Shoot-'Em-Up Construction Kit (a.k.a. SEUCK) is a

game creation system AHjbhb job u tv in ubjb, A game creation system (GCS) is a consumer-targeted game engine and a set of specialized design tools (and sometimes a light scripting language), engineered for the rapid iteration of user-derived video games. Examples incl ...

for the

Commodore 64 The Commodore 64, also known as the C64, is an 8-bit home computer introduced in January 1982 by Commodore International (first shown at the Consumer Electronics Show, January 7–10, 1982, in Las Vegas). It has been listed in the Guinness ...

Amiga Amiga is a family of personal computers introduced by Commodore in 1985. The original model is one of a number of mid-1980s computers with 16- or 32-bit processors, 256 KB or more of RAM, mouse-based GUIs, and significantly improved graphi ...

and

Atari ST The Atari ST is a line of personal computers from Atari Corporation and the successor to the Atari 8-bit family. The initial model, the Atari 520ST, had limited release in April–June 1985 and was widely available in July. It was the first pers ...

created by

Sensible Software Sensible Software was a British software company founded by Jon Hare and Chris Yates that was active from March 1986 to June 1999. It released seven number-one hit games and won numerous industry awards. The company was well known for the exa ...

and published by Outlaw (part of

Palace Software Palace Software was a British video game publisher and developer during the 1980s based in London, England. It was notable for the ''Barbarian'' and ''Cauldron'' series of games for 8-bit home computer platforms, in particular the ZX Spectrum, ...

) in 1987. It allows the user to make simple

shoot 'em up 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 chara ...

s by drawing sprites and backgrounds and editing attack patterns. The advertising promoted the Kit with the phrase "By the programmers of ''

Wizball ''Wizball'' is a shoot 'em up written by Jon Hare and Chris Yates (who together formed Sensible Software) and released in 1987 originally for the Commodore 64 and later in the year for the ZX Spectrum and Amstrad CPC. Versions for the Amiga and ...

'' and ''Parallax''".

Design

The Kit presents users with a series of menus for customising every aspect of the game. Level graphics are created with the Background Editor, using a series of blocks for plotting into the level maps' all moving elements are designed with the Sprite Editor. Sprites are assigned to "Objects" - for example, enemy bullets - with separate animation and colour settings. Editing the "enemy bits" changes the behaviour of an enemy (which projectiles it may shoot, how many points it is worth), while "player limitations" does the same for Player 1 (or player 2, if enabled). Whereas the Commodore 64 version contains a simple Sound FX Editor with slider controls, on the Amiga and ST versions this feature is replaced with IFF sounds. Enemies are added to the game by placing them on the background and then moving them, with options to link enemies together. The front end (title screen) may also be edited. Games can feature still screens (held for a set number of seconds), "push" scrolling (based on the player's movement) or constant vertical scrolling. Bonus point items are possible, as well as extra lives awarded at regular scoring intervals. SEUCK is packaged with sample games, to demonstrate what may be done with the kit. The Commodore 64 version comes with ''Slap 'n' Tickle'' (inspired by ''

Slap Fight is a 1986 vertically scrolling shooter arcade video game developed by Toaplan and published by Taito. Set on the colonized fictional planet of Theron in the future, where an alien race led by Gaudy have invaded the human-controlled location, pl ...

''), ''Outlaw'' (a

Wild West The American frontier, also known as the Old West or the Wild West, encompasses the geography, history, folklore, and culture associated with the forward wave of American expansion in mainland North America that began with European colonial ...

shoot 'em up in the style of the arcade game Commando), ''Transputer Man'' (set inside a computer and partially inspired by the arcade game Robotron 2084), and ''Celebrity Squares'' (featuring graphics drawn by several C64 personalities including video game journalists Gary Liddon and Gary Penn). The Amiga and Atari versions (released in 1989) feature ''Slap 'n' Tickle'', ''Quazar'', and an "army man" game, ''Blood 'N' Bullets'', which features a sound effect of "Okay, suckers" sampled from the

Red Dwarf ''Red Dwarf'' is a British science fiction comedy franchise created by Rob Grant and Doug Naylor, which primarily consists of a television sitcom that aired on BBC Two between 1988 and 1999, and on Dave since 2009, gaining a cult following. T ...

episode " Queeg". Since it is possible to export SEUCK games as stand-alone files, at the height of the software's popularity game companies and magazines received many games created with the Kit.

Reception

SEUCK was well received, earning a Zzap! Gold Medal Award. SEUCK was reviewed in Commodore Disk User Issue 2.

Derivatives

Screenshot from Spittis Search Game Commodore 64

While attending college

Ray Larabie Raymond Larabie (born 1970) is a Canadian designer of TrueType and OpenType computer fonts. He owns Typodermic Fonts, which distributes both commercially licensed and shareware/freeware fonts. Biography and career Larabie was born in Ottawa, ...

, best known for his custom typefaces, created several games using SEUCK. Because of their distinctiveness and quality they quickly spread throughout the Amiga community via the BBS network, with many ending up on Amiga Magazine coverdisks. Titles included ''Monster Truck Rally'', ''Wielder Of Atoms'', ''Mulroney Blast'' and ''Smurf Hunt''. Other notable SEUCK-based titles include several works by Italian software company, System Editoriale s.r.l., such as

Emiliano Sciarra Emiliano Sciarra (born December 6, 1971 in Civitavecchia, Rome, Italy) is a game designer of board games, card games and videogames. He is the author of '' Bang!'', a Wild West themed card game published by daVinci Editrice. Biography He has be ...

's ''Ciuffy'', and the early

music game A music video game, also commonly known as a music game, is a video game where the gameplay is meaningfully and often almost entirely oriented around the player's interactions with a musical score or individual songs. Music video games may take a ...

, ''

Amadeus Revenge ''Amadeus Revenge'' is a music-based shoot 'em up game published by System Editoriale s.r.l. in 1988 for the Commodore 64. The game was developed using the Shoot-'Em-Up Construction Kit. Gameplay The player plays the part of Wolfgang Amadeu ...

''.

References

{{reflist

External links

The SEUCK Vault
a website with tips on using the Kit.
S.E.U.C.K.
a free remake of SEUCK for Windows, Linux and Mac, implemented usin
GLBasic

German C64-Wiki
in-depth German Wiki-site for the construction kit.
Shoot 'Em Up Kit
a shoot 'em up creator inspired by the SEUCK. 1987 video games Sensible Software Commodore 64 games Amiga games Atari ST games Video games developed in the United Kingdom Video game engines Video game development software Video games with user-generated gameplay content

Design

Reception

Derivatives

See also

References

External links