other stuff I find: https://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=20173

Part of the problem is also just convincing people to get the game. There's a doujin successor to Star Soldier called Soldier Force that adds more mechanics and has like 14 different caravan maps, but it's a 2006 Japanese pc game. Comparatively, a NES rom is an easy download.

>>6188919
Also, I don't mean that SS is the first to do it, just that the nature of Caravan means that those little things end up taking a lot bigger weight because you need to squeeze every last point out of that time limit.

The flying under is just learning what does it. If it's a hole in the ground, you'll fly under it. It's definitely annoying, though.
>CURRENT BOARDS:
>2 MINUTE
1. 344900 - shmupg gang
2. 344000 - NLM
3. 334400 - Cave owns bitch
4. 259100 - jarpig
5. 255200 - Character O
6. 205900 - Ricardo
7. 42700 - Feetsies
>5 MINUTE
1. 910400 - shmupg gang
2. 227500 - Ricardo
3. 137900 - Character O
>RAPID MEASUREMENT: 10 SECS
1. 88 - higgins.jpg
2. 86 - Character O

>>6188862
I think what makes this interesting for caravanning is that enemy waves will only appear after the last wave is cleared, so combined with the destruction and hidden panels that have to be found, there's a kind of timer aspect inherent to the game - you want to time the waves so that you get as many kills as you can without getting pushed out of the chance to get a panel or get something like the midboss showing up at an inopportune time. For a little while I kept getting the midboss to show up right when I needed to get a panel, costing me 4000 points each time. That also means that getting the screen cleared by getting a weapon upgrade when you're already full power can be a meaningful decision by costing the points that you would have gotten killing the enemies in order to get a faster enemy tempo. There's also a little subtlety with the weapon upgrade itself - the spread gun kills enemies quick, but the straight shot deals damage against the bosses quick, so you may choose to take damage in order to drop a weapon level so you can deal more damage to the boss.

I suspect all of these dynamics will get more play in the 5 minute run, which only one other person has done so far. Keep in mind that the 2 minute game was just the qualifying round in the official caravan, and the competition itself was the 5 minute.

I'm coming into Star Soldier after playing Star Prince on Retro Game Challenge, which is basically the same game but with a little more mechanical depth, so I like it. That said, this was the first caravan game Hudson ran, so stuff designed more for helping players survive like flying under cover I guess didn't translate over well to furiously scoring as high as possible.

>CURRENT BOARDS:
>2 MINUTE
1. 344900 - shmupg gang
2. 344000 - NLM
3. 334400 - Cave owns bitch
4. 259100 - jarpig
5. 255200 - Character O
6. 205900 - Ricardo
7. 42700 - Feetsies
>5 MINUTE
1. 910400 - shmupg gang
2. 137900 - Character O
>RAPID MEASUREMENT: 10 SECS
1. 88 - higgins.jpg
2. 86 - Character O

It's kinda funny how bad I am at the most fundamental stuff. Star Soldier came out in fucking 1986 and I'm still getting smoked by it because I keep doing dumb shit like flying right into the one bullet on screen or flying into an enemy because I'm just mashing down the d-pad like a neanderthal.
>CURRENT BOARDS:
>2 MINUTE
1. 344900 - shmupg gang
2. 344000 - NLM
3. 334400 - Cave owns bitch
4. 259100 - jarpig
5. 255200 - Character O
6. 42700 - Feetsies
>5 MINUTE
1. 910400 - shmupg gang
2. 137900 - Character O
>RAPID MEASUREMENT: 10 SECS
1. 88 - higgins.jpg
2. 86 - Character O

I don't imagine myself getting much higher than this on the 2 minute barring major revelations I don't know yet. Goddamn do I hate it when the ship flies under the scenery.
>CURRENT BOARDS:
>2 MINUTE
1. 344900 - shmupg gang
2. 344000 - NLM
3. 334400 - Cave owns bitch
4. 255200 - Character O
5. 252100 - jarpig
6. 42700 - Feetsies
>5 MINUTE
1. 910400 - shmupg gang
2. 137900 - Character O
>RAPID MEASUREMENT: 10 SECS
1. 88 - higgins.jpg
2. 86 - Character O