/vr/ - Retro Games

>>7097382
I don't play a lot of shmups specifically, but I do love arcade games including shmups. I know most people have already said it in this thread, but I want to toss in one more to the pile that there's really no way around practicing. Arcade games are the most misunderstood kind of games because their structure belies their intent. A game from start to finish would take you maybe half an hour to an hour at absolute most, but they're meticulously designed to have such rich complexity within that timespan that there's absolutely no way you'll cleanly play through a game for a long time.

It's sort of like playing a sheet of music. Yes, you could just plink and plonk your way note by note and eventually see the end of the song, but nobody would say you truly played the song. A genuine performance comes from days, weeks, months of practice, building up a fluency that goes beyond just reacting from note to note and into a holistic understanding of the full piece. You go beyond the notes into seeing the phrases, feeling the music. And then, one day, you take a deep breath and play the song. And it's beautiful. Then, once you got that 1CC and you know the piece, you start making it truly yours and play for score.

This is what really defines arcade design: the fun comes from grappling with it, being knocked around by it, learning its language, hearing what it's trying to tell you, and eventually coming to truly know it. It's a more adversarial relationship to a game than most people are used to, but it really is so much fun once you give yourself over to it.

But yeah, just relax and play. Pay attention to what's fucking you up, try stuff out to see what might work, and then remember what you did and apply those ideas in later places. See the game as a series of smaller pieces that will eventually become a whole, but don't get caught up trying to reach that whole all at once.