How could I achieve that background behaviour in a shoot 'em up game

Question

Hello, guys!

I am starting to sketch a dondonpachi shimup like game and some doubts started to popup in my mind.

The background some level will no be a loop but it will act like a rails with a delimited begin and end. So I decided not use the parallax backgroung schema but move the Y position of the background.

The problem about this approach is that in some level I want to show some dialog between the characters of the game and in this moment I want to loop the background while the user dont finish the scene. The image bellow show what I mean:

The red part will be the viewport and the background (the black part) will slowly be scrolled. But when the gray part arrives, I want to remain in loop while wanting for the user action.

Does anyone have any idea of how achieve this. I would like to hear new ideas if mines is not the idea.

Answer 1

Hi josevjunior!

I am also fascinated by the vertical Schumps scenes mechanics.

"The background on some levels will not be a loop, but it will act like a rail with a delimited begin and end. "

In this instance, I think this is a good example to look at as we can see the complete map on the right.
ESP Ra.De. Psy Mode Arcade Plus (PS4, Nintendo Switch)

My humble idea, assuming that you don't want to spoil what is up ahead on your map, and that you want to show the battlefield you are currently on.

A camera could be instantiated when a Dialogue is starting, could then travel from the bottom of the map back to the current location of your character, and then be deleted when the dialogue ends.

In any case. the visual transitions will be very odd.

Some Schmups generate a looping background based on the current background a Boss would be on just for the time of the fight.
You could use a similar approach for your dialogue section. Basically, transforming part of the scene visuals into a parallax background for the time of the dialogue.

But still, depending on your Art style, the current complexity of the background the dialogue is taking place on, this also could be odd visually. And if you have to move your dialogue characters somewhere else in the scene for some reasons during production, you will have to redo the looping visuals.

I hope those suggestions helps you visualizing your challenge a bit.

Comments

Thanks for the great sugestions, @elmetnuter. I am a novice in game development and everything seems challenging to me. I didn't know the mentioned game. Will be a great reference.

Have you ever worked with a 2d rail game before?