This has always been a topic that's confused me a little when I think about the deep-down basics of such a game. For those who don't know what danmaku games are, they're 'bullet curtain' games; scrolling shooters that use intricate and complex patterns of bullets across the screen, rather than straight-forward bullets and dodging terrain (like in Gradius).
To illustrate, some YouTube links to brief videos that show just what I'm talking about.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2RgXP8lFYE One.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCHaFRpd8pU Two.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xtbtv7gUWQI Three.
Obviously, some elements of these games are not transferable to BYOND practically (the 3D comes to mind; however, as far as I know, it is possible to code pixel collision in BYOND) But, what I'm interested in is how you think they program these patterns into the game.
I'm fairly sure it involves some kind of complex math to determine the path, because programming each basic step of a bullet seems very impractical.
So I thought I would post this and see if any amongst the talented of BYOND could figure out a way to simulate a danmaku game in BYOND itself, or at the very least, had a clue how they simplify making those oh-so-pretty bullet patterns.
Making a spiral bullet pattern for example involves firing out a bullet at a certain angle, then firing out the next one at a slightly increased angle, and just repeat that x many times. And it would basically be a similar process for each pattern (some might be more complex though).
I doubt BYOND is capable of a game like that (at least not smoothly), especially with it's speed limitations (10 FPS). But with a program like Game Maker making such a game would be really easy, I could do it in a few hours, if that (excluding the pretty graphics).