A very useful video tutorial from Sebastian Lague on Object Pooling, a technique that every shmup developer should know.
There are lots of other great game development videos on Sebastian’s YouTube channel, but this one is particularly relevant to shoot-em-ups. Discuss it on the forums here.
Another Unity tutorial, but this time one that focuses on the new 2D features in Unity 4.
This tutorial is written by French indie developers Pixelnest.
http://pixelnest.io/tutorials/2d-game-unity/
The tutorial is available in English and Chinese, and there’s even a video version. Discuss this tutorial in the forums here.
Wondersonic’s Unity 3D shmup framework is looking very polished now. Take a look at this video demonstration of using the framework within the Unity editor.
If you’re making a shmup, you’re going to need music and sound-effects. Take a look at a new digital synthesizer and sequencer called AudioGL – it has recently entered a paid-beta phase ($80 to buy-in to the beta test, the final product will probably be around $200). There’s also a free trial.
If you’re a programmer developing a shmup it can be hard to find high-quality graphics for your game at a reasonable price. This forum thread lists many of the websites that offer free or cheap 3D models for use in games.
3D models for your shmup
If you’re interested in developing a shmup but don’t know where to start then this should help you. Here are 3 threads in the forum providing shmup-templates, which are frameworks with the basic controls and systems in place to quickly create a shmup.
Game Maker Open-Source Shmup Engine. And Warbird – a barebones game developed with this engine.
Simply choose the engine you want to work with, download the template and start making your shmup! Please post any questions in the forum. The Unity 3D framework is currently in-design and feedback is requested.
Spline movement is very important for shmups, whether it’s moving your camera through the scene, or making enemies follow precise paths. iTween is a plugin for Unity that makes spline editing and scripting easier.
iTween for Unity
Visit the iTween website for more information.
Discussion about camera scrolling techniques in the forum.
3-Step Studio is a new game development tool from GarageGames, the makers of the Torque engine. It is a visual-editor based development tool with little or no programming required to make games. At the moment it is in alpha and only supports Tower Defence and Blackjack style games, however it’s very likely that a shmup template will be added in the future as GarageGames have a history of using shmups in their Torque2D tutorials.
It’s still in a private testing phase, but once it’s release it will be free and will build games for Windows, MacOS and iOS platforms. Find out more at the website – 3stepstudio.com
RagePixel looks like an excellent tool for rapid-prototyping or for making a complete pixel-art shmup.
More info at http://ragepixel.com/
