It's once again time to talk about shmup bullet patterns. In particularly CAVE & Touhou style bullet hell shmups. I wanna talk about what makes bullet patterns harder in the good way, not the crappy way.
Bullet hell shmup patterns are made of components, different emitters that shoot sub-patterns and make up parts of what's called an overall shot pattern. For example you could have a component that shoot a 360 bullet spread, and a component that shoots aimed bullets - both would make up a pattern.
I would say there are 4 core things any pattern tests to varying degrees - [Planning, Precision, Reading & Multitasking].
[Planning] has to do with what the player does in between dodging the pattern - memorization, tricks or specific set-ups, players simplifying patterns in their heads.
[Precision] has to do with how tight the inputs players have to make are. The more dense the patterns, the more needle threading players will have to do.
[Reading] is the player's ability to see the starting point of a bullet and quickly predict how it will move and where it will end up at any given point in time. And it's their ability to extrapolate how a pattern will move based on a small part of said pattern, letting them "filter it out" and focus on more active threats.
[Multitasking] is similar to reading. It's the player's ability to keep track of multiple independent sub-patterns within a broader pattern, reacting to any changes.
HOW TO APPLY THIS
So let's say you're making a boss pattern, here are things you'd wanna do to make it more difficult :
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Increase bullet density. Simply make the spaces in between bullets smaller, this will force players to do more precise dodging.
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Increase bullet speed. The faster the bullets, the quicker the players will have to read them & react to any changes. Speed should be increased proportionally to shot frequency though, otherwise you'll lose the density of patterns, and some clusters of bullets will take up less parts of the screen so they'll be easier.
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Increase number of components. Just have more emitters shooting different types of sub-patterns. The more variety there is within a pattern, the more the player will have to keep track of at any given time. This will split the player's attention and force constant, active "mental adjustment".
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Increase sub-pattern & bullet movement complexity. Vary up bullet speed with multiple stages of acceleration and deceleration. Make the bullets slowly curve in different directions over time, maybe even change curve trajectory several times during a bullet's lifetime. Vary up bullet speeds instead of keeping them uniform over a bullet's lifetime. Change the location of the emitter. Rotate the emitter in difficult to-predict ways. Change bullet speeds every time the emitter shoots.
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Put emitters lower on the screen. The lower the emitters are, the less time the player will have to react to them, and the less space they will have to move. This applies more to static and randomized patterns than aimed ones however, since the player might be able to misdirect the latter easier if they're close.
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Use unusual emitter locations. Have the bullets shoot from awkward diagonal angles, from the sides and even from below the player. Get them out of their comfort zone. Diagonal dodging is not only harder from a reading perspective, but it also requires more difficult inputs from the player.
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Spawn bullets right next to the player. This one you gotta be real careful about. Spawning bullets around the player and forcing them to make a near instant read can be a great way to spice up a game's patterns. It can easily become unfair if the bullets spawn on top of the player though, or if they start moving immediately, not giving player any time to read the screen.
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Make the trajectory less clear. Arrow-style bullets telegraph their trajectory, so do bullets that are grouped into specific shapes like lines. So what happens if you ungroup them and make the direction where bullets are pointing harder to read? You get harder patterns. It's much harder to read a curving circular bullet than a curving arrow bullet because the latter will always show you where it's going at a glance. Be careful with this though, you don't want to make things too unintuitive.
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Embrace Chaos. Neat, tidy, organized patterns are easier to comprehend, simplify & "filter out" when playing. So making patterns more chaotic will force players to pay more active attention and make things a lot harder.
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Mess with the player's expectations with confusing telegraphing. Players build a mental image of patterns when playing, and this is something you can take advantage of by changing how the patterns work, forcing them to readjust. If you shoot a fast 360 spread, players will prepare to dodge it, but if you then slow it down before it reaches the player and send another pattern, this will mess with the player's expectations. Spawning emitters in weird ways, having bullets change speeds, change direction & change how they curve, etc. will trip the player up.
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Create traps that demand set-up. Some parts of patterns can act as traps that will require memorization & planning to be dodged reliably. For example walls that players have to actively misdirect. These types of patterns are often seen as cheap, so be careful with them, leave them for the harder difficulties.
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Increase inter-dependence of dodging. Since some patterns require the player to be in a specific position when the pattern starts, you can ramp up a pattern's difficulty by making it harder for the player to even get in that position.
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Destroy any tempo/rhythm in your patterns. Patterns tend to go through repetitive cycles, which lets players get into a nice rhythm when dodging them. If you really want to mess with the player, evolve your pattern in ways that stop players from developing any kind of consistent rhythm. Be warned though, this makes patterns feel worse to dodge.
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Randomize stuff. Randomization is like a modifier. As players get more familiar with a pattern, Reading and Multitasking become less important, while Precision & Planning become more important. Randomizing the components of your pattern will make it so that the former 2 stay relevant for much, much longer. Possibly even indefinitely.
I'll probably add more when I think of other stuff.