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| Sklathill
2th Post
 
New Customer
|  "Re(2):The Art and Science of Shoot-em-ups"
, posted Tue 16 Jul 18:35
Interesting applet there... though I question how biologically sound it is. Sure, new bullet patterns come about, but there's no way to test how sound a pattern it is, if it is, to borrow a term from Maynard Smith, an evolutionarily stable solution. For the neo-Darwinist, it's not simply about animals breeding and mixing genes, but also the survivability of those individual genes within the organism. The applet keeps on breeding new patterns without regard to how evolutionarily stable... or environmentally stable (not quite the same thing)... the new breed might be. Even if the genes are good, if the sum strategy of the organism sucks, then goodbye to the genes...
Or in this case, if the individual components of patterns are good but the boss sucks...the boss sucks.
Certain components don't get along well with each other. Though they might be good individually, together, they can promote the death of the boss. For example, you don't want five point guards on your basketball team's starting lineup. In a boss attack situation, you wouldn't want attacks made solely of curves...
...or would you?
While organisms on this planet compete for life, what do video games and their components compete for? I think it's recognizability. Memorability. Video games must be capable of being remembered, thus there must be a balance of simplicity and complexity which allows the game and its components to be recognizable.
One of the things about the Treasure shooters is how simple they really are. In Radiant Silvergun, everything is so short, simple, strictly defined as to make it easy to remember on a relatively large component level. For example, level 2b: red-blue-yellow, get as many yellows during the boss as possible. level 4a through 4c is even simpler: get all reds. Boss patterns are similarly simple, from beginning to end. The Phoenix's crossing fire blasts and fire wall...and that's it. 4E's four types of guns...and that's it, with slight variation. It's simple... and in being so, it is memorable.
Compare this to, say... GigaWing. Everything is less clear, from shot patterns to enemy arrival to timing. It's a very "now" game, populating the screen with stuff, right here, right now. I remember the characters, I remember what the bosses look like... but discrete execution I can't remember. It has a large level of recognizability on the primary level: most people know what Giga Wing is. It has a large level of recognizability on the mechanics level: "REFUREKUTOOOO FOOOOOOSU!" But beyond that... not much else. It is simple on a large level level (the whole game) compared to Radiant Silvergun, which is simple on a component and structural level)
Then, should GigaWing be dragged down on the lack of recognizability in its other components? Not necessarily. A pro football punter would do well without having a decent throwing arm, as a billiards champ would do well despite weak knees.
I don't like GigaWing, though. :)
Okay, now I have no clue where I came with this. I had something really sound in here...and, ah well, I'll post this...
The Temptation of Wheat is upon us!
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"The Art and Science of Shoot-em-ups" 
