Once the stalwart of just about any arcade, these days Shmup's have been all but relegated to the collectors bin, while managing to retaining a hardcore following of devotee's.

In the past few years, Shmup games have found a new home and champion for their cause - the humble PC. The proliferation of the Internet and the freedom offered has allowed a new genre of bedroom coders to ply their wares for all to see. While nowhere near the heady home programming days of the ZX Spectrum and C64, today's homebrew scene has gathered a cult following in both the East and West and continues to grow in popularity.

Following on from our article on Homebrew Shmup's, NTSC-uk decided to catch up with OMEGA, the Japan based homebrew Shmup developer (and creators of titles such as EveryExtend and Dan! Da! Dan!) to find out a little bit more about what goes on behind the scenes.


1. Can you tell us a bit about Omega ? Who are you and what is your background ?

OMEGA is a circle like other doujin game circles. I'm a university student and my circle, OMEGA, is composed of only me, so OMEGA is a solo circle.

Some friends help me with making games and do most of the play testing. I think play testing is the most important part of making games, so it takes a lot of time.

Some of them play simple roles in making other games. For example, Torabo made the pictures of Maru Nage, Ryo made the music for DAN! DA! DAN!, NextTribe supplied the music for EveryExtend, while Akira and Sehayami made the graphics and music of Geki Pori. But they don't always play these roles and for each title I asked them "Do you want to draw the graphics and make the music for my game?".

2. How long have you been developing games ?

2 years in Windows & DirectX, and over 6 years in BASIC of NEC PC-98/88 series. Over 3 years in Windows & F-BASIC, and over 1 years in Java Applet.

I started to use computers for making games when I was 10 years old. I believe games is what computers do best !

3. What are your favourite games both past and present ?

There are many, many titles.

"Super Depth(Bio 100% , NEC PC-98 Series)" took up much of my time when I was young. SuperDepth is a shooter that includes many item's to power upand the system is simple but cool. I was mad on getting items.

Bio 100% is most the most popular game developing team in Japanese net (nifty). All of Bio 100%'s games are very cool.

"Ray-Kudryavka X (ls, Windows) was the first free game that taught me Windows shooters are so cool! The game has a unique system - Rock-on-ray, a blade that cuts enemies, bullets reload, 3 type stock weapons like bomb system, and powerful bosses.

The system is hard to learn , and the difficulty is very hard with no easy mode included ! But the game make me mad.

rRootage(ABA, Windows / Linux / etc.) and other ABA's games taught me about Bullet-Hell shooters and it's abstract graphics showed me a whole new video game style.The game system is easy to learn, but hard to master.

Ketsui(CAVE, Arcade) made me buy an arcade video game system. I even bought a SEGA AstroCity cabinet for this game. It's another Bullet-Hell shooter, including tricky attacks and to put it simply the game system requires you to get close to the enemy to kill them and raise your score.

Radiant SilverGun(Trasure, Arcade / Sega Saturn), Ikaruga (Treasure, Arcade / DreamCast / GameCube). These Puzzle Shooters taught me about playing patterns.

Gradius series (KONAMI , Arcade / PlayStation / etc.). These series have a variety of game worlds and unique power up system.

and other games have influenced me including :

the Age of Empire series (Microsoft, Windows), Darwin 4081 (DataEast, Genesis), Ragnarok Online(Gravity, Windows), Diablo(Blizzard , Windows), Magic The Gathering (Wizards of Coast ,CardGame), Catan (Cosmos, Table Game), JNetHack( many people , Windows / DOS / Mac) etc.

The above games include the ones that I think are not so good because as a developer I think I need play games that aren't good. Its important to understand why a game goes wrong. What's needed is to study from the past.


4. What games developers (both eastern and western) do you admire the most and why ?

Hmmmm.... I'm not too good at remembering names, but Chris Crawford and Greg Costikyan in the west. Their theory's are the most useful for all game designers.

I also admire th the creators of the games listed above.


5. What do you think about the current state of the games industry ?

I think too many people take part in one game title. In the game industry, its natural that managers make the numbers of developers in one title increase to improve the tile, but it isn't always true.

If many people made only one game, the game may become frequent in style, and cannot become unique in style.

You must remember that twenty/thirty years ago, only a few people made many games, but they were still rich in variety.

6. Typically how long does it take, from start to finish, to produce a title ?

2-3 months, but while 1-2 month's is usually spent working, 1 month usually involves playing other games and getting bored.


7. Some of the games you've created like Dan ! Da! Dan! and EveryExtend are quite complicated under the surface but still very easy to pick up and play. Where do you draw your ideas from and how do you decide what makes a good Shump ?

I draw all ideas of my games from other games. For example, EveryExtend has ideas from typical shooters with bomber-system's, and Ikaruga's and other's score-system.

DAN! DA! DAN! comes from typical dropping puzzles, like Tetris, Mr.Driller, and Quarth (KONAMI , Arcade / FC / etc.) along with suicide shot shooters etc.

There are many games and many game-systems too, in fact the game-system is composed of many sub-game-systems. What I do is to study many games, and try to disassemble these game-systems into the many sub-game-systems. Then I try to reassemble them into other games.

8. What makes a good Shump?

It should be easy to know, but hard to master.

The game-system should be simple. but the games content varied with many situations. But simply adding lots of stages, fighters, many weapons, and enemies is not good enough. The important thing is that each one is UNIQUE.

Finally, what players need to do to survive must be simple, but what players need to do to get a higher score or more item's etc, must be a little more complex.


9. All your titles have so far been very different in graphical styles. Where do you get your inspiration from ?

I use images from other games, comics , movies , TVs programmes ( including the news, cartoons, documentary's , education programs and others ), TV commercials etc

It's important to study anything that you think is interesting.


10. Your game Maru seems to feature a lot of Soy. What is your favourite Soy based meal?

Hmmm... Its quite unexpected. I like Miso soup. Its the most suitable for rice.Of course, I like Tohu too.

11. How popular are your titles in Japan ?

I don't know. I find the names of my games on some Japanese sites and overseas sites about free games. I think my titles aren't minor, but I think they aren't so popular too.

12. Did you expect your games to gather such a large following in the West ?

Hmmm.... I didn't know they had. I was surprised when I received the e-mail for an interview.


13. What do you see as being the future of Shmup games ?

I can't tell, who knows what Shump games will become in the future, but perhaps Shump games won't die.


14. Do you find it difficult developing games that are homebrew, given how much time and effort you have to put in ?

Game-system design / test-playing & balancing. These are so important.

15. Would you ever want your games to go commercial and charge for them ?

Yes, but not commercial, I want to go "doujin". I was first going to sell my games as doujin games and even sold Geki Pori in a doujin exhibition. While making "Maru Nage", I couldn't decide if my game is good enough to sell so I decide to improve my skills to make good games.

EveryExtend and DAN! DA! DAN! are the titles which made for that improved skill, so I made them for a 3 minutes game contest. Unexpectedly these games become nice works, and advertised my name.

But I don't want to stop trying to sell my games and soon I think I will sell them as doujin. Though my games aren't made for money. To sell a game is to reduce the number of players of it to, so I'm still going to release free games.


16. Can you tell us what Omega has planned for the future ? Do you plan to stick to producing Shmups or do you plan to expand into other genres ?

Hmmm... I have no idea. I think Shumps are so good that I will never get tired of them ,but other type's game appeal to me also.

I think I make games at my whim.

We also interviewed AMA Games and had a look at the homebrew on offer:

Homebrew Shmups

ABA Games Interview