Run And Gun Game Design
| Kyle O | I would like to take a few moments to gather everyone feelings on a particular subject-- to all those who are familiar with old run and gun games-- games such as Contra, Megaman, Gunstar Heroes, Vectorman... etc.... In most these games there is a shooting system where you may shoot up, you may also shoot up diagonally... this is almost always only when running... Some exceptions are old Megaman games when you only shoot side to side, or Metroid, which isn't straight up shooting game, but where you press a button to shoot diagonal up while standing. There's also an option in Gunstar Heroes where when you shoot you cannot run, but instead have total control to shoot in all 8 directions. Finally there is also Cave Story where you can't shoot diagonally at all, and instead when running and pressing up, you just shoot up. I am very partial to Cave Story, I believe it works well because the character I dream to make run and gun... So I am curios of opinions on this basic design... pros and cons... | |||
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is very small in comparison to the screen. Other designs just seem sort of messy...
Logged | Alec S. Level 10 Formerly Malec2b | Good run-n-gun games I've found get more and more interesting the more you analyze them. Because they are so focused on timing and reflexes, so much of the clever design is under the surface, rather than overt. As for shooting systems, it's important to look at why the designers might have chosen those control scheme for each game. Metroid is a comparatively slow and methodical game (at least in comparison to something like Gunstar Heroes) with a bigger focus on exploration. It is also a much more vertical game than most run-n-guns. Thus being able to shoot up and diagonally without moving is vital to the game. In megaman, most of the enemies are almost like puzzles. You have a bullet pattern, a weak spot and/or a specific time when they can be hit. With all of that combined, they become a challenge where you need to figure out an approach where you can dodge their bullets, fire a horizontal shot, and hit them in the right place at the right time. The fact that you can only fire horizontally lets the developer design around that fact when creating enemies, and leads to more interesting encounters. Gun Star Heroes, on the other hand, was focused on fighting tons of weaker enemies. Thus they had enemies jumping at you from all directions, and you were in turn able to shoot them in all directions. An individual enemy didn't pose much of a threat unless it was a boss, most of the challenge came from managing the chaos. As a side note, check out the thread I started recently on gamefeel and friction, as the concepts are pretty central to Run 'n' Gun Games: http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=28045.0 | |||
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| Mittens | I can't remember if you where able to fire on diagonals or not, but my favourite run-n-gun games by far where the Metal Slug series, so however they worked, that's what I like | |||
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| Moczan | I can't remember if you where able to fire on diagonals or not, but my favourite run-n-gun games by far where the Metal Slug series, so however they worked, that's what I like You could with machine gun if you shoot up and side alternatively he would shoot in an arc. | |||
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| Schoq | I think the best solution to diagonal shooting is the way they did it in Contra: Shattered Soldier: one shoulder button to lock your position and aim freely, and one to lock your aim, allowing you to move however you want while shooting in one direction. | |||
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| Azure Lazuline | (incoming large post, I have a lot to say about these games...) Gunstar Super Heroes also has that system. B to shoot while running (free shot in the original game), R to shoot while standing (fixed shot in the original game), and B+R to lock your firing direction while allowing free movement. Really nice system. Bangai-O Spirits uses a similar system, where double-tapping a shot button locks you in place (even in midair!) and lets you fire in any direction. Alien Soldier lets you press a button combination to switch between free run and locked fire (wherever you first shoot, you continue shooting in that direction until you release the button, and get free movement). A really important distinction is whether you need to mash the button or whether you can just hold it. Mashing it (Metal Slug, Mega Man) makes it feel more frantic, and increases tension. Anyone who has played those games has been in a tense situation where you start mashing even quicker so you can get the last few hits in the boss. Also, if most weapons need mashing but there is one or two that has automatic fire, that makes it feel really powerful. On the other hand, holding the button for every weapon (like every Treasure game) makes you feel more in control, and also opens up all the control options discussed above. It depends on whether you want precision (like discussed, Mega Man enemies are like puzzles) or panic (like Treasure games, enemies everywhere, you'd get tired of mashing the button). Now to discuss weapons! That's actually the most important part of games like this, so I'm not sure why it wasn't mentioned much before. Simple weapons: you get one or two slots, you can pick up weapons and use them. Contra, Metal Slug, and stuff like that. Ideal for pick-up-and-play games since it's super easy to understand, but there isn't much else to say about it. (Although, Contra 4 does a little spin on it by allowing you to power up a weapon by picking up that same item again, so it stacks.) Choosable weapons: free selection between all your weapons. Mega Man is the prime example here. Alien Soldier is a weird case, because you can choose any set of 4 weapons at the beginning, but aside from that you need to get pickups. Metroid games do this: selection between beams, missiles, bombs, etc. Although usually you can upgrade each component, that's a different thing entirely. This is more suited for slower games, or ones where you upgrade your power gradually over time. Combining weapons: my favorite. Gunstar Heroes started it (I think), where there are 4 basic weapons, but you can combine any 2 (even duplicates) to make a unique, bigger shot. There's no ammo in that game, so it's very rare that you use the individual weapons. I guess Super Metroid also counts here, with the stacking beams. The only real downside is that it has a bigger learning curve and may not be immediately understandable. (I actually took this a step further by having 10 base weapons and a combined set of 3, but that's another story...) There are also weird examples, like Bangai-O Spirits which lets you pick 2 guns and 2 bombs at the beginning of each mission, and certain selections form combined shots, but other ones don't. You have to decide whether to have 1 strong gun, or 2 weaker attacks that are more versatile. | |||
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| Graham- | I always want to shoot a tiny bit less. If I could punch a guy every so often that would be wicked. If I could punch him into my next shot, and stuff like that, even better. | |||
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| Azure Lazuline | Oh yeah, that's one thing I forgot to mention in my post. If the majority of the game is guns, melee attacks are absolutely awesome. Like, throwing enemies into a pit in Gunstar Heroes? Amazing. (Grabbing an enemy's bomb and throwing it back to kill them is also amazing, but that's something else.) | |||
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| Graham- | They act as pacing elements. Sometimes a little breaking in pace can triple the mileage of everything else, or more. | |||
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| Kyle O | I have taken all your thoughtful comments into deep consideration when designing the shooting style. Character design does not seem to allow for much melee... however I have decided the best method for me would be a "hold" button that letss you set the direction you shoot a la Gunstar Super Heroes or Shattered Soldier... As you can see, when the "hold" button is down, the cannon turns red and stays where it is no matter which direction you run. I have another question now! I want to make a balls to the wall action run n gun game, but I don't know how the enemies should spawn... I have taken into consideration and played many games but don't understand fully. Can anybody give me an explanation of how enemy spawning in a game like Contra or Gunstar Heroes works? There seems to be some sort of infinite, sometimes not infinite amount of enemies spawning-- also these games don't allow you to scroll back left... I don't know if that has something to do with it but in my game you can return left, but the levels are still linear and not open... Any thoughts? | |||
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| Azure Lazuline | Generally, there are a lot of "fixed enemies" that are just placed on the map normally, like in any other game. But at certain intervals, a small enemy is created on a random side of the screen, provided there is land for it to spawn on. It seems like this only applies in certain bounding boxes. What I would do is add support in your level editor for "enemy spawn zones", which would be a box of arbitrary size that will create enemies while the player/camera is inside it. You can have adjustable parameters for enemy size and frequency. | |||
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| Wilson Saunders Level 5 Nobody suspects the hamster | I made a mouse aimed run and gun a long time ago, and I have to admit it was very unsatisfying. The best strategy was just to spam bullets in the direction of the last known position of the enemy off screen. Also focusing on your aim lead to less precise platforming. I learned that the player overcoming the limitations of the game's system is one of the joys of this type of game. If the player isn't as much joy in the overcoming. | |||
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| ra51 | A game i worked on a while back called Tesseract Hyper Gunner used the simple elements from the run and gun style genre from several different games. Essentially, its a combination of a single screen platform (mario bros, super crate box), with the 360 degrees aiming and shooting (bangaio). The fruits as collectible items were also in fact inspired by bangaio, however we decided to take a more 8-bit feel to the game. The controls were kept simple in order to accommodate for the 360 aiming : wasd or arrow keys to move, left mouse button to shoot, and right mouse button for jumping. Weaponary were also straight forward. You got your basic pulse gun, and then the upgrades : spray (from contra), beam, reflector (from bangaio), rockets (ditto), and charging gun (which ironically we got from Halo The enemy spawning was also quite simple. We just had 2 types of enemies : the one that aimlessly runs from left to right and spawn of each side of the level while one "floater" enemy that comes at from a different area on the level. Put it all together with a simple goal of collecting all the "hyper cubes" for each level, add a cheesy storyline, and you got yourself a frustratingly simple run and gun game | |||
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. | J-Snake Level 10 A fool with a tool is still a fool. | In megaman, most of the enemies are almost like puzzles. You have a bullet pattern, a weak spot and/or a specific time when they can be hit. With all of that combined, they become a challenge where you need to figure out an approach where you can dodge their bullets, fire a horizontal shot, and hit them in the right place at the right time. The fact that you can only fire horizontally lets the developer design around that fact when creating enemies, and leads to more interesting encounters. Gun Star Heroes, on the other hand, was focused on fighting tons of weaker enemies. Thus they had enemies jumping at you from all directions, and you were in turn able to shoot them in all directions. An individual enemy didn't pose much of a threat unless it was a boss, most of the challenge came from managing the chaos. You make good points. Btw. does someone know of any one-screen arena space-shooters like space-invadors, only one vs one. | |||
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| J-Snake Level 10 A fool with a tool is still a fool. | I don't think it is overlooked, it is just the realm of cosmetics. Cosmetics are important but irrelevant to gameplay-analysis. | |||
Independent game developer with an elaborate focus on interesting gameplay, rewarding depth of play and technical quality.<br /><br />Trap Them: http://store.steampowered.com/app/375930 | ||||
| Fegon | Worth mentioning i think is that Contra games has fixed jumping height, setting it apart from mega man and "plattforming" oriented plattformers. Midnight Resistence also did this if i remember corectly. Run and gun is such a wierd genre anyway. I once had an argument, mostly for the arguments sake, with som guy that Guwange was a run and gun rather than a pure shmup. I can´t think of very many "pure" implementations of the run and gun genre. Rush ´n Attack for example is very close to the genre except there is no shooting. In Ghost and goblins on the other hand Arthur stops to "fire" taking away the run in the run and gun. | |||
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| Graham- | they should make a run n' gun with heavy momentum. can't think of any right away., edit: one of my fav run n' guns is Super Mario World when you have a shell. | |||
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| baconman | METAL SLUG. Possibly the only REAL run'n'gun out there. Fixed jump heights like Contra can work too, but only when level design takes this into account. Wait. You want a momentum-heavy platformer shooter? SUPER METROID IN A CAN, BABY. | |||
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Run And Gun Game Design
Source: https://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=28063.0
Posted by: chavarriapoodut84.blogspot.com
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