''Everyday Shooter'' (known as ''Riff: Everyday Shooter'' in the PAL region) is an
independent video game
An indie game, short for independent video game, is a video game typically created by individuals or smaller development teams without the financial and technical support of a large game publisher, in contrast to most "AAA" (triple-A) games. ...
developed by Jessica Mak.
Development
''Everyday Shooter'' was developed in the span of a few months by Jessica Mak using
Visual C++
Microsoft Visual C++ (MSVC) is a compiler for the C, C++ and C++/CX programming languages by Microsoft. MSVC is proprietary software; it was originally a standalone product but later became a part of Visual Studio and made available in both tria ...
.
After her last project, Gate 88, which Mak called a "complicated mess of rules and controls", Mak desired to make a much simpler game. Initially the game started out as a puzzle game inspired by Mak's interest in
Lumines
(pronounced as "Loo-min-ess") is a puzzle video game series developed by Q Entertainment. The core objective of the games is to survive by rotating and aligning 2×2 blocks varying between two colors to form 2×2 squares of a single color whic ...
and
Every Extend Extra
''Every Extend'' is series of puzzle shoot 'em up video games primarily developed by Q Entertainment. The series began with a 2004 freeware game of the same name (also known as ''E2'') for Windows, which was a personal project by Kanta Matsuhisa ...
,
however Mak had trouble with this route and decided instead to turn the game into a shooter.
[ In addition to programming and graphic design, Mak recorded and implemented an all-guitar soundtrack to the game.
]Sony Computer Entertainment
Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE), formerly known as Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE), is a multinational video game and digital entertainment company wholly owned by multinational conglomerate Sony. The SIE Group is made up of two legal co ...
took notice of the game at the 2007 Independent Gaming Festival and published it for the PlayStation 3 on October 11 as a downloadable game on the PlayStation Network
PlayStation Network (PSN) is a digital media entertainment service provided by Sony Interactive Entertainment. Launched in November 2006, PSN was originally conceived for the PlayStation video game consoles, but soon extended to encompass smartp ...
.
Gameplay
''Everyday Shooter'' is a dual-stick, multidirectional shooter
Shoot 'em ups (also known as shmups or STGs
) are a sub-genre of action games. There is no consensus as to which design elements compose a shoot 'em up; some restrict the definition to games featuring spacecraft and certain types of charact ...
. In the game's "Normal Play" mode, the player maneuvers a small dot through eight different levels. The gameplay dynamics (enemy types, chaining systems, etc.) change with each level, encouraging the player to observe their surroundings closely to best adapt to new rule sets.
Jessica Mak describes the game as "...an album of games exploring the expressive power of abstract shooters. Dissolute sounds of destruction are replaced with guitar riffs harmonizing over an all-guitar soundtrack, while modulating shapes celebrate the flowing beauty of geometry."
In addition to unique background music
Background music (British English: piped music) is a mode of musical performance in which the music is not intended to be a primary focus of potential listeners, but its content, character, and volume level are deliberately chosen to affect behav ...
for every stage, the player creates dynamic music as they interact with the environment. For example, shooting one type of enemy will trigger a guitar note or riff, while destroying another enemy will result in a different guitar sample.
Initially, the only way to play the game is through "Normal Play" which presents the player with all eight stages in order from first to last. However, points scored in the game can be used to unlock several features such as a "Shuffle Mode". Similar to using a shuffle mode on any music player, turning on shuffle mode in the game will reconfigure the order of the stages except the final. Other unlockable features include various graphic filters and the ability to increase the number of lives the player has at the beginning of a game. The player may also unlock the stages to make them available individually in "Single Play". After completing a run through normal mode, a new game mode is unlocked. "Travel Mode" allows the player to play either the main game or individual stages while being invincible, at the cost of the points scored in this mode being unusable to unlock anything.
Reception
The PlayStation 3 and PC versions received "favorable" reviews, while the PSP version received "average" reviews, according to the review aggregation
A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...
website Metacritic
Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...
.
A review from ''1UP.com
''1Up.com'' was an American entertainment website that focused on video games. Launched in 2003, ''1Up.com'' provided its own original features, news stories, game reviews, and video interviews, and also featured comprehensive PC-focused conten ...
'' said that the PS3 version "succeeds wildly as an engaging shooter for the art-house
An art film (or arthouse film) is typically an independent film, aimed at a niche market rather than a mass market audience. It is "intended to be a serious, artistic work, often experimental and not designed for mass appeal", "made primarily f ...
crowd, and a creative change of pace for the hardcore-shooter crowd." Some critics pointed out similarities to the game '' Rez'', while ''The A.V. Club
''The A.V. Club'' is an American online newspaper and entertainment website featuring reviews, interviews, and other articles that examine films, music, television, books, games, and other elements of pop-culture media. ''The A.V. Club'' was cre ...
'' pointed out homages to classic arcade games such as ''Centipede
Centipedes (from New Latin , "hundred", and Latin , " foot") are predatory arthropods belonging to the class Chilopoda (Ancient Greek , ''kheilos'', lip, and New Latin suffix , "foot", describing the forcipules) of the subphylum Myriapoda, an ...
'', ''Robotron 2084
''Robotron: 2084'' (also referred to as ''Robotron'') is a multidirectional shooter developed by Eugene Jarvis and Larry DeMar of Vid Kidz and released in arcades by WMS Industries, Williams Electronics in 1982. The game is set in the year 2084 i ...
'', and ''Time Pilot
is a multidirectional shooter arcade game designed by Yoshiki Okamoto and released by Konami in 1982. It was distributed in the United States by Centuri, and by Atari Ireland in Europe and the Middle East. While engaging in aerial combat, the ...
''.
Many publications cited the PS3 version's difficulty as a source of frustration, though some pointed out that its unlocking system can ease the process of getting through "Normal Play" (or, that it can be bypassed altogether by unlocking songs in "Single Play"). IGN
''IGN'' (formerly ''Imagine Games Network'') is an American video game and entertainment media website operated by IGN Entertainment Inc., a subsidiary of Ziff Davis, Inc. The company's headquarters is located in San Francisco's SoMa distri ...
also criticized the method of point-collecting: Points in ''Everyday Shooter'' must be physically collected by the player in the brief amount of time after they appear or else they'll quickly fade away. In IGN's PS3 version review, it was noted that "flying over all the points is far less effective than it should be, since zipping through a huge clump of them will often yield only a few actual pick-ups."
References
External links
''Everyday Shooter'' official website
GDC: Nikki Inderlied Gets the Low-Down on ''Everyday Shooter''
on YouTube
YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...
* {{moby game, id=/everyday-shooter
2006 video games
Independent Games Festival winners
Multidirectional shooters
Music video games
PlayStation 3 games
PlayStation Network games
PlayStation Portable games
Queasy Games games
Single-player video games
Sony Interactive Entertainment games
Video games developed in Canada
Windows games