Scrolling shooters

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 character movement, while others allow a broader definition including characters on foot and a variety of perspectives.

The genre's roots can be traced back to earlier shooting games, including target shooting electro-mechanical games of the mid-20th-century and the early mainframe game '' Spacewar!'' (1962). The shoot 'em up genre was established by the hit arcade game ''Space Invaders'', which popularised and set the general template for the genre in 1978, and spawned many clones. The genre was then further developed by arcade hits such as ''Asteroids'' and ''Galaxian'' in 1979. Shoot 'em ups were popular throughout the 1980s to early 1990s, diversifying into a variety of subgenres such as scrolling shooters, run and gun games and rail shooters. In the mid-1990s, shoot 'em ups became a niche genre based on design conventions established in the 1980s, and increasingly catered to specialist enthusiasts, particularly in Japan. "Bullet hell" games are a subgenre of shooters that features overwhelming numbers of enemy projectiles, often in visually impressive formations.

Shoot 'em ups are similar to hack and slash.

Definition

A "shoot 'em up", also known as a "shmup"
Buchanan, Levi
Top 10 Classic Shoot 'Em Ups
, IGN, April 8, 2008, May 26, 2009
or "STG" (the common Japanese abbreviation for "shooting games"), is a game in which the protagonist combats a large number of enemies by shooting at them while dodging their fire. The controlling player must rely primarily on reaction times to succeed.Ashcraft, p. 70 Beyond this, critics differ on exactly which design elements constitute a shoot 'em up. Some restrict the genre to games featuring some kind of craft, using fixed or scrolling movement. Others widen the scope to include games featuring such protagonists as robots or humans on foot, as well as including games featuring "on-rails" (or "into the screen") and "run and gun" movement.Game Genres: Shmups
Professor Jim Whitehead, January 29, 2007. Retrieved June 17, 2008.
Provo, Frank

, GameSpot, July 7, 2007. Accessed June 17, 2008
Mark Wolf restricts the definition to games featuring multiple antagonists ("'em" being short for "them"), calling games featuring one-on-one shooting "combat games". Formerly, critics described any game where the primary design element was shooting as a "shoot 'em up", but later shoot 'em ups became a specific, inward-looking genre based on design conventions established in those shooting games of the 1980s.

Common elements

Shoot 'em ups are a subgenre of action game. These games are usually viewed from a top-down or side-view perspective, and players must use ranged weapons to take action at a distance. The player's avatar is typically a vehicle or spacecraft under constant attack. Thus, the player's goal is to shoot as quickly as possible at anything that moves or threatens them to reach the end of the level with a boss battle. In some games, the player's character can withstand some damage or a single hit will result in their destruction. The main skills required in shoot 'em ups are fast reactions and memorising enemy attack patterns. Some games feature overwhelming numbers of enemy projectiles and the player has to memorise their patterns to survive. These games belong to one of the fastest-paced video game genres.

Large numbers of enemy characters programmed to behave in an easily predictable manner are typically featured. These enemies may behave in a certain way dependent on their type, or attack in formations that the player can learn to predict. The basic gameplay tends to be straightforward with many varieties of weapons. Shoot 'em ups rarely have realistic physics. Characters can instantly change direction with no inertia, and projectiles move in a straight line at constant speeds. The player's character can collect " power-ups" which may afford the character's greater protection, an "extra life", health, shield, or upgraded weaponry. Different weapons are often suited to different enemies, but these games seldom keep track of ammunition. As such, players tend to fire indiscriminately, and their weapons only damage legitimate targets.

Types

Shoot 'em ups are categorized by their design elements, particularly viewpoint and movement:

Fixed shooters restrict the player and enemies to a single screen, and the player primarily movies along a single axis, such as back and forth along the bottom of the screen. Examples include ''Space Invaders'' (1978), ''Galaxian'' (1979), '' Centipede'' (1980), and ''Galaga'' (1981). In ''Pooyan'' (1982), the fixed axis of movement is vertical, along the right side of the screen.

Multidirectional shooters feature 360-degree movement where the protagonist may rotate and move in any direction such as ''Asteroids'' (1979) and '' Mad Planets'' (1983). Multidirectional shooters with one joystick for movement and one joystick for firing in any direction independent of movement are called twin-stick shooters. One of the first games to popularize twin-stick controls was '' Robotron: 2084'' (1982).

Space shooters are a thematic variant of involving spacecraft in outer space. Following the success of ''Space Invaders'', space shooters were the dominant subgenre during the late 1970s to early 1980s. These games can overlap with other subgenres as well as space combat games.

Tube shooters feature craft flying through an abstract tube, such as ''Tempest'' (1981) and ''Gyruss'' (1983). There is still a single axis of motion, making these a subset of fixed shooters.

Rail shooters limit the player to moving around the screen while following a specific route;
Goldstein, Hilary
Panzer Dragoon Orta
, ''IGN'', January 10, 2003; July 17, 2008
these games often feature an "into the screen" viewpoint, with which the action is seen from behind the player character, and moves "into the screen", while the player retains control over dodging. Examples include ''Space Harrier'' (1985), ''Captain Skyhawk'' (1990), '' Starblade'' (1991), ''Star Fox'' (1993), '' Star Wars: Rebel Assault'' (1993), ''Panzer Dragoon'' (1995), and ''Sin and Punishment'' (2000). Rail shooters that use light guns are called light gun shooters, such as ''Virtua Cop'' (1994), ''Time Crisis'' (1995) and ''The House of the Dead'' (1996). Light-gun games that are "on rails" are usually not considered to be in the shoot-em-up category, but rather their own first-person light-gun shooter category.

Cute 'em ups feature brightly colored graphics depicting surreal settings and enemies. Cute 'em ups tend to have unusual, oftentimes completely bizarre opponents for the player to fight, with ''Twinbee'' and ''Fantasy Zone'' first pioneering the subgenre, along with ''Parodius'', ''Cotton'', and '' Harmful Park'' being additional key games. Some cute 'em ups may employ overtly sexual characters and innuendo.

Scrolling shooters

Vertically scrolling shooters present the action from above and scroll up (or occasionally down) the screen.

Horizontally scrolling shooters usually present a side-on view and scroll left to right (or less often, right to left).

Isometrically scrolling shooters or isometric shooters, such as Sega's ''Zaxxon'' (1982), use an isometric point of view.

A popular implementation style of scrolling shooters has the player's flying vehicle moving forward, at a fixed rate, through an environment. Examples are ''Scramble'' (1981), ''Xevious'' (1982), and ''Gradius'' (1986). In contrast, '' Defender'' (1981) allows the player to move left or right at will.

Run and gun games have protagonists that move through the world on foot and shoot attackers. Examples include the vertically scrolling, overhead view games '' Front Line'' (1982), ''Commando'' (1985), and ''Ikari Warriors''(1986). Side-scrolling run and gun games often combine elements from platform games, such as the ability to jump: ''Contra'' (1987), ''Metal Slug'' (1996) and ''Cuphead'' (2017). Run and gun games may also use isometric viewpoints and may have multidirectional movement.Provo, Frank
Bloody Wolf
, GameSpot, July 7, 2007. Accessed June 17, 2008Bielby, Matt
"The YS Complete Guide To Shoot-'em-ups Part II"
''Your Sinclair,'' August 1990 (issue 56), p. 19

Bullet hell

is a subgenre of shooters in which the entire screen is completely filled with enemy bullets.Ashcraft, p. 66 This type is also known as "curtain fire", "manic shooters" or "maniac shooters".Ashcraft, p. 77 This style of game originated in the mid-1990s as an offshoot of scrolling shooters.

Trance shooters

A small subgenre of shooter games that emphasizes chaotic, reflex-based gameplay designed to put the player in a trance-like state. In trance shooters, enemy patterns usually have randomized elements, forcing the player to rely on reflexes rather than pattern memorization. Games of this type usually feature colorful, abstract visuals, and electronic music (often techno music). Jeff Minter is commonly credited with originating the style with ''Tempest 2000'' (1994) and subsequent games including ''Space Giraffe'', ''Gridrunner++'', and '' Polybius'' (2017). Other examples include the '' Geometry Wars'' series, '' Space Invaders Extreme'', ''Super Stardust HD'', and ''Resogun''.

History

Origins

The concept of shooting games existed before video games, dating back to shooting gallery carnival games in the late 19th century. Mechanical target shooting games first appeared in England's amusement arcades around the turn of the 20th century, before appearing in America by the 1920s. Shooting gallery games eventually evolved into more sophisticated target shooting electro-mechanical games (EM games) such as Sega's influential ''Periscope'' (1965). Shooting video games have roots in EM shooting games.

Video game journalist Brian Ashcraft argues the early mainframe game '' Spacewar!'' (1962) was the first shoot 'em up video game.Ashcraft, p. 72 It was developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1961, for the developers' amusement, and presents a space battle between two craft. It was remade four times as an arcade video game in the 1970s.

Emergence of shoot 'em up genre (late 1970s)

''Space Invaders'' (1978) is most frequently cited as the "first" or "original" in the genre.Bielby, Matt
"The Complete YS Guide to Shoot 'Em Ups"
''Your Sinclair'', July, 1990 (issue 55), p. 33Buchanan, Levi

, IGN, March 31, 2003. Accessed June 14, 2008 A seminal game created by Tomohiro Nishikado of Japan's Taito, it led to shooter games becoming prolific. It pitted the player against multiple enemies descending from the top of the screen at a constantly increasing speed. Nishikado conceived the game by combining elements of '' Breakout'' (1976) with those of earlier target shooting games, and simple alien creatures inspired by H. G. Wells

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