thanks, its was very informative, but not quite what i was looking for.. all the games have such generic backgrounds, repeating images.. I am looking at building my background with tiles, not a repeated tile. But this was a gerat watch anyways, thanks again.

I enjoyed it, many games people don't understand how to make the difficulty ramp at a reasonable pace. I think you have that down, you get just far enough in to learn it and it gets a bit harder, but not super hard. You also know how to keep it interesting with new skulls, i was wondering what the next new one would be. I enjoyed it, if i had anything to say bad.. (and maybe there is some farther into the game) maybe some kind of power up for player.. even something cosmetic (like your bonus items matching the skulls, nice touch) so when you killed say 100 skulls without damage your ship would do a loop.. Since actual upgrading the power of the shells would mess with your game mechanic the cosmetic "bonus" things would enhance.

Is there an example of long side (or top) scrolling background game? I have looked at several shooters and they all just use random items scrolling down screen. I am long time NOOB game maker, from the old SEUCK on C-64 and Amiga to some game-maker stuff. I am more a sprite manipulator and pixel art (when i say that I say it very losely, i am sub-pare but enjoy doing it),then programmer, so can lay out some ok backgrounds . I want to work on something like Twin Cobra, Flying SHark (old arcade games) so i need some examples of a huge long scrolling background, not just a static one that random stuff scrolls into.

my first question here so forgive me if its obvious i have not seen it.