The story is set in a contemporary setting and its plot revolves the titular QP, a happy-go-lucky dog girl who was leisurely humming along as she tends to some errands at the local convenience store one day, hoping to find something delicious. At the store, stops something that caught her eye: some newly released pudding. QP was quickly heartbroken to find out that she didn't have any money at all to buy it, but after looking through her pockets, she finds a mysterious 500 Yen in her pocket. Without a second thought, she quickly purchased the pudding from the store and took it home, but when she arrived home and found out it was already dinner time, QP decided to save it for tomorrow. The next day, however, she wakes up to find her precious pudding missing, and in its place was a letter telling her that if she wants her pudding back, she must find the mysterious thief. Determined to get her pudding back, QP, along with her friend Rbit, sets out to find the culprit and rescue her sweet dessert.
Like many vertical shooters of its kind, players control QP as she shoots down various cutesy enemies that stand in her way on her quest to reclaim her pudding, and score points along the way. However, there are some features of this game features to stand out from other shooters in the genre. QP herself can use and acquire various "formations" that Rbit can take form for various situations, such as a frontal spread shot, a linear focus shot, a rear two-way shot, an orbiting shot, a "sword" formation, and many others, which can be purchased from the Usa Room by spending Usa Points earned from each session. It also features a chain-based scoring system where gathering point items without letting the chain meter deplete will steadily build your score bonus as more of these items are collected. After filling the Hyper Meter by collecting point items from defeated enemies and canceling their bullets, QP can go into a Hyper Mode which boosts her attack power and increases score bonuses, however, it can end prematurely if she takes damage while in Hyper Mode, but it will also save her from losing a life. The game features a Story Mode where stages can be played one-by-one with dialogue between stages and bosses, and an Arcade Mode where all stages are played in succession.
During the Christmas season of the same year, Orange_Juice released a short but free (and brutally hard) expansion pack called Xmas Shooting, which centers around Aru, a bunny girl serving as an apprentice to Santa Claus, who, on the night of Christmas Eve, has discovered that all the presents were mysterious stolen. Santa however caught a glimpse of the culprit, which he believes is someone with bunny ears similar to Aru, in which Aru takes her partner reindeer partner Rein with her to track down the thief get back the stolen presents on time for Christmas. Unfortunately, neither QP and Xmas Shooting have seen an English release, official or otherwise. A translated plot summary of the former for the curious however can be found here
. Many characters from QP Shooting would go on to be featured in the crossover virtual board game, 100% Orange Juice!, and the RPG game, 200% Mixed Juice, along with characters from Orange_Juice's later titles such as SUGURI, sora, and Flying Red Barrel. QP also made an appearance in Acceleration of SUGURI X-Edition as the final boss of one of its story scenarios and as an unlockable character. There was also QP Kiss, a freeware boy's love dating sim parody game by Orange_Juice that used to be available from their website during April Fools' Day until the downloads where removed, which featured gender-bent versions of characters from QP Shooting and SUGURI.
During the Summer of 2012, the game received a sequel with QP Shooting - DANGEROUS!!, released during Comiket 83. The plot of this installment revolves around the existence of pudding suddenly vanishing, and any memory of the existence of pudding being wiped from everyone in the world. Strangely, QP is the only one in the world who remembers pudding, thus she sets out to find the cause of this phenomenon and search for any remaining traces of pudding. QP Shooting - DANGEROUS!! retains many aspects of its predecessor, however, it features three unique playstyles for QP's Hyper Mode: Orthodox, Defensive, or Aggressive. Unlike its predecessor, QP Shooting - DANGEROUS!! was localized by Fruitbat Factory in 2016 through Steam and DRM-free directly from their website. Likewise, Xmas Shooting received a remake with X-Mas Shooting - SCRAMBLE!! released on August 23, 2015 during Comiket 88, and was also localized by Fruitbat Factory.
The QP Shooting series features examples of:
- An Ass-Kicking Christmas: Xmas Shooting and its remake, which involves Santa Claus' apprentice Aru, along with her partner Rein, shooting things up to reclaim the stolen Christmas presents.
- Art Evolution: Between the 8-year gap between the first QP Shooting and its sequel, this series has seen substantial improvement in the visual department and character art.
- Astral Finale: The final stage in DANGEROUS!! has QP flying up to the sky and into space far above the Earth, contending with rockets, UFOs and asteroids along the way, to confront the mastermind of the game, Sweet Breaker.
- Big Bad: A few to be exact: Yuki for the first game, Arthur for X-Mas Shooting, Sweet Breaker for DANGEROUS!! and Nico for SCRAMBLE!!.
- Big Girl, Little Girl: Tomato and Mimyuu respectively.
- Company Cross References: Quite a good few for Orange_Juice's library in Dangerous!! and Scramble!!:
- Kyosuke (a gender-flipped version of Kyoko) from QP Kiss shows up as the boss of DANGEROUS!!'s second stage, mistaking QP for her own gender-flipped counterpart, Kyupita.
- The hot-air balloons and biplanes from Flying Red Barrel appear as enemies in the third and fourth stages of DANGEROUS!! respectively. The Green Frog and Flying Castle also appear as mid-bosses in stage four of DANGEROUS!! (piloted by the Waruda Trio) and stage three of SCRAMBLE!! respectively.
- In Yuki's last phase of her boss fight in DANGEROUS!!, she'll use a card to summon Shifu's mecha from SUGURI to fight QP with.
- Yuki's outfit in DANGEROUS!! also appears to share some similarities with Sora, Sham, and Nath's military uniforms in sora, albeit with her own take on it (such has having an armband with the Waruda insignia on it).
- The way Yuki refers to the Big Bad of DANGEROUS!! as "S. Breaker" is clearly an allusion to Star Breaker, the Big Bad of sora.
- Cute and Psycho: Syura from the sequel, who might appear as your typical ditzy otaku at first glance, but there has been rumors that she is also a whackjob demon with powers greater than Hell itself. Syura's name can also be translated as "bloodshed" and "carnage".
- A Day in the Limelight: The Xmas Shooting games feature Aru, who's usually the owner of the formation shop, as the main protagonist.
- Difficulty Levels: QP Shooting and its sequel has an Easy, Normal, Hard, and Super difficulty, whereas the X-Mas Shooting expansion has none and thrusts players on the hardest set of levels.
- 11th-Hour Superpower: In QP Shooting - DANGEROUS!!, when Sweet Breaker decides to stop playing arround and utilize her full godly power. QP's love of pudding combines with that of the rest of the world to make her into a new sweet god, the Sweet Guardian. This gives QP wings like Sweet Breaker's as well as permanent hyper mode for Sweet Breaker's final attack.
- Everyone Is a Super: Seriously, everyone in this game is capable of flying and pelting each other with bullets for no adequately explained reason. While the SUGURI and sora casts have the excuse of being Super Soldiers made to fight wars, here the QP Shooting cast have no such excusenote . This actually gets lampshaded in 200% Mixed Juice, where Marc is dumbfounded at QP's ability to fly without an aircraft, while QP nonchalantly tells her that most people she knows can do that.
- Everything Trying to Kill You: Let's see, we have chickens, traffic lights, trains, aeroplanes, balloons, ferris wheels, stuffed dolls, robots, tanks, rockets, UFOs...
- Feathered Fiend: Birds such as chickens, crows and doves appear as enemies in this series, oftentimes firing their own feathers at you.
- Fighter, Mage, Thief: The three main playstyles in DANGEROUS!! and SCRAMBLE!!, Orthodox, Aggressive and Defensive.
- Orthodox is the Jack of All Stats with average stats and Hyper Mode time all around.
- Aggressive is the Glass Cannon, being an offensive Fighter/Thief hybrid boasting a shorter Hyper Mode time in exchange for increased firepower.
- Defensive is the opposite, being a defensive Fighter Stone Wall that has a longer-lasting Hyper Mode in exchange for weaker firepower.
- There's also a fourth unlockable style called Maniacnote , which increases the maximum number of R-Bits you can have at the cost of being unable to use the normal shot. Hyper mode time remains unchanged.
- Game-Breaking Bug: The original QP Shooting and X-Mas Shooting unfortunately have poor compatibility with modern Windows operating systems and crashes before the game could even start unless you can find the right DirectX wrappers to side-step this issue.
- Gang of Hats: The Waruda Gang, a group of miscreants with a cat theme and a penchant for causing trouble wherever they go. Known members include Yuki, Yuuki, Tomato, Mimyuu, Kiriko and Krilalaris.
- Guest Fighter: QP made her way into Acceleration of SUGURI's X-Edition expansion pack as the final boss of the "Pudding Deity" story and a secret bonus character, which was likely the first introduction to her and her series for many of those that played the English version released by Rockin' Android.
- Little Bit Beastly: There are some animal girls across these games, such as a dog girl (QP), bunny girl (Aru), and a cat girl (Yuki).
- MacGuffin: In QP Shooting, it's QP's cup of pudding. In X-Mas Shooting, it's the stolen Christmas presents.
- Mission-Pack Sequel: X-Mas Shooting is basically this to the main game, with some differencesnote .
- Mr. Fanservice: Kyosuke from QP Kiss appears as a boss in QP Shooting - DANGEROUS!!, who, after his HP hits a low threshold, begins to use his Cast Off as his FINAL ATTACK.
- Multiple Endings: QP Shooting has three possible endings, a "Good"note , "Normal"note , and "Bad"note ending.
- Non-Human Sidekick: QP has Rbit while Aru has Rein as their animal side-kick.
- Old Save Bonus:
- For players of the original QP Shooting, it is possible to transfer any leftover Usa Points from their save file and bring them into the sequel. Any Usa points and formations that they have in DANGEROUS!! can also be brought over to X-Mas Shooting - SCRAMBLE!!.
- Owning QP Shooting - DANGEROUS!! and X-Mas Shooting - SCRAMBLE!! on Steam will unlock QP (Dangerous) and Aru (Scramble) respectively for the Steam version of 100% Orange Juice.
- Power Gives You Wings: Sweet Breaker gains a pair of wings when she decides to stop holding back, and QP gains her own pair when she becomes the Sweet Guardian.
- Protagonist Title: QP's name is on the title of this series.
- Real-Time Weapon Change: Done in two ways: For Operation Mode A, there's a Formation Switch button that will cycle through Formations A-C, while Operation Mode B, each Formation have their own dedicated button to switch to.
- Resolved Noodle Incident: The "Pudding Deity" story in Acceleration of SUGURI — X-Edition had the kooky premise that QP would become a god of pudding after QP Shooting. QP Shooting - DANGEROUS!! is where that happens.
- Serious Business: Pudding. So much so that the Big Bad of DANGEROUS!! erased it from existence out of the belief that it would cause nothing but war and strife.
- Super Mode: After filling the Hyper Meter, QP and Aru can enter Hyper Mode to boost their damage output and score bonuses. Hyper Mode can end prematurely if they take a hit from enemy fire or obstaces, but they won't lose a life if this happens so it still pays to pop it if they start to feel overwhelmed.
- Something about a Rose: Kyosuke in QP Shooting - DANGEROUS!! attacks the player with rose-themed attacks, and when he enters his Final Attack, a huge rose is seen behind him as unleashes it.
- Spread Shot: And in various directions, such a frontal spread shot, a side-ways spread shot, and a rear spread.
- Turns Red: Many of the boss will employ more difficult bullet patterns and attacks as their life meter reaches a certain threshold, accompanied with a Super Move Portrait Attack during their "FINAL ATTACK".
- Updated Re-release : The overseas version of QP Shooting - DANGEROUS!! and X-Mas Shooting - SCRAMBLE!! feature some quality-of-life improvements such as higher resolution graphics, Xbox 360 controller support, and native keyboard remapping.
- Video Game Remake: X-Mas Shooting - SCRAMBLE!! is a modernized remake of the original X-Mas Shooting, however it is a commercial standalone instead of a free expansion.
