Yesterday, I started playing Gradius on the Nintendo Entertainment System. Looking at how the game is actually designed gave me great insight on how to create a decent shmup on Gamemaker. I've had several ideas on how they get some of the enemies to enter a certain path before exiting, and I've actually trying to see from a creator's perspective, how to do certain things that can be replicated via Gamemaker. The actual gameplay is very engaging and as soon as you start, you know you're in for a real fight. The first two or three levels are difficult to get around. You'll need quick reflexes for a good majority of trying to dodge enemy bullets, and it only gets worse once enemies start spawning anywhere on the screen. The variability of choosing what upgrades to get makes the game increasingly easy, or very, very difficult depending on what you set your weapons too. The forcefield upgrade and the multiple options upgrade are of course the best ones to get, but are the most difficult to level up to. The easiest ones are double shot and missles, and for a majority of the beginning of the gameplay, those are the first upgrades I got. The collisions in the game are a bit questionable. How come when I crash into a mountain, I die, but when an enemy hits a mountain, it just goes right throught the mountain still wanting to attack you? A few glitches here and there, but as far as I can tell a very well made game considering the year it was made (1988). Graphics aren't stunning, but there are different sprites for moving up and down. Really , the core aspect of this game is the assortment of enemy AI and the back-to- basics-gameplay style. More on this game in a bit...
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