Not every genre is the belle of the ball. For every first-person shooter, there's an
item shop simulator. For every open-world sandbox, there's a sports
game where you only interact with spreadsheets. Sometimes it's obvious why a genre is niche. But some genres lose their spark slowly over
time. Take on-rails shooters. There aren't many of them anymore, and the
ones that DO get made can be pretty hit-or-miss. They seem like they should be pretty easy
to make. You just take a ship, put it on a rail, jam
in some enemies, and you're done, right? Well, not really. Let's dive into games on rails and what you
have to do to make them live up to their potential. Know what else is tricky? Your internet connection. Use a VPN, like today's episode sponsor Surfshark. Surfshark is a VPN, which helps protect your
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and use code DESIGNDOC at checkout to get 83% off plus 3 extra months totally free. Secure your internet with Surfshark! So what’s interesting about games on rails? It’s right there in the name: the rail. They’re unusual because they take away some
or all of a player’s freedom of movement. Sometimes you’re automatically moving forward,
sometimes you’re just stuck in a box that’s traveling along the rail, but games on rails
restrict your movement in one way or another. That might not seem like a huge change, but
it tinkers with the player’s attention economy. People have a finite amount of attention to
give. There’s only so much stuff in a video game
that a player can keep track of at any one time. The rail removes the hows, whens and wheres
of movement from the list of things players have to pay attention to, and because of it,
the player can use that freed up bandwidth for other things. But that shifts the responsibility back to
the game designer to use that bandwidth for something worth paying attention to. How well they manage that task is super important
to how well the game on rails will be received. So, what can you add to a game to keep players
occupied? For one, you could crank up the spectacle. Few rail shooters lean into spectacle harder
than Sin and Punishment Star Successor. Treasure is a developer whose hallmark is
explosive, arcade-style action games, and that's why they have been so successful at
developing games on rails. It's not enough in a rail shooter for you
to just be shooting as you drift through a level. In a perfect world, you're going to be blown
away constantly as you're playing. Star Successor has a steady stream of new
things to show you over its 7 lengthy main stages. Each covers a setting and tries to pack in
as much to do as possible. Take the second one. It's set in an underwater tunnel, full of
enemies and twists that lean into the stage's setting and theme. There are schools of fish monsters to shoot,
submarines with missiles to reflect, soldiers that ride in on jet skis, and giant eels that
lash at you from outside the tunnel. You'll occasionally break out of the tunnel
and dive into the ocean, changing the pace of play for a few seconds as the water slows
you down. The camera will keep spinning and changing
perspectives, altering the dynamic of how enemies will appear and how you'll handle
them, and giving more chances for Treasure to wow you with set-pieces as you glide through
the level. It's a non-stop barrage of new and relevant
things to do, making it one of the more memorable stages of the game. The stage's boss is as spectacle-ridden and
thematic as the rest of it and fits in with Treasure's history of unique boss design. You're fighting a shapeshifter who turns into
different sea creatures. A manta ray, a seahorse, and man's greatest
foe - a bunch of dolphins. The patterns are unique and constantly changing
throughout the fight. You're never waiting around long for something
new to happen, which carries through the whole game. Different stages are themed differently - ruined
cities, sky fortresses, haunted Japanese forests - but all carry with them that density of
action and spectacle that the genre really needs to shine. You might say ‘Well duh, having cool stuff
happening around you is important to any game, right?’ Well sure, but ESPECIALLY for rail shooters. It might be tough to get a sense of how important
spectacle is to a rail shooter in a vacuum. You don’t know what you’ve got until it’s
gone. We need a game with all the basic mechanics
of a rail shooter but without that flash. Hmm... Oh hey, Kingdom Hearts. Here’s one of the Gummi Ship sequences in
Kingdom Hearts 1. See if you can spot the problem. So what’s wrong with this segment? Is it A) The Lighting Profile Is Weird, B) No Dolphins, or C) Nothing is Happening. If you chose B… c’mon, it’s C. The Gummi Ship sections in Kingdom Hearts
1 are the poster child for a bad on-rails shooter segment. They’re minigames that show up as you travel
from world to world and they’re mandatory. The only problem is unfortunately a huge one. Nothing happens. There’s just no spectacle. There’s no camera work. Nothing interesting is coming at you. The course is a line, straight on ‘til morning...oh
hey found it! The backdrops are abstract tie-dye nothings. It’s a shooting gallery full of basic obstacles
and enemies with bland designs, with no real depth or challenge in their bullet patterns
or how you have to avoid them. It’s barely a rail shooter. If there’s a silver lining here, it’s
that you can customize your gummi ship to get through these segments faster. Slap some armor, engines, and weapons on your
Mega Bloks ship and the game will practically play itself. And later on, you even get a fast travel option
to skip these sections entirely! Now they did bring the gummi ship back in
the sequel. Did they learn from their mistakes? Wow. Yes. Yes they did. Spectacle may be important, but it isn’t
the be-all-end-all way to make your game stand the test of time. Relying on that alone to carry a rail shooter
can be a crumbling foundation. The original Panzer Dragoon, I’m sorry to
say, hasn’t aged all that well. The game was built with its 3D environments
you fly through as the main draw, and for the Saturn era that was plenty. But for the modern era, the game doesn’t
look all that much different than other rail shooters. That draw has degraded. It’s a problem that the 2020 remake unintentionally
highlights. The game is absolutely faithful to the original,
with updated visuals and nearly identical mechanics, but the shooting is pretty simplistic. Without the dazzling environments, the relative
shallowness of the game’s mechanics are more exposed. It’s not really the fault of the developers
that their game hasn’t aged well, but it does help explain why something so beloved
in the past probably won’t hit a new player as hard in the modern era. Thankfully the sequels are much better. Contrast Panzer Dragoon with a game like Rez. Rez was all about spectacle, but it has aged
much better for a couple of reasons. One, the stylized visuals are much more of
an aesthetic experience rather than trying to wow you as a technical showpiece. Two, the game does a much more thorough job
of tying the gameplay into the music and visuals, with the player’s actions building the soundscape
and the look of the level as you progress. It’s delivering an experience not as easily
found in more and more games as time goes on, and the game gives you more of a reason
to return because of it. WHAT you show players is important, but so
is WHEN. Good pacing can make or break games on rails. A well-paced game on rails has a lot in common
with a roller coaster. Light gun games like House of the Dead and
Time Crisis are stuck on a track and they aren’t graphical showpieces, but they work
because of their frenzied pacing and physicality. They have incredibly simple gameplay. Enemies come at you from all angles and demand
you deal with them, but the player’s actions are very basic. There’s no movement to worry about, just
point and shoot as fast as your arms will let you. When you’re done, it’s immediately off
to the next screen full of more action. They were perfect designs to catch on in arcades. Even with short sessions, the super-dense
gameplay and ultra-fast pacing were tailor-made to compel players to pump in quarter after
quarter. Light gun games are showcases for how to think
of games on rails as a thrill ride, where freeing up a player’s attention from movement
lets them turn their focus to the action. But have you thought about what would happen
if they took the thrill out of a thrill ride? What if you added everyone’s favorite sorta-bug-lady,
Yar? Hmmmmm? If I’ve piqued your interest, check out
Yar’s Revenge. You know the Atari game? No? Well, they rebooted the Atari game. It’s a rail shooter! Like Sin and Punishment, Yar’s Revenge lets
you control the target reticle and your character separately, and the controls feel OK, at least. You’ve got the basics here, power-ups, lock-on
missiles, but the problem lies with the level design. The pacing is just awful. There’s a complete lack of variety in the
enemies. Each stage pits you against the same handful
of dudes with the same basic attack patterns over and over. The weapon effects aren’t even that cool. There aren’t really any environmental set
pieces or much of a sense of progression. I don’t feel like I’m actually heading
anywhere. The first couple of stages are so similar
visually that I wasn’t quite sure if I was flying through reused level assets or not. It doesn’t count as non-stop action if it’s
just the same action repeated non-stop. The boss fights are different at least, but
to get to each one, you have to slog through 10 or 15 minutes of cookie-cutter basic enemies. There’s some comms chatter, though it’s
not voiced and not really tied into the action happening in the stage. It’s pretty forgettable. You’ve got these deviant-art lookin’ cutscenes
in total silence to look forward to, so that’s… something. Great rail shooters don’t have to be locked
in this arcade-centric, quick bites gameplay style. Star Fox 64 is a classic because it nails
those aspects that made for good arcade rail shooters while bringing more to the table
than most other games on rails even try. Star Fox 64 was originally a technical showpiece. The original SNES game was in that first generation
of 3D games on home consoles and the sequel on the N64 looked fantastic for its time. The game itself was full of lasers and explosions,
flashy setpieces, and unique environments you played through. The pack-in Rumble Pak brought a tactile dimension
to the game that no one had brought before. It was a must-play in 1997, but if that was
it, it wouldn’t be the classic that it remains to this day. The game backs up that flash with a structure,
characterization, and dense-yet-accessible control mechanics that few games of this type
even try, let alone succeed at. INCLUDING LATER STAR FOXES. The game’s stages have a ton of variety,
mixing settings, vehicles, and objectives, with some even breaking out of the rail completely
for a bit of arena-based dogfighting. The stages are filled with different paths
and secret goals that will determine where you go and how you will travel to the end
game. A single run only takes one or two hours to
complete, but the variety of paths you can take to get to the end, with completely different
stage sets and places to go within those stages, means the game is ultra-replayable. The characters are classics for a reason,
with loveable comms chatter and a fantastic Saturday Morning Cartoon vibe that carries
throughout. The villainous Star Wolf will appear at unexpected
times depending on what you’ve done and how you’ve dealt with them before and helps
repeated playthroughs feel more fresh and alive than what you’d usually find in a
game on rails. And while the game can be beaten with just
your basic lasers and some rudimentary flying skill, the game’s advanced upgrades, lock-on
targeting, maneuvering, in-depth combo, and high score system, as well as difficult stage
medals and plenty of extras to unlock give it a higher than expected skill ceiling for
something so accessible. Star Fox 64 brings together the best qualities
of a great game on rails with that extra accessibility, characterization, and depth that takes it
from great to classic. So most of the best on rails games have been
these high speed action thrill rides that scream for your attention, but what if we
pump the brakes? Can a slower, more grounded rail game work? Well, yeah, if you’ve got Pokémon. The Pokemon Snap games take the on rails formula
and twist it in a more puzzle-y direction. Instead of shooting everything down with fast
and loose accuracy, you’re taking a slow and relaxed photo safari through the world
of Pokemon. You’re working with the rail to line up
your camera shot and using your limited toolset to manipulate pokemon behaviours to get the
right pose at the perfect moment. The game’s scoring system doesn’t have
any appreciation for good photography, but it’s still fun enough to work as a game
mechanic. You try to balance the size, pose and positioning
of each subject as you puzzle your way towards creating the perfect scene for the ideal shot. The game has plenty of replayability with
over 200 pokemon to find with a variety of unique behaviours to discover and capture
on film. As you go along and take more photos, the
areas you go through will “level up”, completely changing the scripted events, adding
new pokemon or putting them in new scenes. Whether you want to go for a high score or
get a genuinely great shot, the switch version of Pokemon Snap will give you plenty to do,
making it one of the more unusual and content rich rail shooters out there. And of course there are a bunch of games on
the edges of the genre, experimenting and taking the game on rails to new and exciting
places. Sayonara Wild Hearts blends a spectacular
aesthetic, a la Rez, with rhythm-based gameplay and action deeply tied to the music. It’s advertised as a ‘pop album video
game’ after all, and it nails that for sure. Every moment and scene is carefully crafted
and timed to the beat, pretty close to a big quick-time event combined with a traditional
rail shooter. It’s short and dense with content, easy
to replay and has plenty to see on your second, third, or fourth run. The highest medals will require you to be
very familiar with the sound track and execute on what you know perfectly on time. It’s a small, beautiful game that goes well
beyond just another cookie-cutter rail shooter. If you want something that works in a genre
not often seen in a rail shooter, try Ring Fit Adventure. It’s not the most complicated game, but
where the physicality of a light gun game took a very simple design and made it fun,
Ring Fit Adventure does the same with a pilates ring, a leg strap, and real-world exercise. It’s a light RPG whose movement is completely
on rails and divided into stages your character runs through in a straight line. All combat, menu control, movement speed,
target shooting, and mini-games are done by you doing actual exercise. The game is a pretty straightforward basic
RPG, with a light turn-based combat, skill trees, armor, and spell systems, but thanks
to the controls being entirely driven by real exercise, the effort put into it makes it
all compelling. As you get your heart rate up and feel the
burn you’ll be plenty happy to deal with a simple system. The on-rail elements fill your freed-up attention
with actual exercise, and it’s all in service of a noble goal - to make getting moving fun
and accessible. It works on every level. Ex Zodiac is currently in development, but
they’ve got a demo ready to go that I recommend checking out. It’s an indie game that draws heavy inspiration
from the SNES Star Fox, but with a ton of modern refinements, aiming for something like
Shovel Knight or Freedom Planet but for rail shooters. The controls feel excellent, the pacing is
great, and both the enemies and bosses have a ton of thought put into their attack patterns
and bouncy animations. If you’re looking for a modern throwback
to that very specific Mode 7 look and feel, look no further. Head down to the comments where we've got
two topics to discuss: your favorite on-rails games and why you love them, and any other
genres that you feel are also tricky to make. We might make an official series out of this. I think the more hyper-specific the genre
you mention, the more fun the discussion will be. Thanks again to Surfshark VPN for sponsoring
this episode. Click the link in the description to sign
up. Games on rails are deceptively tough to make. Removing traditional movement frees up a player's
attention to focus on other parts of the game, but they have to fill it back in with something
worth paying attention to. The designers of games on rails get the chance
to make new types of games that can't be made any other way. *chill vibes outro from Star Fox 64*
