This weeks post will not be about a specific game, but rather an indie game developer.
I first encountered ABA Games about 13 years ago when I first played rRootage.
Behind the moniker ABA Games is Japanese Toshiba employee Kenta Cho.
He started programming games as a kid in the 80s on a NEC PC-6001.
He released his first Windows shoot 'em up, Noiz2sa, in 2002, and after receiving positive feedback has focused on the genre.
Cho has stated he creates games of the kind which he desires to play and distributes them (along with the source code) for the enjoyment of others without the intent of monetary profit.
Due to the open source nature of his games, many have been ported to different platforms, and a handful is readily available in the repositories of many Linux Distributions.
His games are "avant-garde" re-imaginings of classic arcade shoot 'em ups, using modern 3D graphics techniques to emulate older vector graphics. His graphical style was inspired by the game Rez as well as street billboards,
You shoot the enemies by holding the fire button, you slow down your ship by holding the slow down button. Each stage ends with a boss battle.
"Retromodern hispeed shmup" PARSEC47 (2003) is quite similar to the previously mentioned game, however holding down the slow down button also charges an alternate fire mode. The enemies are also slightly more imaginative than just square blocks and bosses consists of multiple target areas the player can destroy.
"Defeat autocreated huge battleships. Shootem up game" rRootage (2003) is a vertical shooter only containing "boss battles". Every stage consists of 5 enemies and each enemy has two forms, morphing into the second form when you have dealt sufficient damage.
As the amount of barrage increases on screen the game speed slows down, I'm pretty sure this is a feature, rather than a bug, since it would otherwise quickly get pretty impossible to play.
The really interesting part of the game is all the different game modes inspired by other games in the shmup genre.
In normal mode you have a limited number of bombs that can be used to rid a portion of the screen of the enemies barrage.
In Psy mode, named after Psyvariar (2000) secondary fire slows you down but allows you to brush up against the non-damaging portions of the barrage, which increases your Graze Meter. Fill it up and your ship becomes invincible for about three seconds.
In Ika mode, named after Ikaruga (2001), secondary fire switches polarity. Basically in this mode the enemies fires shots of two different colors, having the same color as the bullets makes you invulnerable to them, instead the damage is reflected to the boss.
In GW mode, named after Giga Wing (1999) your ship has a Reflect Meter which automatically refills. When it's full, holding secondary fire will surround the ship in a short-lived reflector shield. Any bullets which hit the shield will reflect damage back at the boss.
"Sticky 2D shooter" TUMIKI Fighters (2004) is a horizontal shooter.
The title refers to the innovation in game-play since Tumiki 積み木 means building blocks.
According to Cho's website:
"You can catch the enemy's broken piece. Pieces are stuck to your ship and counterattack to enemies. You can also earn the bonus score by keeping many pieces stuck. Stuck pieces are destroyed when they touch a enemy's bullet.
While holding a slow key, the ship becomes slow and the ship direction is fixed. Stuck pieces are pulled in and you can prevent a crash of them, but the bonus score reduces to one fifth. Enemy's pieces are not stuck while holding this key."
"Speeding ship sailing through barrage" Torus Trooper (2004) is a re-imagining of Tempest (1981).
Race against the clock while shooting down enemies in an abstract tunnel, there is a regular fire button and an alternate fire button.
Each time you are hit you loose time and each time you defeat a stage boss you get bonus time.
"360-degree gunboat shooter" Gunroar (2005) is a naval themed shooter that has been likened to Geometry Wars (2003) or Robtron: 2084 (1982).
You control a gunship in a vertically scrolling game where you need to shoot other ships and land based turrets, each stage ending with a fight against a huge battle ship.
The interesting part of the game is the different game modes.
In normal mode you control the ship with the keyboard and while you hold down fire the ship remains its direction. There is also an alternate fire mode.
In twin stick mode, you use one set of controls to control the ship, and another set to control in which direction you fire.
In mouse mode you control the ship with the keyboard, but aim and fire with the mouse.
In double play you control two ships with a turret attached between them. You control each ship with separate sets of keys and both ships and the turret constantly auto-fires. This might be a really fun mode to try playing two players, controlling one ship each. If nothing else it will test your cooperation abilities.
You can check out the ABA Games website at:
http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~cs8k-cyu/
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