Interview with Locomalito

Golem: In old school shooter tradition, when you die, you typically lose all powerups. Also, even in later shooters, you have to clear the game in one sitting. Hydorah takes a lenient approach by only removing some of your powerups when you die, not all, and you can equip whatever weapons you like between stages. Additionally, you can save between stages, so long as you have saves left to use.

Why did you decide to deviate from shooter tradition in these cases? Were you inspired by any particular game, or were these your own ideas?

Locomalito: People who have been playing shoot'em'ups for a long time are used to this kind of gameplay where you have to do your best in the first try. For many years we played under those rules, and now somehow, we're considered hardcore players. This kind of feature has become a barrier for new players to get into shmups, and I thought that it could be a good idea to put those things in the game to let new players get in, at least until the central part of the game, where you already need full skills.

I'm happy I did that, because I know some people who started playing Gradius series after playing Hydorah.

Golem: How did you decide what was too lenient and what was just lenient enough? For instance, the player could have kept all of their powerups when they died, or there could have been infinite saves.

Locomalito: The power up punishment for the equipped weapon and the limited number of saves are all games rules that I sent back to the player. He must choose sagely when to save, and what weapons he must equip, so those things become also part of the game, part of the things the player has to do. Separately, those things are not balanceable, I just do "master plays" to see how the entire game feels like, and I then balance things as a whole. I usually put things so that they keep me concentrated while playing, and I lower down the difficulty a bit to compensate that there is no surprise factor for me as the developer.

Golem: Certain old school shooters (such as Gradius) are much easier once your ship is fully powered. In this sense, a shooter can start hard and get easier over time, since you're accruing powerups--a backwards difficulty curve.

Do you find this to be the case in Gradius? If so, what value do you think it adds to Gradius?

Locomalito: Yes, many games are much easier when you're fully equipped. But I'm pretty sure that some arcade Gradius get harder when you have a few options and weapons. I think it's a good choice to balance things so that the difficulty is kept or going up progressively along the game, while your firepower is also rising up.

Golem: How much does Hydorah follow this idea?

Locomalito: In Hydorah there are routes to follow, so there are some harder planets that hide better weapons. This way, you can face a hard part soon if you want to move with better weapons later. It's again something the player must decide after exploring the difficulty of the different planets.

Golem: In Hydorah, you can't get stronger weapons until you clear certain stages. Was this an attempt to maintain a standard difficulty curve?

Locomalito: The difficulty level has some changes during the whole games, is not a rising line, but it has a few humps, some of them depending of the order you enter planets.

Golem: Many players find memorization important for clearing shooters. If you know what's coming, it's much easier to survive. How important would you say memorization is to Hydorah?

Locomalito: That kind of game has different kinds of parts, with different dangers and situations. Memorizing things is a good way to clear some points, but in Hydorah there are also certain points with a little percent of random changes, so they can't be memorized step by step. In all of those situations, it's important to keep eyes open and clear all of what is happening around, so you can either memorize what to do, or learn how to deal with the situations.

Golem: Players might need different skills such as agility or the ability to analyze in order to clear the game; how did you balance the skills a player might need? Did you have any particular skills in mind for Hydorah?

Locomalito: What I always had in mind is for the player to deal with 2 different kind of dangers at once. For example, enemy bullets and danger scenario zones, or enemy creatures and climatic threats. The player has the choice to take cover near a wall, but that wall can also be dangerous sometimes, so it's all about evaluating the overall situation, and take decisions (like asumming risk to get power ups, and so on)

Golem: If you have any experience with any of the Parodius titles, I'd appreciate it if you could answer a few questions on that series as well. What's the most important way that Parodius differs from Gradius? And would you say that Parodius is a parody of Gradius in terms of gameplay? How so, or why not?

Locomalito: I always thought that Parodius is the same of Gradius as a game, it only differs in artistic choices (audio and visuals). If you turn Gradius and Parodius sprites into big squares, it's easy to find out they are really similar :-)