Advanced Gameplay Options

[StarWitch]

STGs are incredibly skill-heavy games, although everyone plays them for their own individual sense of accomplishment. ZUN even this back in the Author's Notes for PCB: some people are content with a 1cc Normal, some people want to get a full No-Miss No-Bomb EXTRA, and some just want to watch replays on YouTube while sipping tea.

One thing that could help people get better at STG games in general would be if Taisei had an "Assist Mode" of sorts.

Basic Ideas:

1. Allow players to toggle invulnerability, and track how many times they get hit (minus successful deathbombs) - maybe even tell them where in the stage they got hit (which Spellcard, etc, so they can go practice that part in particular).
2. Allow extensions of lives/bombs, and track by how many (and where) they go over.

Advanced Ideas (probably too much work for a first iteration):

1. Replays that you can slow down/rewind to see where you messed up, to let people figure out how they could position themselves better.
2. Toggle "lines of action" where lasers and bullets are going (in Replays only) so they can visually see patterns and figure out better positioning.

But why? Well, advanced users can already download the source code and turn on -Ddeveloper=true and press Q, and there's already internal flags for setting if "cheats" were used in Replays. But, it's pretty basic (doesn't show you how you failed) and all-or-nothing, and you either have God Mode with unlimited everything, or nothing at all.

There's that idea of "git gud," but even "hardcore" speedrunning games like Celeste have this sort of functionality now. Letting beginners (or even advanced players looking to get the flow of a "full" stage) toggle these features individually would make things more accessible while not taking away the challenge or allure of doing an "unassisted" 1cc.