Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
As with virtually any "new" genre in the beginning
there were no real conventions in the shoot em up genre.
It all started with the concept of traversing a two-dimensional plane
and firing off projectiles.
These were games like Spacewar!, Galaxy Game, and Computer Space
( Computer Space was was the very first commercially sold video game) .
This is Computer Space
you can tell that its a very simple concept, but even still even it had a scoring system.
But it was Space Invaders that started to bring the genre
into what we currently know it as.
Space Invaders simplified the shooting experience
by restricting movement to a horizontal line and fixing the shot direction to directly above.
It also created on screen obstacles and a more involved scoring system.
Then we had Galaga that had strategic power up use.
If you allow your ship to be captured and then destroy
its captor you can then have double ships that increases your firepower by two.
And keep in mind all this happened before the 80's.
Here is an example of galaga's Hi-Score screen.
Hi-Score is one of the most important things in the shoot em up genre.
Here we have Defender that was our first side scroller
and had the first instance of a "smart bomb".
Smart bombs are items that completely clear the screen
of bad guys and dangerous projectiles, they are a staple now in the genre.
And look at that laser, thats swag ladies and gentlemen.
This was also the first game to take place in an artificial world.
You had to propel yourself in this game
but in later games the developers would do that for you.
Because you have enough on your plate, why do you also need to worry about propulsion.
Random trivia but this shares the title of highest grossing
video game of all time with the namco classic pac man
Here we have Caverns of Mars
that innovated the first non-infinite scrolling background.
Which basically meant an actual level.
In this game you are.. you guessed it in the caverns of mars.
You are descending to plant a bomb in the
in the martian's base and once its planted ascending to get out.
Then we have Xevious which introduced background targets
that could only be hit by your ship's secondary weapon.
Which is a concept that would be revisted most popularly
in the ray series of games ("rayforce "for example)
and in my opinion perfected in the doujin game kamui.
This was one of the first games to have "hidden" bonuses
which weren't mentioned in the instructions but can be revealed by a secret maneuver.
And here is another Hi-Score Screen.
The game 1942 introduced our first end-level "powerful boss" type character, Nakajima G8N.
This is something that is another staple of contemporary shooters.
It also is heavily emphasized now.
Some times you can drag bossfights out to be as long as a regular level
and they really are the main attraction for contemporary games
they can showcase character design and alternate music from the main stage.
Alot of times a game is characterized by its bosses.
Lol, quite underwhelming compared to contemporary stuff, lol.
As we move the the mid-80's where we have games like gradius
which had varied and memorable levels with a customizable ship.
This is the first game to allow the player to play in their own style.
Did you want Vic Viper to have ground missiles?
Frontal Shield? Option helpers?
However you felt comfortable, you could play that way.
Here we have Twin-bee which broke away from the drab futuristic / military theme
that was all too common in shooters, to pioneer the "cute-em up" sub genre of shooters.
They also did powerups in a very interesting way in this game.
You can change how you get powered up by shooting the powerups themselves
utill they gave you whatever powerup you wanted.
Different colors represent different powerups.
This may seem convenient, but in the heat of it all, it can add difficulty.
Darius was a game built from the ground up
to fit on a triple screen cabinet
all to show off its strange fish theme and its branching level design.
This is also the series that started the warning for
bosses approaching that is all too common in shooters.
If you look closely you can see a fork in the road
this is the branching design that was mentioned.
Did you want to try the artic chill of section b then go up
or perhaps you would like the liquid hot magma in section c then just go down.
This is an example of leting players play the way they wanted to.