What is a SHMUP?

Simply put, it's an acronym for Shoot 'em up, a genre of games popular in the arcades of the 80's and early 90's. These usually involved either a vertically or horizontally scrolling playing field, where enemies would spawn in waves at the player, for them to shoot down.

This is a project that started during my second year of game development studies, in 2022. In an assignment we were tasked with creating a game prototype from scratch, based on an existing game. For the assignment I chose to model my prototype on SkyForce Reloaded, and it ended up being very well received by both my classmates and instructors. This inspired me to make the decision to continue working on it, and throughout the course of my studies i continued to apply new knowledge and experience that I gained as well as working out the more overt SkyForce elements, and make the game my own thing.

Some of the current features:

• Seamless 2.5D gameplay.
• A Halo-Inspired weapon pickup system.
• Dynamic Autonomous AI.
• Persistent High-Scores.
• Viewport-aware spawn system.

These are only some of the features that are currently in play at the present stage of development. Much of the work right now also involves refactoring and rebuilding prototype systems to something more suited to a production ready environment. In the following sections I will break down and discuss the evolution of the project, from inception, to prototype to where it currently stands. Bear in mind that this is an ongoing project, so be sure to check back from time to time, for new and exciting updates!

To be continued...