How did I made such complexity like this in SHMUP Creator?

70 days ago by Eclapy Z-Omega [Vanillia Kulayan] (@KulayanEclapyZ)

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It was a lot of effort, working on CHOUNIJIDEN: Iridescent Force. A lot of triggers were used in the making of this game. Using that much triggers, I tried to make something creative that would make a level complex. My way of doing this is creating a 5-minute timer using a set of triggers where the last set of triggers will end the level. All countdown triggers will be connected together, and the timer starts with a trigger that stays activated. Once the first trigger is activated, a countdown trigger will be activated for every second. Each countdown trigger takes one second to activate, and once a countdown trigger is activated, then the next countdown trigger will be activated. In every countdown trigger activated, a text trigger would display a digit for 1 second. For every 10 countdown triggers, another text trigger would display a digit for 10 seconds. In case of 100 seconds, there would be a third text trigger that displays a digit for 100 seconds, and it would be activated for every 100 countdown triggers. Just make sure that there are no text transitions so that the text will display properly. But in a simple way, I just use one text trigger that displays a number for one second, then it counts down in every countdown trigger. So the game would display starting from “300”, then “299”, “298”, “297”, and it goes on every second until it reaches “0”. After displaying “0”, the level end trigger will be activated. The player control trigger can also be used to be activated once the final countdown trigger is activated. This would freeze controls, hold fire, and disable smart bombs, to remind the player that the time is over. This would be followed by the level end trigger. Here is a sample video on how does it work.

Another thing is just some complex examples of special bonuses. For a No Bomb Bonus in SHMUP Creator, there would be an enemy that is supposed be off the screen and the enemy can only be killed by a smart bomb. That means no collision with player bullets. After some time, there will be triggers to check whether the off-screen enemy is alive or not. The trigger will need to connect with the enemy and it should activate if the connected enemy is alive.

If the player used a bomb, the off-screen enemy will be killed, and the no bomb bonus will not be awarded. If the trigger detectes that the off-screen enemy is still alive, the trigger will activate other triggers. First, the kill trigger will activate to force kill the connected off-screen enemy without score. Second, as a reward, the item spawner trigger will activate to grant the player bonus score. And finally, the text trigger will activate to tell the player that the player survived without using a smart bomb. For this to work, make sure that you widen the wake zone. For bonuses relating to how fast did the player defeated a boss, it's complicated. This took me lots of time to make it work well and it was the most challenging part of implementing remaining time bonus. You would need a trigger that will activate when the connected enemy boss is alive. When that trigger is activated, it will activate every time trigger that you would put inside your level. In every timer trigger, it is connected to an item spawner that grants the player some points (preferably 1000 or 10000). Each item spawner trigger will require another trigger that will activate if the connected enemy boss is dead in order to activate the item spawner trigger. The first timer trigger has a duration of 1, but every succeeding timer trigger will have additional 1 second to the duration. If the time bonus allows maximum of 60 seconds, that will be a lot to handle: First is the 60 triggers all connecting to the same enemy, activating if the connected enemy is killed. Second is the 60 item spawner triggers, which grant the player 1000 or 10000 points per each item spawner trigger activated (maximum 6000 or 60000 points). And finally, 60 timer triggers, where the first timer trigger has a duration of 1, the second being 2...and the final timer trigger being a duration of 60.

Here’s this insanity in action! Imagine making something incredible in SHMUP Creator, that would be seriously filled with triggers, so I recommend making a layer dedicated for the triggers!

For those who are making shmups using SHMUP Creator, I guess there is a disadvantage that you need to overcome when using this engine. The disadvantage in context is that it will be time-consuming to make something complex when using triggers. It would be much easier to do it with code, but that’s going to be done in other game engines.

On behalf of CHOUNIJIDEN: Iridescent Force, I am glad to say that I enjoyed trying to making caravan shmups possible using SHMUP Creator. I made this game just to show how capable a score attack shoot-em-up can be made with it. Next time for sure, I will work on making a real shmup, and that will be CHOUNIJIDEN: Wonderful Skies. This is going to get serious the next time I make a new shmup using SHMUP Creator.