Crafting a Modern Shoot 'Em Up, One (Vertical) Slice at a Time
All images courtesy of Karhukuvat
I found myself writing again during a time when I couldn’t contribute to the MARRAS project in any other way. Sitting in a busy place far from home, surrounded by people, I’ve got my headphones on, isolating me from the noise. These same headphones make me feel safe when crowds engulf me. Maybe it’s the cacophony, not the people, that unsettles me. Who knows? At least I’ve found a way to create an invisible barrier around myself when needed.
In my last blog post, I shared some background on MARRAS as a whole. This time, I want to give you insight into what’s planned, what’s already been accomplished, and what’s coming next. I won’t dive too deep into technical details for a couple of reasons. First, I want this blog to be accessible to readers without a technical background. Second, I feel there’s already plenty of design and technical discussion about shmups out there, and I don’t think I have much to add to that conversation—at least not yet. After all, I’m developing an orthodox shmup from a gameplay perspective.
MARRAS: Embracing the Soul of Shoot ’Em Ups
MARRAS has always been a shooting game project, even back when it was just a nameless prototype without a clear direction. Why a shoot ’em up? This genre resonates with me deeply. It’s one of the few that has stayed pure and true to itself over the years. It may not be the most popular genre, but the people who cherish it are incredibly passionate. In a way, the community has taken ownership of it. Abandoned by much of the game industry, it’s found a loving home after wandering through a constantly shifting world.
For me, two of the most influential shoot ’em up developers are ZUN and Cave. While MARRAS leans more toward Cave’s style than, say, Touhou, I can’t fully explain why—it just naturally gravitated that way as I prototyped the game. There are already Touhou-inspired games that rival the mainline titles in quality, and the same can be said for some Cave-influenced works. Still, I believe there’s room to take things to the next level while preserving the delicate, orthodox shoot ’em up DNA.
From my perspective, M2 has set a standard for what I’d call the baseline quality of a modern shmup release. Blue Revolver Double Action is another standout title worth mentioning for its feature-rich design and exceptional quality—absolutely phenomenal work from Danbo, Woof, and the rest of the team. The bar is high, but I think it’s still within reach. With a bottom line established, the question becomes: what can I add to the mix while keeping the core gameplay faithful to its arcade roots? A few things stand out. I’m avoiding new innovations that mess with the core gameplay or arcade mode features. The game targets a 1440p resolution for its pseudo-modern, pre-rendered graphics with high FPS support. And there’s a campaign mode that adds to the experience without taking anything away. This mode challenges the typical “Novice Modes” and watered-down experiences forced into an arcade mold, which often feel valuable to very few players. I’ll write a separate blog post about this mode later.
To make this happen, early development has focused on tooling, workflow, and scalable systems. Gameplay implementation needs to be quick to iterate—ideally flowing from implementation to player testing, feedback, changes, and back to testing again. Before going all-in on content, I’m building a feature-rich vertical slice: one arcade stage and the first campaign mode section, with about 18 playable areas (16 stage segments and two boss areas), plus tutorials.
The First Major Milestone
From the start, my focus has been on creating a feature-rich vertical slice of the game. To me, that means including everything you’d expect from a complete first arcade mode stage. Once the vertical slice is finished, game testing and iterative feature enhancements can begin while I develop more content. Having a clear vision of what I want to achieve gameplay-wise has streamlined the process. I’m prioritizing gameplay but also aiming to create production-ready graphical assets for elements I know I won’t scrap without hesitation. The decision to commit to a campaign mode alongside the arcade mode came after I built an efficient background graphics pipeline. This allowed me to produce about 10 unpolished but highly usable stage backgrounds for the campaign mode in a week. It’s a lot more work than sticking to just arcade mode, but I think it’s essential to attract a new audience with modern expectations for shooting games. At the very least, it’s worth the experiment.
What's done
So far, I’ve completed the player, a variety of enemy types, backgrounds, core features, the bullet system, collision systems, and essential visual effects handling. Beyond the vertical slice, I’ve also set up an initial version of a website with blogging support and a basic Steam page—though the trailer is still in the works.
What’s Still Missing from the Vertical Slice?
There’s more to do. I still need a scene manager to handle game levels, menus, and transitions between different parts of the game. An audio manager, menus, an in-game HUD, and a save/load system are also on the list. Bosses, tutorials, and a dialogue system remain unfinished too. The tutorials and dialogue system can wait until closed testing with selected players begins.
After that, the plan is straightforward. Preview testing will lead to feedback and updates. Once the vertical slice is considered feature-complete, I’ll freeze new feature additions and focus on polishing what’s already there until release. Then, the focus shifts to content creation—stages two through five. Once the game is content-complete, I’ll work on the last public demo release, participate in Steam Next Fest, and wrap up the project with polishing and marketing.
I’ve been working on the vertical slice for a full year and a couple of months now. Closed testing should start sometime between spring and summer. I expect to have the vertical slice finished before the end of the year. Time will tell how long it will take to get the game content ready.
Wrapping Up the Origin Story and Looking Ahead
This blog post concludes the two-part series on how MARRAS came to be as a project, what’s been accomplished, and what to expect moving forward. Since this entire post has essentially been a status report, I won’t include additional status summary here. Instead, I’m planning a future blog post where I’ll explore what it’s like to develop a shooting game from a marketing perspective. I’ll share some insights about digital distribution platforms—especially Steam—touch on console support, and more. I’ll also gather additional data on Steam wishlists so we can dive into some graphs together in that post.
Until next time!
-M