"Shooting game never die."
It is the words that modern classic shmup Crimzon Clover leaves you with. It's a telling turn of phrase that has become somewhat memetic within the STG community - putting in so few words how the genre has persisted despite what would be kind to call limited commercial success for going on 30 years now. The fact that in the year 2023 Toaplan have revived and are probably working on a Truxton/Tatsujin 3 whilst something like starcraft is dead as a dornail is frankly, a bit stupid.
And maybe there is something intrinsic to the genre when it comes to that. Shmups can be made with tiny teams, fast and cheaply. Possibly the most famous shmup - Ikaruga - was born out of a side project at Treasure when two devs had finished their work on Sin and Punishment and finished in 6 months, for instance.
But that's not really why. It's passion. Passion like Kenta Cho's.
just... look at all this.. This list of free, well designed, generally quite good games feels absolutely endless. Most are shmups or at least shmup related - see the excellent Charge shot which is an abstraction of the charge shot from R-type made into a game all of it's own - and that's what he does. The vast majority of his games are about exploring a single mechanic. Combine that with the sheer volume and it's easy to imagine it all as a bit dry, but Kenta Cho is a man with the design craft of the classics and is always super distinctive about it all. In an interview, bizzarely with MTV, the interviewer states he could be a very rich guy - and you can tell that the creative chops and talent he's got for pure game design and coming up with wild concepts could have lead him to great success commercially - but it's not what he wants.
What he wants is to make stuff like Torus Trooper. By his standards, it's a complex game. It's 3D for one thing, the intersection of Nichibitsu's old Tube Panic combined with the franticness of Tempest (I feel there's a little of jeff minter's games in here in particular), with a bit of sanvein thrown in there. Go down the tube fast as fuck killing everything to gain time against an ever decreasing clock, and when time runs out it's over. As ever with Cho, the core hook here is absolutely tantilising. The sense of speed is utterly insane and the game goes well beyond what it feels it should. You can go so fast the game becomes barely legible, but you're rewarded for it tangibly with points and the game has a few neat tricks in regards to things like it's hit detection (you will never get hit by a triangle bullet at high speed) and spawns to keep you going. Eventually it will look like a game being played in fast forward. Jeff Minter's games love the phrase "feed your head to the web" and Kenta Cho truly taps into that hyper-immersive quality of a great tube shooter like Minter does.
I don't think it's his best game though. The ability to control your actual acceleration i feel neuters the game a bit even if after a while you're just going to be holding up, and the charge shot/brake thing is a little off. It's used to score points but also acts as a brake but you can also control your ship's speed anyways, and slowing down also decreases your ability to get time extends from just going fast. It's not a huge issue but in a game so bare it just puts the game a little below the gloriously well designed Tumiki Fighters and Rrootage, games that exemplify Cho's "One thing well" philosophy.
But what I really love about Torus Trooper, Tumiki Fighters, all of Cho's work, is his practices. All his games are free for one, which is nice, but better, they're all completely open source. If I wanted to, he would have absolutely no problem with me taking this game, fixing my personal issues with it, and selling it for like $5 on the switch eshop, without paying him a cent. Hell, this seems to be what he wants - every single scrap of media about him shows a lovely guy who adores making games and wants to help others to make games. His github has loads of useful tools that prospective shmup devs can use to construct their own games. Especially in his earlier years around when TT came out, he was an exceptionally valuable and influential resource to the programmers that are now making the new wave of great shmups.
Perhaps the greatest testament that he's in it for the love of the game is Blast works for the Wii, which is essentially an expanded version of Tumiki fighters developed by a small iowan team called budcat, introducing an editor and the ability to make new stages and stuff (which itself kinda feels like the developers carrying on a bit of Cho's ideals). The end result is pretty great. And Kenta Cho refused to be paid a cent. In fact, the game contains his biggest and best games - Torus Trooper, Tumiki Fighters, Gunroar and Rrootage as unlockable bonuses.
Cho has a level of idealism and love for the genre, and for game development as a whole that I can barely understand.
We do not deserve him.
Shooting game might never die. But it should not be forgotten that longevity isn't because shmups are blessed, or just the best, though they are. It's because of people like Kenta Cho, and others I could go on about for a good while (Masato Maegawa, Kazuki Kubota, Naoki Horii, Rin Hamada, ZUN, countless indie devs). People who have worked their absolute hearts out to keep the torch lit and pass it on, often at the expense of commercial and critical success. I only hope your favourite genre has people like them.
It is the words that modern classic shmup Crimzon Clover leaves you with. It's a telling turn of phrase that has become somewhat memetic within the STG community - putting in so few words how the genre has persisted despite what would be kind to call limited commercial success for going on 30 years now. The fact that in the year 2023 Toaplan have revived and are probably working on a Truxton/Tatsujin 3 whilst something like starcraft is dead as a dornail is frankly, a bit stupid.
And maybe there is something intrinsic to the genre when it comes to that. Shmups can be made with tiny teams, fast and cheaply. Possibly the most famous shmup - Ikaruga - was born out of a side project at Treasure when two devs had finished their work on Sin and Punishment and finished in 6 months, for instance.
But that's not really why. It's passion. Passion like Kenta Cho's.
just... look at all this.. This list of free, well designed, generally quite good games feels absolutely endless. Most are shmups or at least shmup related - see the excellent Charge shot which is an abstraction of the charge shot from R-type made into a game all of it's own - and that's what he does. The vast majority of his games are about exploring a single mechanic. Combine that with the sheer volume and it's easy to imagine it all as a bit dry, but Kenta Cho is a man with the design craft of the classics and is always super distinctive about it all. In an interview, bizzarely with MTV, the interviewer states he could be a very rich guy - and you can tell that the creative chops and talent he's got for pure game design and coming up with wild concepts could have lead him to great success commercially - but it's not what he wants.
What he wants is to make stuff like Torus Trooper. By his standards, it's a complex game. It's 3D for one thing, the intersection of Nichibitsu's old Tube Panic combined with the franticness of Tempest (I feel there's a little of jeff minter's games in here in particular), with a bit of sanvein thrown in there. Go down the tube fast as fuck killing everything to gain time against an ever decreasing clock, and when time runs out it's over. As ever with Cho, the core hook here is absolutely tantilising. The sense of speed is utterly insane and the game goes well beyond what it feels it should. You can go so fast the game becomes barely legible, but you're rewarded for it tangibly with points and the game has a few neat tricks in regards to things like it's hit detection (you will never get hit by a triangle bullet at high speed) and spawns to keep you going. Eventually it will look like a game being played in fast forward. Jeff Minter's games love the phrase "feed your head to the web" and Kenta Cho truly taps into that hyper-immersive quality of a great tube shooter like Minter does.
I don't think it's his best game though. The ability to control your actual acceleration i feel neuters the game a bit even if after a while you're just going to be holding up, and the charge shot/brake thing is a little off. It's used to score points but also acts as a brake but you can also control your ship's speed anyways, and slowing down also decreases your ability to get time extends from just going fast. It's not a huge issue but in a game so bare it just puts the game a little below the gloriously well designed Tumiki Fighters and Rrootage, games that exemplify Cho's "One thing well" philosophy.
But what I really love about Torus Trooper, Tumiki Fighters, all of Cho's work, is his practices. All his games are free for one, which is nice, but better, they're all completely open source. If I wanted to, he would have absolutely no problem with me taking this game, fixing my personal issues with it, and selling it for like $5 on the switch eshop, without paying him a cent. Hell, this seems to be what he wants - every single scrap of media about him shows a lovely guy who adores making games and wants to help others to make games. His github has loads of useful tools that prospective shmup devs can use to construct their own games. Especially in his earlier years around when TT came out, he was an exceptionally valuable and influential resource to the programmers that are now making the new wave of great shmups.
Perhaps the greatest testament that he's in it for the love of the game is Blast works for the Wii, which is essentially an expanded version of Tumiki fighters developed by a small iowan team called budcat, introducing an editor and the ability to make new stages and stuff (which itself kinda feels like the developers carrying on a bit of Cho's ideals). The end result is pretty great. And Kenta Cho refused to be paid a cent. In fact, the game contains his biggest and best games - Torus Trooper, Tumiki Fighters, Gunroar and Rrootage as unlockable bonuses.
Cho has a level of idealism and love for the genre, and for game development as a whole that I can barely understand.
We do not deserve him.
Shooting game might never die. But it should not be forgotten that longevity isn't because shmups are blessed, or just the best, though they are. It's because of people like Kenta Cho, and others I could go on about for a good while (Masato Maegawa, Kazuki Kubota, Naoki Horii, Rin Hamada, ZUN, countless indie devs). People who have worked their absolute hearts out to keep the torch lit and pass it on, often at the expense of commercial and critical success. I only hope your favourite genre has people like them.
Vee
1 year ago