Crystal Breaker, the vertical shoot’em up developed and published by Terarin Games is available from today on Switch and PC.
After a collaboration I realized to help the localization for Western languages, I asked if it was possible to have an interview and the response was positive.
First of all I would like to thank Terarin Games for his willingness to grant me this interview; of course it is focused on Crystal Breaker but I think that it’s not easy to have a chance to talk with a shoot’em up developer so here and there are also more generic questions about the scene and I hope the readers will appreciate it, so let’s start:
1. First a little series of questions regarding you and your job: when talking about shoot’em up (from now “shmup“) games, Japanese people is seen like the Gods for this genre. When did you start playing shmups, on console or arcades?
My first encounter with shmups was playing Xevious on Famicom at a friend’s house as a kid, then I tried Gradius, Star Force, etc.
After a while I bought a PC Engine and I started playing R-Type, Dragon Spirit, Gunhed and so on.
2. When the idea “I want to become a shoot’em up developer” came out?
I wanted to use my programming skills to try something new, so I started making video games in 2016. I use a development tool called Game Maker Studio (GMS). I learned by myself how to make video games.
3. Switching from player to developer is for many gamers like a dream. Which is the first problem that you got when you started programming games?
In game development, my challenge was drawing graphics. At first, I drew simple graphics and focused on game programming. After some experience, I strengthened my graphics and now I can draw pixel art and simple illustrations by myself.
4. Did you study Computer Science at university and it is necessary if you want to become a game developer or self study and learning by yourself is enough?
I graduated in Economics at university. After that, I learned about computers while working as a systems engineer and security engineer.
Systems development and game development are different, but I think my experience is useful in game development, for example about schedule management.
There are plenty of game development tools and technical information available to learn game development, so I think it’s possible to learn on your own.
5. How long in general is the time necessary to develop a shmup?
In my case, it takes me a year to develop one shmup, and the total time is about 2000 hours. I especially spend a lot of time on balancing.
6. Thanks for the (long) intro, now let’s focus on Crystal Breaker, your latest title: the game includes 8 different stages which is quite long for a shmup (the average is around 5-6). It has been difficult to think about how to differentiate them not only in terms of background but also for enemies and patterns?
A typical arcade shmup is structured for playing through 5 or 6 consecutive stages.
But this is a console game, I thought there was no need to make it the same as the arcade structure. So I made the 8 stages independent and increased the overall volume. This allows users to play through the stages little by little, as much as they want, rather than forcing them to play through the game.
Once a new stage is unlocked, it can be played at any time. If you are holding a score attack competition, for example, you can choose to do a score attack on stage 5.
Each stage has a different length, and the later stages are more difficult. In the longer stages, I implemented background changes, such as planetary landing or entering a space colony.
I often intentionally place the same enemies to take advantage of pattern learning, but I change the patterns so that each stage feels slightly different.
7. Crystal Breaker includes very nice effects like sprite scaling and sprite rotations that give memories of the good old times of Super Famicom’s Mode-7. Which is the graphic feature that gave you the most headaches and now you are proud that you were able to implement?
Crystal Breaker uses some sprite scaling and rotation. The most typical example is the planetary landing scene, where sprite scaling is implemented.
I think the important thing is to use sprite scaling and rotation sparingly, rather than overusing them. I was careful to make sure that the special effects did not ruin the beauty of the pixel art.
8. Crystal Breaker is an “aggressive shoot’em up” where the player don’t have to stay at the bottom of the screen trying to shoot enemies down and dodging their bullets: the Boost allows the spaceship to avoid being hit and the closer an enemies is destroyed, the more Crystals the player gets (and points).
I fell this decision in gameplay terms is a very good choice that adds frenzy to the action, and personally reminds me Ketsui (which is my fav shmup).
Did you take inspiration from some titles while making Crystal Breaker?
As you mentioned, Crystal Breaker was designed as an “aggressive shoot’em up”. I’ve played all kind of shmups and have been influenced by all of them, but absolutely the biggest influence in Crystal Breaker is Star Soldier. I took inspiration from the 5-way shots, ground panel, simple system, good tempo, etc.
9. Moon Dancer, one of your previous titles, is also a vertical shoot’em up and while playing Crystal Breaker I had the feeling they share something, even some kind of enemies I think. There are some ideas you took from it when you were planning Crystal Breaker and if so, it can be considered as a spiritual successor of Moon Dancer?
Although the concept of each of my works is different, I use the experience I gained from my previous works to create new games. Although there is no particular connection, I also incorporated a lot of my experience with Moon Dancer, such as enemy movements and UI.
10. Your games are all shoot’em up but embracing different styles: RagingBlasters, Moon Dancer and Crystal Breakers are vertical shoot’em up, GeminiArms and Terra Flame are horizontal while Missile Dancer 2 is a rail shooting that reminds After Burner.
Do you already have some ideas from your next project ?
Crystal Breaker is a series of console shmups that is influenced by Star Soldier. For my next work, I’m thinking of making a game influenced by arcade-style shmups such as Kyuukyoku Tiger (Twin Cobra) and Raiden. However, this is still undecided and subject to change.
11. The Japanese indie community seems to be very fond of the Metroidvania and Vampire Saviors genres, do you think in the future you could propose games of these genres or you will be still focused on shoot’em up development?
Other developers have already made many good games in popular genres, so I don’t think I need to make them. I continue to develop games using my passion as energy. Shmup is a simple but deep genre, and I think this fun will continue to be attractive regardless of the player generation. I plan to continue making the shmups I like.
12. Space invaders is not only one of the fathers of the videogames with Pong but also the godfather of shmup genre, and it was a Japanese games. Shmups have been for years a Japan iconic product in the videogame industry and also Japanese players always impress for their abilities in the arcades. In the last 15 years Western developers have released many shmup games but although the quality is increased it’s a commmon opinion that the gap with the Japanese productions has not been filled yet.
Which is your opinion about this? Is this competition pushing in some way Japanese shmup developers to improve themselves?
First of all, I’m surprised that even today in the West there are so many fans of Japanese-made shmups. I think that recently, Western developers have started to create a lot of high-quality shmups.
I am in contact with Western developers, and they are researching shmups very thoroughly, which inspires me. I hope we can continue to grow together and make shmup even more exciting in the future.
14. Now let’s talk about the future of shmups.
As said before while mentioning Space Invaders, the shmup genre has always been in the videogame industry and despite becoming niche decade after decade is still alive and kicking, especially in the last years with the success of Nintendo Switch which led to the release of many titles, something that did not happen since Xbox 360 times.
Do you think this genre has still something to say in the videogame industry and how the scene could go?
I think shmups are filled with the primitive charm of video games. Therefore, even as video games evolve and various new genres emerge, I think shmups will continue to be attractive.
The problem is that major companies do not create new shmups because they cannot expect large sales. Shmups are simple to make, but it is very difficult to balance them to make them interesting. Therefore, even if major companies spend a lot of money, they will not necessarily be able to create good shmups. Since it is important to thoroughly study past shmups and get development experience, I think it is a genre that is suitable for individual development.
I think the shmup scene will continue to develop in the future, mainly through individual developers.
15. Last question, I promise, but probably the most important: which is besides your games, of course, your favourite shmup?
There are too many to list, but I have a lot of favourite games for the PC Engine and Mega Drive: Dragon Spirit, Gunhed (Blazing Lazers), R-TYPE, Image Fight, Heavy Unit, Musha Aleste (M.U.S.H.A.) and Thunder Force IV.
Thank you very much for your time and courtesy, Crystal Breaker supports multi-languages (English, French, Italian, German, Spanish and Portuguese) so if you are a shmup lover you should not miss this release!
You can buy the PC version on Steam and the Switch version on eShop (Japan, UK, France and North America); the game is discounted by 10% until 5 December 2024.
You can also watch a gameplay video showing the first 6 stages: