Is a one-button danmaku game possible?

[soloista]

I've mirror-posted my proposal on the shmups.com forums, so I'd also want to hear your feedback on my idea.

1.Basically, you are playing defensively except for the bomb attacks trigger and filled up via super meter.
2. There might be two types of scrolling stages: horizontal and vertical, maybe perhaps like Ether Vapor but closer to the likes of Salamander.

Questions:
Should I just have bullet patterns moving into the screen or have enemies spewing the bullet patterns?
Should triggering the bomb/super move force a character switch after its duration?
Where should I categorize an effect that turns bullet patterns on-screen into aimed/streaming patterns for a period of time?

This is what I have so far.

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THIS PROPOSAL SHEET IS AMENDED BASED ON THREAD FEEDBACK
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There are two stage types: vertical and horizontal.

Movement:
default:move left/down
press/hold button: move right/up

Characters:
Two. Each one has a super move that clears up the screen in a certain way.
You start the game with both characters already and they work as a team.

Formation Types:
1. Lead character - One character dominates the play
2. Arrangement of characters
Double/Reinforce: Both characters point in the same directions.
Back-to-back: Characters point in opposite directions. Advantageous when surrounded or anticipating being attacked from the rear

Double formation: Characters are placed around 1/3 of the way through the screen
Back-to-Back formation: Characters are placed around 2/3 of the way through the screen

Only the lead character has the hitbox enabled.

==

Difficulty/Scoring:
Endurance-oriented. Main basis is play time, deaths, grazes. These three factors contribute to a ranking system.

Bullet patterns:
Procedural generation based on the ranking system. Bullet speed, density and types of patterns that appear will be influenced.
Some bullet patterns are pre-made and are generated into the screen based on rank.
Formation type and lead characters can also factor into the bullet pattern that will be generated.

Stations:
From time to time, there will be several circles floating into the screen. They are activated by touching them.
Types:
Switch formation.
Switch lead character.
Trigger super move.

The first two types change the bullet pattern types to challenge that formation. The third type lowers ranking. Ignoring stations does nothing, but I hope you enjoy getting getting shot at from behind with little room to plan and dodge.

All stations are predetermined in the stages.

[Danielu Yoshikoto]

Sorry but Danmaku games like touhou usually use Three buttons (even 4 if ctrl is counted)

• Shoot (just pushing the button in your game)
• Bomb (holding down in your game)
• Focus (This is done by push-... erm...)

Seeing how Focusing is more or less part of a Bullet hell game (slowing down character, alternating the shotype/options a bit, as well as showing the hitbox), it?s impossible to emulate the controls for such a game with just one button. (also... how are the people going to decline thier choices,  a.k.a going back one screen in the menu?)

[soloista]

There's no choice of character pre-game. The two characters (Koishi + Flandre) work as a team.

Some games have shot and focus mapped to one button, where tap = shot; hold = focus + shot ; others don't have a focused movement at all and then there are some who link focused movement to a meter.

[Stuffman]

So the one button is just for movement? If it's on-off, that means it's impossible to hold still, right? Being stuck with horizontal/vertical only, no bombs, and inability to stop moving sounds like it'd be very limiting in terms of what kinds of (fair) patterns you could put in the game. Also, constantly twitching like that sounds like it'd be disastrous in a game where graze is a significant score contributor.

You say you would punish the player for not grabbing screen-position stations; assuming the stations are generated according to what's coming next in the stage, are you fucked if you don't grab them? What if you've got that 2/3 station when you get into a boss fight?

I dunno dude, simple games can be interesting but I think this is taking away too much.

Also, does the second character have a hitbox?

[Suikama]

I don't understand why no one has made an STG where your character is always shooting, no button needed. :/

[soloista]

So the one button is just for movement? If it's on-off, that means it's impossible to hold still, right? Being stuck with horizontal/vertical only, no bombs, and inability to stop moving sounds like it'd be very limiting in terms of what kinds of (fair) patterns you could put in the game. Also, constantly twitching like that sounds like it'd be disastrous in a game where graze is a significant score contributor.

You say you would punish the player for not grabbing screen-position stations; assuming the stations are generated according to what's coming next in the stage, are you fucked if you don't grab them? What if you've got that 2/3 station when you get into a boss fight?

I dunno dude, simple games can be interesting but I think this is taking away too much.

Also, does the second character have a hitbox?

1. There's quite a bit of shmups out there that have predetermined powerups. There are times when the power-ups being generated are on a sequence/cycle basis that can be predicted.

2. Only the primary character would have a hitbox.  If both have hitboxes then the game would feel like Bioship Paladin and Shoot 1UP.

3. There are a bunch of shmups and indie shmups out there with autofire. I think there was an indie game contest that involved autofire in a shmup.

4. Here's an example of a one-button game


EDIT:
HOLD THAT THOUGHT.
If my game concept uses normal controls, it turns into Psyvariar, basically.

[Ghaleon]

I don't understand why no one has made an STG where your character is always shooting, no button needed. :/

There have been plenty of those actually. Wasn't galaga one of them?

[ChaoStar]

There have been plenty of those actually. Wasn't galaga one of them?

Nope. But there was no need to /not/ hold the shoot key :getdown:

Actually, talking about one button danmaku, I'm working on a one button player. you can activate a feature, so the player dodges for you. And all you need to do is shoot.

[soloista]

Nope. But there was no need to /not/ hold the shoot key :getdown:

Actually, talking about one button danmaku, I'm working on a one button player. you can activate a feature, so the player dodges for you. And all you need to do is shoot.

That sounds an awful lot like Prinny: Can I Really Be the Hero? ; where you have to mash the button BEYOND hell sometimes.  If the button tapping is to a sequence or timing then it becomes a rhythm game.

On another note, there was this Macross 7 game for the GBA where you sometimes had to fight bosses and tap buttons according to a rhythm and dodge attacks at the same time.

[ChaoStar]

But honestly, having a one button Danmaku game is kinda a stupid idea, to be honest. I mean, isn't the whole point of dodging bullets to dodge bullets? I don't want to play jumprope...