Shmup of the Month Club 2014 (Completed)

[ninjainspandex]

Oh, yr going skiing skiing. Thought you might be coming up to the north shore to Lutsen or something...have fun. #jelly

Thanks Mike, are you a skiier yourself?

[mjmjr25]

Oh, yr going skiing skiing. Thought you might be coming up to the north shore to Lutsen or something...have fun. #jelly

Thanks Mike, are you a skiier yourself?

It's been awhile. It's pretty popular up here of course, a couple local hills and then some nicer hills up the shore. I did a lot in high school but haven't in probably 12 years now - once the kids are older we'll get passes at Spirit Mtn.

[ChrisHaha2049]

Get it more!

ChrisH2049 - 1,915,880 - Stage 4 - Windina - MAME32
So I take it Aryustailm is the big scorer... but Windina's powerful normal wave shots make getting past stage 3 so much easier. And frankly, all the other ships just seem helpless to me.

[dsheinem]

2nd try

dsheinem - 648,900 - Stage 3 - Hellhound (this is the default, right?) - MAME

How have I never played this amazing game?

Excellent pick, look forward to much more time with it!

As for scoring strategy, is this a fair read of the OP?

-Use break shots regularly (but not fully charged shots).
-Let 1 or 2 (or more?) of the winged orbs pass before collecting one.
-otherwise shoot and collect everything

What's the utility of the second button? It isn't used in the demo screen at startup and seems to release a small stream of mostly useless bullets - and only on occasion as sometimes it does nothing.

[samsonlonghair]

Yes, I think the default ship is called Hell hound.

I know what a charge shot is, but what does the phrase "break shot" mean? I'm only recently broadening my horizons in shoot 'em ups beyond Galaga and Ikaruga. I'm not up on the lingo. I never heard the expression "popcorn" in relation to Shoot 'em ups until mjmjr25 said it earlier in this thread. His meaning is clear from context, but I can't figure out what "break shot" means. Neither Google nor Urban Dictionary provide an answer.

Why let the angel orbs pass by without collecting them?

[dsheinem]

we have another participant too:

[Nyukki]

If you let orbs pass, the next one you pick up will give you a higher multiplier, I think.

I don't know what break shots are either, someone please explain.

[ExedExes]

Aye, all of the picks are very good this year. Every PM received from my delegates got me more and more excited, but Blazing Star I thought was genius only because it gets talked about so often. Everyone is loving it so far. Success!

1.9m now is the best? I gotta get back to work.

Before I do, let me address some questions and points here.

- Charge & Break shot - Button A will charge up the SHOT meter at the bottom for a charge shot. This shot will increase a multiplier (up to x128) with each consecutive enemy hit for the duration of the shot. The break shot is activated by pressing button B during the charge shot; the effect will be slightly different for each ship. Think of it as an emergency disengage for when you might be in trouble, because the break shot has generally protective qualities (forcefield around Aryustailm's ship for example)

- The word "popcorn" = term for smaller, usually defenseless enemies put in places for scoring opportunities/general annoyance.

- Event items: The angel-type yellow items will increase your score by x2 when picked up as long as it is on screen. Not picking up one makes the next item orange in color and 4x. The next one will appear brown in color (x6? x8?) if orange item is not picked up.

- Rapid shot: Tap the button as fast as you can and you get a special, different looking & more powerful rapid fire shot. Frequency of button tapping depends on ship selected; from my experience, Windina has the easiest rapid shot to activate (less frequent tapping needed), and also probably has the best one for the shot spread is much wider (and as ChrisH pointed out, great for all that debris in the first half of Stage 3)

[samsonlonghair]

Thanks for the insight, Exed.

I had been using the first button to charge my shot. It never occurred to me to use the second button for that purpose. I couldn't figure out what the second button did.

Does the Angel item provide a single-hit protection (a la Sonic's Shield or Crash Bandicoot's Tiki Mask) or am I just imagining it?

[dsheinem]

- 2nd button = Charge & Break shot. Button B will charge up the SHOT meter at the bottom for a charge shot. This shot will increase a multiplier (up to x128) with each consecutive enemy hit for the duration of the shot. The break shot is activated with another press of button B during the charge shot; the effect will be slightly different for each ship. Think of it as an emergency disengage for when you might be in trouble, because the break shot has generally protective qualities (forcefield around Aryustailm's ship for example)

Is it just the same as holding down button one then? That's what I've been doing...

Had like 990K last run