Why Score Systems MATTER! Both in Shmups and Other Genres! 

Thanks!! Yes shmups are a big passion of mine :-)

@@TheElectricUnderground Me too. Excited for R-Type Final 2 and the Dangun Feveron physical release.

It was!!! Can t go wrong with some eschatos tunes

I wholeheartedly agree. I believe the entire argument for scoring can be summed up by how much you're willing to put into the game to master it. I play for fun, not for the stress of competition, and thus scoring has no use to me. I would rather play more games with my meager free time than spending that time on mastering a few. But if you do desire to master a shooter, then I can see how score would play a part just like speed running action games and New Game + and add-ons/side quests in RPG's.

@@personavisceration371 I agree! I mean when you look at the evolution of shmups (or games in general) they where first all about scoring. But i guess it was an idea that came up because of the limitations back then. Later the games had stories to tell... more and more games became more of an adventure (even in the arcades). And then again ....when the consoles started to dominate you could see the development split into two directions: Console Games were getting larger and more adventurous... while arcade games became more and more flashy and score focused again. Don't get me wrong... i don't hate the direction that shmups went with Cave and the others to make the games flashy score focused bullet hell games. But this made a lot of people loose interest in the genre because the other genres suited better into (or adapted better for) the living rooms. Than again since the appearance of casual and short games about 15 years ago more and more games about scoring came. People where willing to pay a few bucks to play arcade style games again. I guess multidirectional and twin stick shooter became the new shmups and they where more accessible for the casual player or while taking a break from playing huge AAA titles. I am happy to see that in the past few years the shmup genre came back. First the bullet hell ... and now the more classic 90s style. I think both can coexist. I guess the lack of innovation was the reason that the classic 90s shmup-genre (almost) died. Other genres made a better transition for the console market. While only the super challenging bullet hell shmups remained... what appealed only to one group of shmup lovers while most of them stayed arcade exclusive for a long time. I can see the idea of the topic. Of course a good score system matters a lot for the games that focus on scoring. As they give you challenges to play the games different. As for the classic shmups: Why not implementing stuff like New Game+ Add-Ons, Side - Missions, Secrets, Competitions, Stories ...to add more challenge or value?🙂

Yes. This. As the shmup genre resurges individual play styles must be communicated. That’s why I’ve come to think it Mark here and Shmup Junkie as a kind of yin and yang for RU-vid shmup content.

@@D-A-K Hahaha!! You got it!! Yin and Yang!!💜

@@D-A-K Interesting way of looking at it.

Nice to hear another perspective, judging by the looks it sounds like a beginner shmup, which is cool, there aren't that many, at least that I know of. If you have finished it I'd like a link 👍

I am also seriously thinking about leaving a scoring system out for the game I develop. There are enough games that focus heavy on that (...and pink bullets😄).

@@david2618 I guess you could call it "beginner", since it's based around my relatively green skills, but it's designed to push those skills to their absolute limit, and give players a long, challenging grind. It's still relatively early in development; there's a kind of prototype on Itch, it's called Infinite Ritual, but not all of the mechanics are there yet, and the UI sucks. I've been taking a break from it to cool off on some frustrations, but I think it's time to resume.

@@midiriots3909 I'm obligated to not give mine one. Because it's a roguelite.

I don't want to develop a game that any "community" then develops around; I'd just want a bunch of disparate players united only by their love for my game. The longer a "community" persists without fast growth, the more it develops a group hug mentality that excludes players who might like the game but just aren't like existing players. I want people to feel free to share perspectives that other people might think are frightening or which are "unsafe."

DFK has a very fun scoring indeed, although sometimes I feel I'm not being optimal, is using hyper a lot the meta?

@@david2618 yes you use a couple of hypers in certain places near the start of a level to quickly get lots of hits and then to try to finish the stage without using anymore hypers but with the hyper bar filled ready to use . This is when it multiplies the score for each enemy of you can watch Stg weekly for explanation or If you look at Shmup slam videos in this channel you can see experts play and see where to quickly get very high chain. Putting your hyper onto enemy lasers such as at the start of stage 5 is the quickest way to get thousands of hits in the chain.

Getting 64s in Blue Revolver is pretty satisfying.

Yes I am hoping as this channel grows and I start covering more score oriented stuff, it catches on more :-)

yes I definitely know what you mean here about how some changes may seem like an upgrade on the surface, like you mention in bayo 2, but then it actually ends up damaging the overall meta of the game. It is frustrating to try and communicate for sure!

Oh absolutely! Such an under rated game!

Yes exactly! I do think that modern shmups should experiment more with tying achievements and scoring together!

@@TheElectricUnderground Having achievements just on scoring a specific amount is just the beginning. The power of a scoring system is that there can be multiple rules in play that account for a big score, and that moreso affects your macro strategy, whereas the most interesting achievements in my opinion often can dictate a specific goal or course of action. Instead of a score threshold, a more effective achievement might vary anywhere from "Graze X bullets," "Full chain a level," to even more targeted achievements like "Defeat X boss by destroying all of its armor first" that point to specific strategies. My mind goes to Katana Zero's achievements. There's the usual pacifist ones for certain segments, but one I really like teaches you a speedrun strat in killing a target off screen, and another is basically half of the requirements to get to the secret boss, IIRC.

@@RocketSlug Dodonpachi Daifukkatsu and Mushihimesama on Steam have this kind of archivments (like "Connect a 1000 Hit Combo" or "Break all of Benihonogada's legs")

Oh it is from a superplay vhs! Soon I gotta get a Retrotink to do a high quality direct capture :-)

Yes! A really good scoring system adds so much replay value :-)

Glad you enjoyed it!

yes I have the same outlook as well when it comes to trying out a new shmup. :-)

I love "if it feels good in my hands"! I completely relate 👏

I don't think the second's possible really, unless you make scoring luck based. If a game's consistent, it will have an optimal route somewhere and it's just a matter of finding it. Perhaps shifting your goals is a better option? Or rather, games giving you some less optimal but satisfying (and meaningful) scoring goals, since those will give you more room for creativity and error.

@@boghogSTG Luck based would be the exact opposite of what i meant. I'm sure It's hard to avoid making a completely deterministic game. However, I think it's a challenge that could give very interesting results. An example that comes to mind (although it might not be a very good one) is how Deathsmiles allows you yo choose the order of the stages. The conversation goes this way, the game says: "ok dude, choose the order but remember that the level will raise regardless of the order, so choose well". Obviously if you go all the way to the opposite end and make it luck based you'd end up with a "roguelite" kind of experience that makes it impossible for people to compete for score because each run is different. I don't think the only two possibilities are dodonpachi resurrection on one extreme and roguelite on the other. Btw your game is looking amazing!

@@benjaminbeltran7004 Yeah Deathsmiles' level select system is awesome, though I was mostly talking to you wanting games that dont force you to follow the same optimal route everyone else is using. Sooner or later youll have to, rng can force deviations and more on the fly decisions at the cost of consistency (and most likely fairness + basically gambling) but besides that theres always gonna be that one high scoring route and a lot of suboptimal ones. I guess maybe reducing the score gap between optimal and suboptimal routes could help make people feel like their suboptimal routes are still "valid", and Deathsmiles style level select/lots of scoring categories could help players find their own niche, but yeah. Also aw shucks, thanks!

Yeah I have seen a few people take this approach and felt it worked out. I do think it just depends on what the player is interested in and how they are motivated :-) By what I have observed it does seem that survival first does generally tend to work out better for the players I've seen, but definitely not a rule written into stone.

@@TheElectricUnderground I do not doubt what you say, indeed you will surely have known many more experiences than me that besides myself I know few other fans of shmup in my vicinity, sadly

There is a really important benefit of learning multiple routes in a game which is recovery for when you get off route :-)

Great point. KDA ratio could be seen as a type of score. I've seen players showing screenshots of that to brag about even. The only major difference being that its highly subjective, since you're competing online and no one can pinpoint if either you're really skilled or the opponents were awful.

Oh yeah I remember in the cod 4 days being obsessed with my kill to death ratio! Even fighting game ranking systems sort of work like this too

That s a great question! I think something like blue revolver or danmaku unlimited 3 are great games to help you get into scoring. Garegga scoring is awesome, but kinda complicated at times ha

Yes I definitely have been there as well. The cool thing about the genre is that once you start to become more comfortable with the survival aspects of the game, you tend to naturally become more drawn to the scoring, especially if you hang around other score-focused players. I think if the genre could find a strong method of connecting score-focused players together more, it would really help.

@@TheElectricUnderground The only cases, where I got a little bit interested in score where games, where scoring also support survival player. In some Touhou games, you get an extra life for score or in Banshiryuu (aka Seihou 3, a sister series of Touhou), you get Extra Bombs, when you use the scoring system (which involve grazing bullets to collect point items on the screen).

@@davis1228 Well, I'm also almost 30 and play video games for about 25 years.

oh that's a great question!! speedkilling vs milking. I think both are fine but both need to be balanced within some degree of reason ha. For example I think the milking in arcade esprade is way too much for my taste but milking in other games can be really interesting like in guwange. I also think speedkilling is really fun, but I can see how rewarding it too heavily can also take some dimension out of the game. So I would say both mechanics are great but should be balanced with the underlying design of the game, otherwise you will run into issues like metal slug where you sit and milk boring sections for an hour and a half ha.

I am amazed and appalled that anyone still takes that guy seriously. Dude had an incredibly narrow view on games and spent more time insulting people who disagreed with him than he did making his point. He deserves as much respect as he holds for people who disagree with him.

​@@SpriteGuard §82. To make fun of stupid people is part of what it means to be intelligent. -Icycalm, Orgy of the Will I'm not sure if you noticed, but what created for-score plays, "e-sports" and speedrunning was not some magical entity, but designers and players themselves, so an attack on any of these states of "play" are an attack on genetics, no matter how you slice it. So it flows that psychoanalyzing all of these people that have gotten us to this point is vitally important. No worries though, Icy has graciously granted you (and many) the defense that he speaks harshly in order to disavow him, so you should instead be thanking him for such a deed! Furthermore, the notion that Icy had an "incredibly narrow view on games" is laughable, especially coming from the fact these comments are on a STG/arcade-enthusiast channel. One of the aspects that made Icy the greatest critic was his taste and love for all kinds of revolutionary video games like Phantasmagoria, Ketsui, Far Cry, et al! Many do not even acknowledge that better hardware makes better games, and they think they love games more than Icy... yeah right. Do not get it twisted, if you only like a genre or two, you don't love video games, you love that genre. Icycalm's top 100 would decimate any sole genre expert, and in the case of shmups, even his top 100 has games that they apotheosize as the very best like Garegga and Espgaluda II. The most amazing of all, however, is that many in the comments here have subconsciously FELT what Icy states in the scoring essay without phrasing it properly, including YOU. "I want my game to be a joy to play, right in the moment. I don't want the last five seconds of the game, when you don't PB, to ruin the last several minutes of play. I don't want players to soldier through a grind they don't like, just for that little kick when they do PB." This one is subtlety astute from you. Icy: "These scoring mechanics are therefore siphoning off pleasure from inside the game world and redirecting it outside, thereby in all cases and no exceptions, in worse games." "There are ways to differentiate your game that are much more obvious than scoring, and much more marketable." Because the complex scoring mechanics of a Battle Garegga for example, are completely unnatural, aesthetically ludicrous and essentially non-mechanics. So the solution would be make them actual complex mechanics. Again somewhat astute, so why are you hating Icycalm!? Others like Bamd: "seeing a big number go up never satisfied me" since it is not a mechanic, at best facilitating an EXTEND which Icy explains is largely aesthetic anyway. MattPoskito: "Never seen the end of Danmaku Unlimited 3. Still find it exhilarating beating my high score." Icy: "Things change however, and things change radically, with the introduction, starting in the early- and mid-'90s, of a range of shooting titles by companies such as Cave, Raizing, Takumi and others, which begin to feature increasingly esoteric and convoluted scoring systems, systems where the score disentangles itself from the stage progression to such an extent, that players who cleared a game can find themselves outscored by aspie gimps who barely get half-way through it...cont." 100hundert: "I personally find it so satisfying to beat my own records, watch some of my own replays - it quantifies my own progress." Quantifying progress is a pointless reason for a scoring system in games that feature stage progression starting in the third generation, Icy explains. More 100hundert: "On the other hand, I don't think I will ever be good enough to actually 1cc Unlimited mode." Repeat outscoring quote. "I guess what I'm saying is: I enjoy scoring systems that don't feel like an entirely separate layer. In DDP, you chain and you score, but it always felt kind of abstract to me. Whereas in Ketsui, point blanking and getting an immediate reward with those boxes feels directly rewarding on an instinctual level. Batrider feels similar to me - the more I know how, when and where to blow stuff up, the more the game rewards me. The scoring feels like a logical part of the game world. On the other hand, there are quite a few systems where such a approach wouldn't work for me at all. DDP, Ikaruga, Guwange, Mushihimesama - those have scoring systems that don't really feel like an actual part game world. It's hard to describe." 100hundert gets somewhere, saying how some shmups have very unnatural scoring systems, but is satiated as long as there is visual numbers and score-increasing items popping up on the screen every 5 seconds. Certainly you understand what Icy means by "aesthetically absurd" now? The game is "rewarding" him, but the reward is disconnected from the main goal of reaching the end of the game, which is the goal of any game with proper stage progression. Best for last... scoring feels like a logical part of the game world. LOL. Anything is "logical" according to a game world's own logic. Perhaps he means intuitive or natural, but is needing to gun down ships in a certain order and collect medals really so? There you have it, an entire comment section challenged and largely refuted by a years old essay that most are unable to understand. For me there is no classification other than intellectual to deem the author.

@@M7878-c3r you misunderstand. It's not speaking harshly, that's fine, it's the lack of respect that makes his arguments hollow. Everything he says comes from a place of ignorance, not about games, but about humans. That's what I mean by "narrow view": no matter how expansive his personal taste, he doesn't understand anything outside of that taste. His edgelord vocabulary is a silly affectation, but when I say "respect" I'm talking about his unwillingness to understand points he disagrees with, and his habit of making up absurdities to explain away disagreement.

​@@SpriteGuard To be sure, Icy has never treated much of his targets with respect, but something superior to assess was if they actually deserved it. Did the art game and indie developers deserve respect? I'm sure this also may be referring to his forum, so did the people who come in the forum of the best videogame art theory site without even thinking about the contents of messages or making spelling mistakes deserve to not get banned? Quite the controversy it has been, but NO, it's his forum. What some do not understand is that he wanted to keep each post rich, it was a forum for discussion with a philosopher after all! You think even middling people should've been allowed on Nietzsche's forum if such technology existed? Hell no! Even Icy said that "each post in the forum will be studied one day" and it is so true. "- to say that all these games, the very best games we possess - the results of half a century of effort by innumerable extremely dedicated and talented individuals from across the world - are not art - to summarily dismiss the entire history of videogames - to dump it in the trash - and all their designers along with them, in order to raise high above them the piddling, the ludicrous, the contemptible little abortions of platformers and screensavers of a bunch of incorrigibly incompetent lazy bums - is the most vicious, most insolent, most insulting gesture imaginable against our hobby and all those individuals who have poured their souls and lives into it. There's nothing for it: one must not give these shameless, venal wretches an inch - one must not concede to them anything. No association with them is permissible - no reconciliation possible. Whoever has experienced even a few hours of enjoyment with these games (- not to speak of those of us whose entire lives have been enriched by them -); whoever harbors inside him even the tiniest shred of warmth for this truly wonderful, truly bizarre, this truly uncanny art - should be appalled at the idea of these people's mere existence." From On the Genealogy of Art Games. There's the justification for no respect towards the art game and indie developers, and to do so would be emasculation. Quite respectable, no? I'm also not sure what you mean by his ignorance of humans, he has wrote essays psychoanalyzing the scorers, the art game devs, other game journalists, and the culmination of such practices in Orgy, analyzing all of subhumanity resulting in a declaration of war.

@@M7878-c3r this is a great example of what I mean. He ascribes bonkers motivations and comes up with bizarre conspiracies. That is what I mean by ignorance of how people actually work: he's just wrong about why people like things and why they do things. So no, it's not respectable, it's not a justification. It's a bunch of nonsense and hot air. This kind of "us vs them" thinking is ridiculous.

I'm not super into sisters royal, but I do know that other players really like it. So I would personally recommend blue revolver of the two :-)

@@TheElectricUnderground I think I should have asked this question on Blue Revolver's dev.

Good ear!

I ve never seen it ha, sounds funny!

Just recovering from getting sick last week, starting to feel better though :-)