Chippy Wiki:How to Make a GOOD Chippy Stage

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If you are still learning how to create a functional Chippy stage, this sheet is not made for you.

Rule of Rule-Breaking

• If breaching any or all of these guidelines will help your stage fulfill its respective purpose, do so.

Game Balance

• In official stages, the four powerups expected to appear in every level are Shield, Damage, Slowmo, and Cannon.
• Be aware of potential cheese strategies.
  • Optimizing gameplay should be allowed in ways that make stages more interesting (both the Legacy and Redux versions of Xulgon's "blink strat" are good examples, though the latter is more difficult by design).
  • However, some players will optimize a game enough to stop having fun. Getting a good time shouldn't have so much mechanical difficulty that it's physically impossible for most gamers, or so little mechanical difficulty that it becomes an ubiquitous strategy.
• The longer a passive effect lasts, the more powerful it is. Thus, the earlier a permanent one like Damage and Factory (without the curse, at least), the more powerful it is. To balance this, give lower values to earlier Damage pickups.
• Some items, like Bumper and Redux Dash, have very rare use-cases. If you implement them, make sure your stages provides situations where they are useful. High quantities of a useless item do not make it useful.

Variety in Stages

Powerups

• Don't put too many basic items in stages. Mobility and advanced defense items can add more variety.
• Different powerups in each pair should have vastly different uses (e.g. offense, defense, mobility).
• In the case of powerups dropped by cores: Convert, Blink, Double Gun, Damage, Cannon, and Slice are a bit overused. There's nearly a dozen other non-defensive powerups to choose from; use those often.
• Each boss form should have no more than two copies of each powerup pair. One if it's small and simple.
• It helps if certain drops depend on how many of a part were destroyed, and/or how many Shields the player has. This is important for drops from small enemies.

Attacks

• Not all attacks have to fly away from the boss in a straight line. You can spawn some from outside the arena, or at points in it from thin air.
• Debuffs and player-pushing mechanics can spice up a level, but a stage can be great if they are hard to find, or not present at all.
• Bullets can home in on the player, explode into fragments, or have unusual shapes. Use whatever fits the boss best!

Pixel Form Design

• Figuring out the enemy's weaknesses is what sets Chippy apart from other twin-stick shooters. Don't derive stages' difficulty from high amounts of pixel HP.

Accessibility

• The background should be dark and cool-colored, and damaging bullets bright and warm-colored. This makes danger easy to spot, even if the player's attention isn't concentrated on it. The chances that colorblind people can play your stage will also increase.

Action Synergy

• Don't use defensive items (e.g. Repel, Slowmo, Purge, Shield) as optional cursed powerups; what's the point of the powerup if it's used to defend against the additional curse attack?
• Don't put offensive items (e.g. Double Gun, Damage, Convert) in powerup containers; deciding whether to sacrifice time to get an offense boost isn't too interesting.

Stages for Casual or Non-Gamers

• Avoid sudden rises in difficulty, whether within or between stages.
• Give ample openings in enemy attacks; casual players typically can't focus on precise shooting and dodging simultaneously. Failure to do this is part of what makes Overgrowth a bit of a wake-up call for inexperienced players.
• Don't make medal times too stringent for casual players to achieve, nor should getting all gold be trivial for players who keep mucking around. Players sould feel like there's a plausible sense of progression and replay value; this is technically an action game.
• Do not make players choose between multiple advanced powerups (e.g. between Legacy Dash and Drone/Airburst/Barrage).
• Do not make players choose between multiple Shields and an attack/mobility item; they shouldn't be punished if they get cocky.

Stages for Hardcore/"Competitive" Players

• Insert advanced powerups like Carve, Spawner, and Erase, perhaps in place of overtuned intermediate powerups like Turret, Slice, and Redux Convert. Players will find clever uses of the former, in time.
• Some kinds of randomization (e.g. random powerup drops, powerups from Factory, randomly chosen attacks) will increase luck's impact on performance and should be avoided. Some subtle randomness (e.g. Xulgon's diamond spews) can increase the impact of skill, and is fair game.
• For alternate level versions, do not reserve so much content for harder difficulties that players who are unwilling to try them see their own gameplay as stale.