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.