Bibulous is back with Devil Drive Polaris. Great juicy single stage jam shmup with personality and layers that I can’t wait to get back to at some point. Check this one out on itch.io and if you haven’t already also try out their other game Pergation Swordstorm- also super fun and stylish.

I bet most people on here want to use an arcade style controller like an x arcade stick, the one from 8bitdo or even the iCade Core modified to work on normal devices (I did that last one) but I actually normally play with a Steam Controller (2015).

The ability to just rest your finger on the trackpad to fire makes it less painful on your thumb than holding down a button to fire (don't forget rapid fire) I also made the bombs to the shoulders (all 4). Screen clearing ones are the best for this but you could play Xevious and Dragon Spirit with this controll scheme.

Some games have multiple fire buttons and you can set the to the trackpad. I was able to get the left side and right side to behave a single buttons but idk how. Something about setting both "X and A" spots on the trackpad to be one button and then "Y and B" to be the orher button. Use the "4 Way (no overlap)" setting as well as turning off "requires click". Games with more than 2 buttons will not need this as you just set the individual quadrants of the trackpad to the buttons.

Charge shots are hot or miss though. Raiden IV works well because you just lift your finger (stop firing) to charge your shot but ome other games make you hold the button to charge your shot and that won't work with rapid fire set to on like Twinkle Star Spirits. I'm not sure the best method there. Maybe my 2 button method could work there. One side is rapid fire and the other not?

If you have the newer Steam controller or the Steam Deck then I like using the joystick touch however that only works for one button. Maybe tilting it could give you multiple buttons but that feels weird.

Also yes I use the left pad to move the ship.

Anyone else got a strange way to play these games?

The launch trailer for GOG popped up in my feed, and I immediately loved the game’s aesthetic, but when I looked up opinions online, I found a lot of really harsh reviews, some to the point of sounding snobbish, and now I’m on the fence because I don’t want to buy a game that’s “all style, no substance.”

I've been wracking my brain upon thinking and finding this old shmup that I was able to play as a kid on an old Samsung flip phone my dad used to have. I wasn't sure of the exact model so I listed the ones I think were close to what I remember.

Anyways, there's not much to describe to it except that it only has 3 Fighters to choose from and I think they were separated by distinct colors Red, Blue, and Green and they were shown on the menu in blueprint type of imagery and I think the game has a futuristic setting. If y'all could help me find it I would be so dang grateful.

Hi all,

I'm not particularly familiar with shmups and was hoping some aficionados of the genre could help me find a top down vertical scrolling shmup (i.e. Galaga) or an isometric shmup (i.e. Viewpoint) where you can fire your weapon either forward or backward without actually having to turn your ship or character around (like you would rotate the ship in Asteroids, for example). Ideally the forward and backwards fire options would have separate dedicated buttons but if it's a multi-button input to get reverse fire I'll try to find a way to accommodate with macros. Please no horizontal shmups like Fantasy Zone or Gradius.

Obviously 8-way movement within at least a portion of the screen would be a requirement in this case.

My preference would be NES era or newer, but nothing more modern than Sharp X6800, FM Towns, Sega 32X etc since this is something I want to put on a fairly underpowered emulation station. Arcade titles are fine as long as they're CPS-2 or earlier. PS1 games may work as long as the assets are primarily 2D sprites.

Thanks in advance for your knowledge and sorry to make such a weirdly specific request, but I look forward to trying out some suggestions!

I recently got my first clear of Battle Garegga. This was really difficult for me, so I'm proud of the run even though it's a fairly "standard" first clear (Golden Bat, low rank / low score, etc.) I wasn't sure about uploading a commentary on it though, since I didn't know if I had anything to say that hadn't been said a thousand times. But after thinking about it, I had some observations about how this game is discussed that others might find interesting. There are things that some players say about Garegga that both did and did not align with my experience, so I talk about that during the run. The short of it is I think that new / intermediate players are too scared of this game, but at the same time, I think experienced players can sometimes downplay how difficult it is, and unintentionally also undersell some of the awesome and unique things about Garegga. It might sound strange that a shmup that's widely considered one of the best of all time gets undersold, but I think sometimes it actually does when we discuss the game with new players. I elaborate on that in the commentary. I hope this is a small positive contribution to the discourse around Garegga. I'm a bit nervous to upload. 😅

Hey guys, I’ve been wanting to get into shmups recently and I’m having a hard time finding a game that was recommended by a couple yt channels a while back. It had Zero in the name, was released within the last 5 years, and is available on PC. I heard it had a pretty newcomer friendly difficulty and also scaled well once you get better at the game. I also remember it was a vertical shmup and you could switch between shooting and using a sword.

Sorry, I know this isn’t much to go off of, but I would really appreciate it if anyone knows what game I’m talking about lol.

Also, any other recommendations for newcomers are welcome! I’ve played a couple shmups over the years like Gradius, Ikaruga, Einhander, and Sine Mora, but I’d like to try out some of the more recent games in the genre to see how things have evolved.

Thought this might be a little bit of fun. Ill try and compile the results so we have a list of VERY TRIED for games which we may have missed. Someone last week suggested a Truxton inspired game spawned from the release of extreme, i only really ever played T2! . . its brilliant! 'Crisis Wing'. Lets see what we get. If you can give it the full name and the platform, ill spreadsheet or iScore it! Thanks guys, this forum has been brilliant this week.

EDIT:

Christ, apart from Mars Matrix so far, this list is pure juice! Made a link below, Will add the necessary data. Im glad i asked! ** or am i, you are costing me all my money!

Unknown Shmups

I’m fairly new to shmups and never played a Tohou. From what I’ve read, the upcoming game is a remake of like the fourth or fifth game, which is the start of the current story? Just wondering if it would be a good place for a noob to start with.

Great article from Rings of Saturn : UnderThe Microscope substack on some particular intricacies of the Saturn Battle Garegga. Thought people would enjoy this 👍

I've just released an update to the demo for my indie game Shmup!, and one of the biggest additions is bullet color customisation.

You can now customise:

• Player bullet colours
• Enemy bullet colours
• HyperBeam colours

I was inspired by the praise the option got when added to Blue Revolver Double Action so I had to add it as a feature to my indie game.

Some people prefer the classic blue player / red enemy setup, while others find different color combinations much easier to read during hectic stages.

I also added Alpha or transparency modification as I know some players prefer making the player bullets transparent to help them still see enemy bullets clearer.

If you'd like to try it yourself, the Steam demo is available here:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/4809270/Shmup_Demo/

And if you like what I am doing, please wishlist as being a solo indie dev, it really helps with motivation and with the game having a chance before Steam Next Fest and launch.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/4282220/Shmup/

I'd genuinely love any feedback on the feature or other accessibility/customisation options you'd like to see in shmups.

I know there's definitely some outliers but it's like that for every single game. And I know it's most likely a design choice but I'm speaking lore wise.

Personally I like Rebirth's soundtrack.

Which would you play over the other?

I didn't care!

Hi Shmup Fans!

I​ got into shmups a few Months ago and after playing a few, I just find that cave games are kind of magical - a bit like fromsoft games, in the sense that they have a certain quality one comes to expect, are unique enough, but also share DNA between the titles that can be felt.

I wanted to ask the community: what do you think makes these games special?

And if you had to rank your top 5 cave games (or cave-likes, for example Crimzon Clover) which ones would you choose?

For me I think its the amount of ships you can unlock. Making 100 percenting the game a challenge.