ShoOot 2
By Psychotronic | February 11, 2008
Categories: abstract, action, arcade, browser, flash, free, game, linux, mac, rating-g, shooter, simpleidea, tonypa, windows
Let's be honest: you can't trust circles. You never know which way they're facing and you can't measure them without using irrational numbers. What's their angle? I don't know. But they seem a little too perfect and a little too curvilinear, and anything I can't draw by hand should be beaten roundly.
Luckily, Tonypa has addressed my concerns by releasing a sequel to ShoOot, his cathartic circle extermination simulator from 2005. ShoOot 2: revenge of square is more of a spiritual successor than a direct sequel, since you can now move in two dimensions and the gameplay focus has shifted from overwhelming rapid-fire madness to a more deliberate and unusual rhythm.
You can move your square avatar freely around the screen with the mouse, but you have no direct control over your gun. Instead, the square rotates on its own, firing automatically in whatever direction it happens to be facing. You can speed up your rotation slightly by holding [Z] and slow it down with [X], but barring power-ups, your fire rate is slow and constant. Therefore, you must spend the free time between shots lining up the next one. Each time you fire and hit something, your score multiplier goes up by one. Miss once, and it drops to zero.
Until you get used to it, this system feels rather weird. You don't want to get too close to your prey, since the larger circles split into smaller ones when shot, but it's hard to shoot things when you don't have precise control over your aim. So you end up lurking uncertainly nearby like a slightly drunken man swatting hornets. I eventually got so I could hit my targets pretty consistently, but it doesn't feel quite like any other shooter I've played.
Analysis: ShoOot 2 comes with Tonypa's usual handsome minimalist visual style, and a low-down crunching soundtrack that drives the pace of the game brilliantly. There's a power-up called "caffeine" that speeds up your gun temporarily, and I think it's a missed opportunity that the music doesn't speed up to match. In a perfect world, there would be an aggressive track for that and a slower one for the "nap-time" power-up. Maybe in ShoOot 3.
Although the innovative firing mechanism makes this game uniquely engaging, I can't help but feel that it isn't a complete success. The main problem is the power-ups. Only one of these is permanent, and it occurs randomly. It's possible to play through level after level without ever upgrading your firepower — which also doubles as your remaining health — and although that makes the game less hectic, it also makes it impossible to survive after a certain point. Some of the power-ups are extremely helpful, while others are near-useless, and you can't tell what you're getting until you grab one. The unpredictability keeps you on your toes, but I still would have liked having more control over my fate, especially with regard to the permanent upgrades.
But in other respects, ShoOot 2 is a smoOoth ride through intelligent shoOoter-ville. Having to plan your rotating attacks while weaving between dozens of moving obstacles is fascinating. Plus, every few levels you'll face a mind-blowingly huge boss circle, which is an unexpected coat of tangy frosting on an already tasty cake. ShoOot 2 may not be the ideal implementation of this gameplay idea, but it's still a very coOol game.
Play ShoOot 2
ElliotM • February 11, 2008 7:49 PM
I enjoyed playing this game. I got 3900 on my second try but I think the game goes much further. Getting hit by the circles costs you upgrades/guns. Once you run out of guns you die but power ups can help you get some back so all is not lost if you take a few hits. Nice simple concept, and though not perfect it is very playable.
Sloth • February 11, 2008 8:08 PM
i wonder why he didnt post this on his site. is he sponsored by gimme 5 games now?
peter • February 11, 2008 8:29 PM
To be fair, you can measure circles just fine without imaginary numbers. You do need to leave the comfort of the rational numbers, though, which is reason enough on its own to shoot them.
Oddly paced but very fun game.
Lee • February 11, 2008 8:41 PM
I was expecting another descendant of Asteroids, but ShoOot feels more like a tactical evasion game. In the later levels it was difficult to do more than dodge the circles and hope a few shots hit.
As I progressed and firepower increased it almost became too easy, then the screen exploded with broken circles. Frustrating, but I like games that are fun before ending with frustration. I only wish I could have saved and tried again later.
Also, I enjoyed the music, but even music this good becomes annoying after a while.
Quite fun, I only wish it included save, pause, and mute options.
zxo • February 11, 2008 9:03 PM
Lee: You can turn down/off the music, but only at welcome screen. Also, clicking pauses the game. Saves, however, are only wishful thinking on your part :)
Ahh, I didn't see those options. Thanks!
Not many Flash games have save options, but this one would benefit, I think. As my skill improves the first few levels become tedious, but I still love the crazy levels later.
Kegan • February 12, 2008 1:09 AM
lvl 18 kills me every time...
lol, im still expecting my mouse to spin
Chriss • February 12, 2008 2:48 AM
Sh000t is my ALL TIME favorite game on JIG. This is fantastic news!!!
Chappy • February 12, 2008 3:10 AM
I was surprised by how much depth was added by being able control the turning speed. first time i scored 75, then 57, then 6126 cuz i got lucky with the upgrades. but still tons of fun. although being a gamer I WANT FULL CONTROL so this game is a good practice in will power.
tonypa • February 12, 2008 3:49 AM
Thank you all for nice comments :)
I liked the idea of music being affected by powerups (speedy for caffeine, slow for naptime), something I should of done but never thought of....
Not sure about the Save feature, in theory it could be done by saving position and velosity of each circle. But I always imagined it as quick-fun game where you only survive couple of minutes and basically try to gather more points (the idea of double-points bonus). Could be, like many times before, I have underestimated the skill of players.
The game has 20 different levels btw. Last ones are pretty tough I feel.
My own site was created for Flash8 and the system is not able to run F9 games (maybe when I learn AS3 better I can upgrade it).
I am very grateful to everyone at the JIG chat who helped to test the game, find bugs and suggested many features.
kule • February 12, 2008 7:26 AM
Enjoyable for a few goes - nice looking and I really liked the constantly turning/auto shooting aspect - added another dimension to the game play.
Seemed to get a bit silly though that in later levels, your upgrades become a hindrance as you end up unintentionally creating tonnes of smaller circles and it slipped into an basic avoidance game instead.
Lee • February 12, 2008 9:34 AM
Saving is a feature I often wish for. A lesser alternative would be higher difficulty settings to jump into the action right away.
Skill games like this typically ramp up gradually. But the early levels quickly become easy, and it's too tedious to play through the early levels repeatedly to reach the challenging levels. Then I regretfully stop playing games I enjoy.
I feel it's much more fun to repeatedly attempt just the level I can't beat.
Fairlyn • February 12, 2008 11:01 AM
fun little diversion
liked the idea of the "boss" circles
scored 4501
last 2 waves were very hard ()felt like i had circles coming from everywhere, I died)
what does the "double" upgrade do (it didn't do anything for me)
tonypa • February 12, 2008 11:42 AM
Double bonus simply gives twice the points from each shot (good for your score).
keith • February 12, 2008 12:13 PM
Beautiful game. I love it!
OtherBill • February 12, 2008 2:58 PM
- The "X" and "Z" keys' affect on your rotation is so subtle that I just skip them entirely. I'd like to see "X" stop your rotation entirely, and "Z" speed it up noticeably.
- The "spread" and "focus" upgrades aren't very good. Since they change the aim of your gun, they make it more likely that you'll break combo accidentally.
- The "doubler" upgrade is similarly useless, especially if you have to break combo to pick it up.
- I wish there were more firepower (health) upgrades. Better yet, decouple firepower from health, similar to the original ShoOot.
- Level 18 is impossible. If you make it that far, you generally have so much firepower that everything explodes at once and you get overwhelmed.
- If the first game was ShoOot, the sequel really should've been called ShoOoOot. :-)
Zak • February 12, 2008 3:01 PM
I loOoved ShoOot, but I can't get this one to work and it makes me terribly sad. I can see the title screen of the game, but clicking the volume icon or start icon don't do anything - bummer : (
michaelwong38 • February 12, 2008 6:39 PM
Tony Pa's games are so amazing. To this day, Keyway is still one of my favs. Look forward to trying this out.
Also, since this is my first post, thank you Jay and the Crew for bringing us such gaming goodness.
John • February 12, 2008 6:52 PM
I love the game a lot, but I have to say, the frequency of the upgrade versus that stupid double >.< The game was so good until I got hit once and then all I got was double, I don't care about my score personally, I just want to blow stuff up at that point and not die. Other than that, great job
andy • February 12, 2008 7:24 PM
dood! this games AWESOME! IN BIG SHAKY LETTERS! the only problem is that the game gets too repetitive after a few levels.The power up dilemma is the main reason this game isnt on my top five favorite games list.
omgitsgir • February 12, 2008 8:30 PM
You can't actually beat the game. I made it to level 21 (barely), and it just repeats wave 20 until your face is beaten into the pavement by it. This is not a bad thing. If you can get to level 20, you're either lucky enough or good enough to deserve a challenge. Basically, when you hit 20, you've hit score attack mode. Do not pass GO, do not look back. You're in the big leagues now.
This is because level 20 is EVIL. The wave consists of one large (not boss) circle of each color. Every circle takes 2 hits to destroy. The best part is, all the babies take 2 hits to kill as well.
Even with the immense difficulty later on, and the incredibly unforgiving RNG, this is one of the best indie shooters I've ever seen. Good job, ponyta - this is one for the ages.
Kirkpad • February 12, 2008 9:39 PM
WOW shooot sequel, great to hear.
Great awesome gameplay.
LSN • February 13, 2008 3:18 AM
Okay, so I didn't think much of this when I played it the first 2 or 3 times, but I just played it right now and was lucky enough to upgrade up to the point where 5 bullets are coming out of each end. I thought it would be easy at first, but I had to avoid more than I could aim to kill. Very clever and completely fun. I'm 200 something in the high scores :P
I can understand the problem some people have with powerups: the powerups are random and some are better then others. However, I dont agree Double powerup is completely useless, the idea with it was that you are playing for higher score instead of reaching higher level. If you carefully manouver the square so every bullet hits an enemy and you get double powerup, you can can double your score within short time, since each hit adds more and more points.
Grats for reaching level 20+, its true the same enemies will be repeated as they are most challenging the game can throw at you. In theory if you reach level 41, every enemy will take 3 hits...
After intoducing yellow (heading toward you after hitting the wall) and purple (following you) enemies only way to make next level more difficult was to increase number of enemies. Then again, since you probably have picked up loads of powerups and are shooting dozens of bullets the enemies die also very fast and leave even more powerups which make you even more powerful.
zak, I am not sure why the game doesnt work for you. Maybe you are able to play it at Kongregate? Only thing I can think of is that your Flash Player is not latest version (right click on any Flash content, choose about, it should get you to page in Adobe site where you can upgrade the FP).
Thanks again everyone, I love your comments :)
Stefan • February 13, 2008 5:30 AM
Great game. Reached level 20 but had just one life left.
My score was 8008.
zxo • February 13, 2008 9:44 AM
LOL... "ponyta"!
Zak • February 13, 2008 11:16 AM
Thanks for the reply tonypa, but I still can't get it to work. I have the latest flash player for my system, 9,0,115,0. I also tried going over to Kongregate to play, no luck though. Should I also mention that the speaker icon looks like its possibly in mute mode on load, though I'm not sure how it should look. I just see the speaker in a box with no sound bars coming from it (if they're supposed to be there).
tonypa • February 13, 2008 12:14 PM
I am not sure Zak :(
Even if you turn off the sound, the game should still play. I have never encouter this problem. Do the sound/start button change color to yellow when your mouse is over them? Not that it would solve anything, I still have no idea what could be wrong...
tonypa, the mouseovers do work, though still no clickability :( I'll try loading this on my room mate's compy as I really wanna play it. Thank you so much for making such fun games, always a treat to see new material from tonypa!
Ton • February 14, 2008 8:36 AM
The intro made by Psychotronic contains one very hindering mistake. Pi is NOT an imaginary number.
The game is great nonetheless :)
Ryan • February 14, 2008 4:53 PM
This game is so much fun! I love the look, the feel, the sounds. I like that there are discreet levels, and I love the "boss" circles.
I feel like the difficulty curve is good, right up until level 18, where, abruptly, the game becomes completely impossible (for me, anyway).
But that doesn't keep me from trying... "Maybe THIS time I can do it..."
And, of course, every time, the answer is a resounding, "No."
Psychotronic • February 14, 2008 8:24 PM
Jeeze, you guys are sticklers. I've changed it to "irrational". Now stop mailing me threatening hypotenuses.
Trystera • February 14, 2008 11:07 PM
Maybe this is supposed to be a fundamental challenge of the gameplay, but couldn't there be a mark on the sides of the square where your turrets are? As if being unable to significantly control your rate of fire or rotation speed isn't already difficult enough, I hate losing track of which identical side is doing the shooting.
TheDefender • February 18, 2008 3:15 PM
I am a HUGE fan of the original shoOot game, and for all of tonypas's games, for that matter. I was excited to see a new version come out because I was wondering how he could have improved un such a classic...
I am sorry to say that though this game is fun, it does miss the mark in a few areas (in my opinion), and it pains me to say that. I will put them each in spoiler tags to conserve space, and hide my gripes from anyone who hasn't tried it yet...
1) There is no differentiation between the different types of powerups. This creates a trade-off of sorts, and removes the ability to combine power ups. (A caffeinated nap-time powerup would be interesting). This wouldn't normally be an issue, but I was in a nap-time, and positioned myself in such a way that I had to grab the next power-up (which was a focus powerup) while a bunch of circles were around me, and it instantly sped things up, all the while, I had no idea where my shots were going because of the focus. In comparison to the original, this is a bad design.
2) As mentioned before, the effects of powerups cannot be combined. This could significantly alter the game play, and strategies employed -- because even though it has a free-for-all "feel", there are still some great strategies that can be utilized.
3) No shield powerup. This was an integral powerup in the first shoOot game, and I imagine it would be very handy in this version too.
4) The rotational controls "z" and "x" didn't give any noticeable or appreciable change in the rotation speed, so I find myself ignoring them.
5) Constant shoOoting without being able to shoOot when I want. This is another strategy altering loss that removes some of the enjoy-factor of the game.
I still love tonypa's games and I look forward to every new game you put out there... (I'll even go back to this one a few more times, but I don't see it making my personal top-ten anytime soon... (Incidentally, the first shoOot game is still # 1 and there have been some nice challenges come along.
Keep up the great work Jay, tonypa, and everyone else who keeps me entertained at JIG.
whir • February 25, 2008 5:36 AM
I'm another huge fan of ShoOot (1). I liked this one, but I was a little frustrated by two differences from the first one:
1. You can't differentiate the power-ups (in #1, the different effects had different colored dots).
2. The upgrades don't seem to overlap, so if it's naptime and you grab spread, you're sort of hosed by the sudden loss of naptime (instead of having naptime + spread for a little while).
Something it shares with the first one is that if you lose a few levels of upgrade at a high level, you're mostly hosed because it's really hard to shoot the littlest circles (and grab another power-up) if the screen is already crowded.
I don't know if I need a save game feature, but a "continue from level X with the same firepower" might be nice. Oh, and I don't want to sound like I'm griping, I really did enjoy the game. Thanks tonypa!
tonypa • May 10, 2008 2:06 AM
I have made 3rd version in series "ShoOot3: The Curse of White Square". It still features similar graphics and basic gameplay but hopefully is different enough.
http://www.gimme5games.com/index.jsp?id=shooot3