My idea favored simplicity and rhythm based movements to the common "Bullets spawn to the beat" thing. Both are decent, and none of our ideas are set in stone. Fixing my idea would be great, but I'll also provide ideas for the normal danmaku game.
My main theory behind this is that this game mode needs to be a rhythm game first. I am all for adding as many danmaku elements as we can, but there really should be some input on the character that is rhythm based. I like the string idea with the paired bullets, but it lacks the insensitive to move much if you are playing for fun instead of for score. Another thing we would be missing with the idea is accuracy. How do we register what bullets count towards score, and which ones are not? We can't have 3000x Miss and 1% accuracy for every song.
With my idea, I thought of a slightly different movement plan. The character is still on a fixed plane, but this time it is a horizontal line or curve, which the player can travel along freely. When you tap a directional key, you move over one space. The same bullet patterns are waiting for you when you move over, but the immediate bullet in your way is deactivated if your timing was correct. It's the same game idea as before, but instead of being snapped back to the neutral area, your current location becomes the new neutral. I would imagine that you could pull a pac-man and move from one side of the stage to the other by moving too far one way.
This idea also brings back the potential boss idea. The entity moves around the top part of the stage, and the player gets bonus points (spinner bonus amount, not TOO much) for being in the position to deal damage to it. The closer you are to it, the more of your bullets hit it, and the more points you get for it.
The fixed sections that you can move in are there so people cannot camp. The game knows where to aim so you will always be moving because there is less variables. The screen is filled with bullets that you dodge, but your inputs are based on the music playing. I don't want to have vertical movement because that will alter the timing of which you need to dodge the bullets too much.
Now that I think about this, this is one of the hardest game genres to transform into a rhythm game.
Edit: I now have a visualization of how my idea would work.
My main theory behind this is that this game mode needs to be a rhythm game first. I am all for adding as many danmaku elements as we can, but there really should be some input on the character that is rhythm based. I like the string idea with the paired bullets, but it lacks the insensitive to move much if you are playing for fun instead of for score. Another thing we would be missing with the idea is accuracy. How do we register what bullets count towards score, and which ones are not? We can't have 3000x Miss and 1% accuracy for every song.
With my idea, I thought of a slightly different movement plan. The character is still on a fixed plane, but this time it is a horizontal line or curve, which the player can travel along freely. When you tap a directional key, you move over one space. The same bullet patterns are waiting for you when you move over, but the immediate bullet in your way is deactivated if your timing was correct. It's the same game idea as before, but instead of being snapped back to the neutral area, your current location becomes the new neutral. I would imagine that you could pull a pac-man and move from one side of the stage to the other by moving too far one way.
This idea also brings back the potential boss idea. The entity moves around the top part of the stage, and the player gets bonus points (spinner bonus amount, not TOO much) for being in the position to deal damage to it. The closer you are to it, the more of your bullets hit it, and the more points you get for it.
The fixed sections that you can move in are there so people cannot camp. The game knows where to aim so you will always be moving because there is less variables. The screen is filled with bullets that you dodge, but your inputs are based on the music playing. I don't want to have vertical movement because that will alter the timing of which you need to dodge the bullets too much.
Now that I think about this, this is one of the hardest game genres to transform into a rhythm game.
Edit: I now have a visualization of how my idea would work.