Top-Down Shooters DESMA 167B TaeSung (Abraham) Roh
P a g e 1 Tyrian PC (MS-DOS and Windows) Genre: Top-down vertical shooter. Multiple game modes including a 2 player arcade mode. Plot: Trent is a skilled pilot who gets involved in a conspiracy revolving around the terraformation of the planet Tyrian and an organization called Microsol. Gameplay and Mechanics: Tyrian comes with two major modes the user can choose to play from. The first is the single player full story mode where player can buy new weapons and upgrade their powers by spending money collected throughout the game. As players reach higher levels, they gain access to more variety of strong and expensive weapons for purchase. The alternate mode is the arcade mode. Instead of purchasing new weapons, players can simply pickup power-ups as they traverse through each level. Though player will not be able to freely choose their desired weapon at any time, player can pick up rare items early in the game with a bit of luck. The arcade mode also features a special option to have a 2 nd player. Each player gets to control two different types of ships that can pick up different sets of power-ups. The control of each player is split between keyboard (same as the controls for single player modes) and mouse. A unique feature of this game allows the two players to combine into a single ship giving the first player the control over the maneuver and main weapon of the ship while the second player controls a separate turret that can rotate its shooting angle. For most part of the game, player is equipped with a main weapon that is weaker but with Figure 1: Tyrian Arcade Mode gameplay
P a g e 2 infinite ammo and a stronger secondary weapon with limited ammo. Enemy projectiles become denser as player progresses through the game (especially the bosses) but the density of the bullet hell is relatively sparse in comparison to many other shooters. Enemies are usually aware of the player s location and shoot towards the player. Some hostile projectiles are homing weapons with low accuracy. Though Tyrian revolves around a serious plotline, the overall mood of the game is rather comedic. Silly dialogues and special hidden features of the game (including carrot ship shooting bananas) add a light tone to the game. Touhou Project PC (PC-98 and Windows) Genre: Single player top-down vertical shooter. Plot: Reimu Hakurei is a shrine maiden who enters the world of Gensokyo to find and punish the ones destroying her shrine. The world of Gensokyo is a place where magical and spiritual powers have prevailed over scientific advancement and humans and yokai (monsters) co-exist. Gameplay and Mechanics: As far as core mechanic goes, Tohou follows the traditional structure of the top-down vertical shooters. Player controls a unit to shoot down enemy units that are also shooting at the player. Player is given special abilities (varies by character chosen) such as shield, alternate attack, and a wide range attack (that grants temporary invincibility) most often referred as a bomb in these genre of games (in Tohou, its called a Spell Card). The game also features items to power-up the main weapon and items to increase the life count of the player.
P a g e 3 One of the key aspects of Tohou games is the colorful pattern of the hostile projectiles. Unlike some shooter games, projectiles are not specifically aimed at the player. Instead, the enemy shoots out colorful projectiles in various set of patterns of high density (screen space covered by bullet to total screen space ratio). Though the ridiculous amount of projectiles may seem impossible for a beginner, after a few tries players can start solving solutions to weave Figure 2: Colorful visuals of Tohou through each pattern. Another unique feature of Tohou series is the choice of visual satisfaction. While its predecessors usually featured fighter jets or futuristic space ships, Tohou s player unit are cute shrine maidens drawn to the Japanese anime style. Even some of the non-player character of the game corresponds to the commonly seen fetish characters in otaku culture. Along with the colorful patterns of the projectiles discussed previously, the visual choice of the game provides a different type of viewing pleasure from its predecessors. Time Pilot Arcade (later ported to various home and portable consoles) Genre: Single player top-down shooter. Plot: Player travels through different time periods and must fight through various wars (some historical and some fictional). Gameplay and Mechanics: Though the game uses primitive technology and graphics, it features a unique game mechanics decisions. Unlike most top-down shooters that are limited to vertical or horizontal
P a g e 4 gameplay, Time Pilot features a gameplay where player can travel and shoot in any direction. Player can rotate the plane in any direction and shoot towards the direction it is facing. This adds a completely two dimensional gameplay rather like other shooter games that are features two dimensional maneuver and one dimensional shooting. The enemy fires a combination of smart projectiles that is aimed at the player and stupid projectiles that are meant to divert player attention. Accuracy and density of projectiles (along with enemy speed) increases as the players traverse through the game but the density is generally sparse in Figure 3: Enemies at every direction relative to most other shooter games. Comparison Though all three games introduced were top-down shooters, each game was developed with different technology, different targeted audience, and different overall concept in mind. As a result, each game made various different design and mechanics choices making it hard to say one is better than another. In this section, we will go over some key choices made by each game and its advantages and disadvantages over the other. AI: The first type of AI is the smart AI featured in Time Pilot and Tyrian. The smart AI knows the location of the player unit and shoots at the player. The difficulty of the game is increased with the increase in accuracy and speed of each projectile. Density of the projectile in the screen may increase to make it harder for players to avoid them all but the density usually does not increase beyond a reasonable point (unless intended to be near impossible to beat). The challenge of the game is to outmaneuver the AI and destroy them before the player makes too many accidents. The other type of AI is the scripted pattern AI that appears in Tohou Project. Also known as the stupid AI, the scripted pattern AI does not locate the player position within the world. Instead, the AI simply fires a curtain of bullets that shoot in a set pattern. Though the bullets are not specifically aimed at the player, the sheer number of projectiles can easily overwhelm the player. The difficulty of the game increases by making the projectile Figure 4: Yes, they get this crazy
P a g e 5 denser and by making patterns more obscure. Usually the AI alternates between different set of patterns depending on timing or condition to add more variety to the gameplay. The challenge of the game is rather similar to that of a puzzle game player must challenge himself to find a way to solve a pattern by finding a way to weave through each pattern accurately. Controls: Most top-down shooters like Tyrian and Tohou feature a generic two dimensional maneuver and 1 dimensional shooting. Players are freely allowed to maneuver anywhere within the two dimensional plane provided by the game world. The projectiles, however, are often limited in direction (upwards). Because enemies usually show up from the top of the screen, this does not prove to be much of a problem. Player may feel a bit restrained in their game play but it adds a little bit of simplicity to the gameplay that requires intense Figure 5: Generic enemies on top, player on bottom concentration (avoiding enemy projectiles and such). Some of the less conventional top-down shooters like Time Pilot, however, decide to give players more freedom by allowing players to rotate and shoot into any direction of the two dimensional plane. This gives a bigger sense of freedom for the players making the gameplay true to the image of flying. By adding this freedom, however, an immense amount of complexity is also added to the gameplay making it harder for creators to make a complex level design without increasing the difficulty too much. Visuals: Though the visual aspect of top-down shooters are often credited the most irrelevant aspect to the overall gameplay mechanics, this is not true. The game Tohou chooses a more fantastic visual to correspond to the colorful characters and magical setting the game takes place in. To do this, the overall game visual must provide an awe inspiring beauty that matches its theme. Naturally, colorful projectile patterns produced by a stupid AI" help enhance the gameplay experience than a sparsely scattered single-color projectiles. Figure 6: Tohou s colorful character cast to match the colorful gameplay (or vice versa)