For a dead genre, there sure are a lot of shmups being made.

[Special World]

To me, saying a game is AAA is saying that a major developer funded it, it looks nice, has a serious tone, and nothing more.

Which is a pretty weak way of assessing the health of a genre. Imagine if Ikaruga had the same budget, same craftsmanship, but it was a cute-em-up. It would be out of the running for "AAA-worthy." Because of a stylistic choice. Because to be important, you have to be serious, stoic, grave. In popular gaming, you can only have that emotional spectrum.

[blossom]

I don't care about 3D graphics and I'm not one of those who thinks the genre is dead. I like doujin and indie games. But it's hard to say even in its glory days that the genre saw many AAA publishers outside of Capcom and Konami. I wouldn't call Cave, Raizing, Treasure, Psikyo, Irem, or many other developers an example of an AAA developer.

[qmish]

Becaue they have 2D graphics, which have been completely delegitimized in popular gaming. See, me playing Deathsmiles: "It looks like a Sega Saturn game!"

3D graphics don't make a game good, but to mainstream players they are required to even be considered.

Correction: and level of gfx have to be more or less fitting current gen (like G-Darius or R-Type Delta or Einhander to PS1, Radiant Silvergun to Saturn, Ikaruga to Dreamast, Gradius V to PS2), and not "this looks like it can be played on previous gen" , like the case with recent Raidens, ExZeal, DBCS etc. etc.


THOUGH HONESTLY

It feels unfair, of course.
And i would say that, for example, despite "it's not 3D", Cave's production values were still top-notch in regards how much stuff (sprites/renders, backgrounds, portraits, animations) had to be done. Ibara is masterpiece of hard work by team, i m sure, and do you think saturn would handle it?.. Though you may reply that Cave or others never tried "HD/FULLHD era 2D, like SNK did with KOF 12/13.
In comparison to your "average doujin / indie" which will be poor on animations and more poor on backgrounds and whatever itself.


And don't forget PACKAGE. I mean, imho it really FEELS premium when you have not only your game (arcade mode), but also different modes, also unlockable gallery or encyclopedia or smth, etc. etc.

p.s.

I wouldn't call Cave, Raizing, Treasure, Psikyo, Irem, or many other developers an example of an AAA developer.

Btw our allmighty Sine Mora (which is "garbage gameplay tier shmup" but we still yet to see a shmup to dethrone it's visuals/presentation, lol - i guess, R-Type Final 2 or G-Rev's new project will) ain't aaa either, LOL. Grasshopper manufacture never actually was "aaa", though it started acting like it is when they decided to do 5-6 projects at once in those post-NMH times, and Digital Reality is AA at best, just managed to exist for ~20 years.

p.s.s.
I think we all here don't mean "actual aaa" as in last of us tier of money and production (or do we? and is such even possible? ha).... So a bit different meaning. In which Battle Garegga is aaa-ish for it's times, while Trigger Exelica might be not.

[Special World]

What I see is not a dead genre, but a group of fans with an inferiority complex.

And you know what? It's insulting. Think about what you're saying when you say Eschatos and Mecha Ritz "aren't AAA." You're saying "you're nice, but you're small, and you're not good enough."

"Oh HEY? That game you slaved over, with the amazing style and the literal greatest soundtrack in gaming? It's not really impressive or important."

"Oh Qute? That spectacle? Those features? Those unlocks? That flair? The way you smash together old and new? Not impressive enough."

You know what? If I had to choose between Eschatos and Mecha Ritz or Gradius V and Ikaruga, I would dig the latter two a dirty, dirty grave.

You're seeking legitimacy, but you refuse to give it to yourself. That's why you think you're dead and dying.

[qmish]

Making weird suggestions that generalize "shmup fans"...


...won't help shmups to be accepted and appreciated again among most / mainstream / all gamers and industry. "Prison of unpopularity" or how was that essay by Mark_MSX?



-

So Despatche bytes you and you now as Metal Slug's zombie repeat "this community refuses to play new shmups, all they do is replaying 80s 90s classics over and over"

?!

wtf

And did anyone said smth bad for eschatos or mecha ritz?

Only pixelart elitists who call escha (and every 3d shmup, i guess) "ugly", but even they bow down to it's awesomeness after they play it.

[Special World]

If you're talking to me, I think this forum plays plenty of new shmups. I just believe many people on this forum also wish the genre was something else in the popular eye. And they don't think about the baggage that would come with that popularity.

But yes, you're right. I was generalizing and tilting at windmills.

[qmish]

Just give 'em popularity of metroidvanias, roguelikes and twinstickshooters, for start (all 3 look much more popular than shmups judging by coverage both by players on forums/sites and gaming press, but still niche enough to not become "casual mainstream")

Maybe?

No?

Idk to whom i talk or who talks to me, it's all illusion.

Is there master list of shmups that will be released soon with release dates and videos/sites links?

tilting

Where is our new Afterburner, SEGA? All we have is Ace Combat by Namco...

[Special World]

Tbh i cant talk to anyone irl about anything other than Fortnite, Witcher, and Battlefield, so I don't really see any problem as long as good games keep coming out. That'll be the indicator to me. Right now I have like 5 games I look forward to playing, even if most of em are ports.

That's one thing about this genre--there's so many classics you almost don't need anything new. I've got a ton of games I need to 1CC or play to death. But i'll take some Ibara and Truxton ports, please, and Natsuki on another console.

If I liked FPS, there'd be one or two games I care about. Right now I'm interested in Esprade, Rolling Gunner, Psyvariar, Blue Revolver, Mecha Ritz on Switch plz, Darius Burst AC... a lack of games is not currently my problem.

[blossom]

There may be some misplaced anger here. Eschatos is one of my favorite games in the genre from any time period, forget any insulting qualifiers like "good for a console game" because I've never believed in arcade favoritism. So when I say Eschatos isn't AAA, that isn't a sign of its quality or lack thereof, rather the game simply isn't AAA.

[Special World]

That's well and good, but I'm questioning what worth "AAA" has in the first place.

[qmish]

that isn't a sign of its quality or lack thereof, rather the game simply isn't AAA.

And if we return to PUNK ROCK example... i'm sure for some folks here AAA is "shitty garbage i'll never touch"



*well, also in other communities, like for those who play old CRPGs or 90s FPS

what worth "AAA"

I suggest that it's not literally aaa that is being requested (not 100+ million budget blockbusters which everyone knows), but some overall sum of contributing qualities instead... Or no?

[el_rika]

Despite the hero worship of Cave here, they aren't quite AAA in the way Konami is/was.

How so?

well, for one thing, Cave has never self-published their own games (to my knowledge). they've also definitely never made as much money, own as many self-created IPs, nor are they even a fraction as influential as Konami are (for the aforementioned reasons). i can't think of a single game that Cave published completely solo; Atlus, AMI, Arika, Rising Star, Degica... all of these publishers were involved in the actual act of distributing their titles, not Cave themselves.

Cave is one of the most influential STG developers of all time, but compared to someone like Konami or Capcom, they're basically not even a blip on the radar.

Oh, yes, this is true that Cave can not even begin to compare with a juggernaut like Konami, but i was under the impression we were talking about the games, not the company as a whole.

[qmish]

Konami is fucking nobody now, they shoot themselves in head with pistol of shame since... since when they closed most of their internal studios in mid2000s.

Consider that, if you check their marketing presence, Konami's Health Fitness Centers have higher place in hierarchy than their game division, also fkin pachinko

*oops i forgot i m not on a silent hill forum for a moment*

Also Hudson Soft legacy is a hostage.

[neorichieb1971]

I would say that AAA is where modern day graphics costing millions of $ are used to drive the main game.

Although when shmups were at their peak it was about pushing the biggest and biggest number of sprites. I believe that as games got more expensive there just wasn't the return for most devs to consider a shmup in AAA. To do one would take a whole re-imagining of the genre, but it could be done well and done well enough to get an audience.

Example, PS5 could do a Tron movie like game where a craft can shoot in such a landscape in full 3D.

[Licorice]

In objective terms, I think there's 2 distinct things you can measure to say how lively a genre is:
1. How much is consumed
2. How much is produced

There is choice in how to measure these things e.g. you might use dollars spent, number distributed, time spent etc.

Then you can compare this with some other genres to give relative liveliness.

Subjectively, I don't really care about 2. Given the amount of entries in the genre, and how much time can be spent with a single entry I don't really understand why anyone would care unless they have trouble enjoying things that aren't new. Surprisingly, there are many such people, and I always have trouble relating. To me it seems like a psychological deficiency of some kind.

For instance, it is common to read people writing about a classic "wow I wish they would do a remake of this". One response that particularly stuck with me to this kind of comment was something like "no it's pefectly fine as it is. We don't have to be stuck in some hellish perpetual cycle where we just make the same thing year after year for all eternity". I was very delighted to see that someone else shares my views.

I suppose another more noble reason you might care about 2. is that your skill is at such a level that the number of shmups that can continue to entertain you is very low. Given the distance of the ceiling and the amount of time even talented players spend getting near the top, it is hard to believe such a person can exist, and indeed I challenge anyone here to claim they have exhausted all the shmups that can possibly entertain them, or are worried this might happen in their lifetime if shmups cease to be created from this day. Even if someone does claim so, I don't think it well ever be a problem I face personally. The upside of being of meager talent.

Finally, there is the fear that we haven't reached the peak yet, and that we are missing out on some kind of amazing future shmup experience. To me, this isn't a fear, but a really happy possibility, because it means I might be able to make a contribution to the genre as a producer one day. As for the quality of what is available today, it more than suffices as, right now, if I were to produce anything I can only hope to create a good imitation, let alone one up anything (that hasn't been improved on already) i.e. better quality is outside even the realm of imagination for me.

I suppose it is this concern that started the discussion on AAA. AAA is a very modern term.

There's a video on YT of the Thunderforce 4 OST with accompanying gameplay either looped or extended through survival, great video, and one of the top comments says something like "gather 'round kids, and let me show you what AAA looked like in 1992".

As anachronistic as that is I like to believe its true.

Now, apart from this fear that quality peak is still ahead, AAAness might be desired in the sense that supply creates its own demand, and that some new AAA genre entries would therefore also increase the player base.

This desire, for more of 1. (in my opening paragraph) I can relate to and understand. It is precisely due to the broad tastes of the community, the documentation it has produced, the depth of discussion, and the examples of play that I am able to enjoy this genre at all today.

In fact, I think the size of the community is too small for the number and quality of games in the genre. I mean it seems as though 30 year old classics are being unearthed for the first time still to this day e.g. Sky Adventure seems to be enjoying some time in the spotlight now after being neglected for how long? And why? IMO because the community is too small.

So to conclude, for me, I think the genre could be more lively in terms of how much and how many people play. I think producing more games might bring in more players, but already the number and quality of games is far too high and large given how few people play, relatively. Not that more quality games is ever a bad thing, I just think the genre has enjoyed a disproportional amount of liveliness on the production side so it is understandable and not a bad thing if things take a rest there.

EDIT:

I also want to comment on something Squire wrote, that he doesn't think the "arcadey, gauntlet" format will ever make a comeback, and at best such a format will be "hidden inside longer, safer games", sometimes as player imposed challenges.

Firstly I want to thank Squire for his contributions to this forum and his brilliant perspectives. His insight has shaped my views and understanding of game design immensely. Especially this concept of the 20 minute gauntlet, a phrase I have parroted often elsewhere. It's a great frame of reference when thinking about what makes a certain game compelling or not.

To this end, I think, whether subconsciously or consciously, the 20 minute gauntlet has already made a limited comeback (at least in Japanese gaming. How could it not? It is part of the DNA), and not only as something hidden or some kind of player opt in, but as an important inner pattern or structural element for games recognized for their good gameplay.

I, late to the party as always, played 4 Japanese AAA productions last year, made in the last decade. In order: Breath of the Wild, Dragon's Dogma, Dark Souls and Nier Automata. In all except for the first, the 20 minute gauntlet was an integral pattern of the experience. In Dragon's Dogma travel between points of interest and dungeon expeditions. In Dark Souls travel between bonfires. In Nier Automata every non optional segment was an explicit 20 minute gauntlet mimicking some arcade genre. Only Zelda, which has intentionally been trying to move away from gaming's arcade heritage since its inaugral entry, lacks the pattern in any obvious form.

From this we can see, that at least one formula for a successful AAA game, and one that certainly seems to be appreciated by many players, is to build an RPG like meta-game (really a glorified settings menu) over 20 minute arcadey gauntlets.

Although I have not played them, I believe other titles e.g. Nioh, follow this formula.

I hope in the future we see other elements from the arcade making their way into these structural elements. For example, Nier Automata has a scene select, but it doesn't record a score for that scene, or, as would be necessary for meaningful competition if it did, categorize the run (e.g. by character level or equipment used).

If any AAA devs are reading this (lol) please consider this idea.

[floralcateyes]

That's my main point here: exposure. Name recognition can go a long way to helping achieve that.

That makes sense, and while I'm naive enough to think that big name publishers aren't strictly necessary for good exposure, I can't deny that they can be quite helpful. But I do agree that more exposure and more accessibility (in the sense of games being easy to actually obtain and play in the first place) are good things. I'm eagerly awaiting the digital rerelease of Momoiro Underground, for example, and I'm still hoping for a digital release of Rolling Gunner's PC version (maybe I should just finally get into importing...)

Which conveniently allows me to segue into my reply to Licorice:

For instance, it is common to read people writing about a classic "wow I wish they would do a remake of this". One response that particularly stuck with me to this kind of comment was something like "no it's pefectly fine as it is. We don't have to be stuck in some hellish perpetual cycle where we just make the same thing year after year for all eternity".

While I mostly agree with you on this, I think a good defense for remaking/rereleasing games in particular is this:

I mean it seems as though 30 year old classics are being unearthed for the first time still to this day e.g. Sky Adventure seems to be enjoying some time in the spotlight now after being neglected for how long? And why? IMO because the community is too small.

I agree that the size of the community plays a significant role in how some games are left neglected and unloved. But I think the inaccessibility of many of these games plays a part as well. Many older shmups never got ports, were only released in Japan, weren't released in numerous countries or areas, etc. Porting them, rereleasing them, or remaking them (while hopefully making the original version playable as a different mode) can help newer players (or older players who just never noticed them) discover these games. Or allow them to actually play games they otherwise would have no access to, especially in the case of shmups released exclusively on consoles that aren't well emulated yet.

So I guess that's the ideal and utopic hope for AAA involvement in the genre: help with ports, help with localization, help with rereleases, and Big Money production values for new games with minimal meddling in the gameplay side of things. Plus renewed demand for the games, enough to attract talented devs working on projects of all sizes and budgets. Which is... ideal and utopic, but we can hope lol.

[WelshMegalodon]

Once a save feature became the norm, and games as a result started becoming long and content packed enough to justify saving, it was pretty much over for the mass appeal of arcade culture designed games.

Imagine an alternate universe where the Famicom Disk System wasn't an unreliable piece of junk and every system after the NES came with both a disk drive and a cartridge port built in.

Do you suppose arcade games would have died an even quicker death then? Could one even go so far as to say that affordable and reliable CD-based systems were what killed arcade games?

It's true that the CD-i, Sega CD, and PC Engine CD failed to catch on in the US market, but none of those had the reach Nintendo had in the mid-to-late 80s.

Becaue they have 2D graphics, which have been completely delegitimized in popular gaming. See, me playing Deathsmiles: "It looks like a Sega Saturn game!"

3D graphics don't make a game good, but to mainstream players they are required to even be considered.

Hollow Knight, Stardew Valley, and Undertale beg to differ. Untitled Goose Game was just last year, too.

[Sumez]

To me, saying a game is AAA is saying that a major developer funded it, it looks nice, has a serious tone, and nothing more.

That's a misleading term though.

Although the treshold is not precisely defined, it's implied that there is nothing above "AAA" in terms of production scope.
It typically refers to the rare, massive budget that is inaccessible to most common developers, including even very established ones. Producing a AAA game requires a massive investment, a huge risk, and tons of PR to carry it, as well as a mainstream target audience that reaches far across the core group of regular video game players. I'm pretty sure you couldn't even apply this term to anything released before the Xbox360. God of War probably comes closest, and even that is a small project compared to what we see today.

I think most people would generally From's Souls games as well below the AAA barrier, but they are still beautiful and very succesful.

[Squire Grooktook]

Yeah AAA is like "we have a dev team the size of a small island nation and our budget could probably feed everyone in Africa for a century". And yeah it wasn't really a thing that coalesced in the industry until like 2006 when the really monolithic corps like EA started to coalesce.

There is no timeline across multiverse's web of potentialities where shmups reach that level.

[Bananamatic]

AAA is a pointless label when games with infinite budget like pokemon are still rushed and cheaply made

mass appeal only really means that you can turn it into an annual release, half ass it with barely any changes and still make big profits (or bigger due to cutting dev costs) due to brand loyalty and normies who don't really care since they just want the latest game with messi and ronaldo
you don't want shmups to have mass appeal

[Sumez]

AAA is a pointless label when games with infinite budget like pokemon are still rushed and cheaply made

It's not really pointless. In fact with a business like Pokemon you'd think they could make an AAA game, but a part of the business plan is not to.

[Squire Grooktook]

Yeah there's not much to be gained from mass appeal, technically speaking.

I think most people here would want really lavish pixel art or something like that out of a "high budget" shmup, and small-team doujin/indie games by their nature often have to compromise those a bit (that being said I like to think my guys are doing alright in that department, myself).

I don't think shmups sell poorly enough that you can't look forward to a visually striking shmup once in a while. Still, something visually akin to SOTN or Cuphead is not going to be too common an occurrence.

[qmish]

If you all here agree that AAA ain't right meaning actually, then should find out what's more correct term to describe what was being discussed.

(or ignore what just said here and continue calling smth like gradius iv or sokyugurentai as aa(a), lol)

Still, something visually akin to SOTN or Cuphead is not going to be too common an occurrence.

To smth like Cuphead happen you need crazy maniacs who will spend 5 years but will draw all these handdrawn graphics.

He just need to collab with people who will do game design of shmup during that time, haha.

In objective terms, I think there's 2 distinct things you can measure to say how lively a genre is:
1. How much is consumed
2. How much is produced

There is choice in how to measure these things e.g. you might use dollars spent, number distributed, time spent etc.

Then you can compare this with some other genres to give relative liveliness.

Subjectively, I don't really care about 2.

But i think it's natural for (in average) people to expect that there are new games in genre constantly AND not only by undeground circles nobody hears about, but from "companies" as well (not "corporations", something like Treasure having 20 people on board with ~5 core people is what expected i guess. So Qute, for example, counts like this, btw, i suppose).

[Squire Grooktook]

Cuphead also had some money grants from microsoft or some shit I think, I forget the details. Let them hire extra hands.

[qmish]

Ah, i forget. As i remembered it being announced long before it became clear that it has smth to do with X1/MS, or memory betrays me.

[Special World]

Can we posit that shmups neither need to be "fixed" nor to be "saved"? But that they have just run the course of their mass popularity and the world at large has moved on to new things? If that sounds bad, let me explain via analogy.

A ton of people love 80s music. The Cure, The Smiths, Depeche Mode, Kate Bush. But the music world has moved on. People still listen to, love, and enjoy 80s music. But they are not asking to go backward, and asking why 80s music isn't still being made in droves. That's not a fault of 80s music, or proof that its bad, or proof that a certain sound can't still resonate. It's just not the dominant art form.

Or, to use the visual arts. From about 1940-1990ish figurative art was dead. It was completely unfashionable, if you wanted to be a serious artists, to depict something that existed in the real world. You could only be legitimated through abstract art. Can you appreciate how bonkers that is? It's like if the gaming world was like "well we're over trying to make 'fun' games. If it's fun, it can't really be a serious game, can it?" But now we've arrived at a place where visual arts can be figurative or abstract and be legitimate. Sort of like AAA and indie.

To go back to 80s music though, we have rose-tinted it. By and large, those good bands were not receiving as much radio play as we think. If you listen to a Top 100 for a given year, there's a LOT of really crappy dance music. Like, stuff you've never heard of because it's so tepid. That's what the radio is still like--a lot of really tepid modern music, a few breakouts that are actually good, and older stuff that's survived filtering.

I think if we went back we'd discover that shmups were never *that* popular, and they were never AAA. Because AAA didn't exist back then. It's a result of major modern forces. Games were programmed for much smaller teams with much smaller budgets and consumed by much smaller portions of the population. We have seen a decline in the genre in terms of major companies making these games, but i'd argue that not a lot has changed positionally or substantively. The "big companies" back then were little mid-tier developers compared to the big companies now. Shmups haven't lost a whole lot imo. Just an arcade ecosystem where slightly more graphically ambitious titles could be greenlit.

And I say this as like, a Cave megafan. But sometimes the old falls away and it takes some time for the new to catch up. Cave was used to the old system and I think they couldn't change in the way they had to. I'm hoping Qute can weather the early storms, because imo they have the talent and vision to carry that torch. Same with HEY, though i'm waiting to play Momoiro in some form.

[qmish]

A shooter is a classic "my first game project" because programming-wise just making the fundamentals work is undeniably simple. This is also why so many shooters out there are made by people who never play shooters, and have no idea what makes a shooting game fun.

Btw it's really interesting situation. How stg is both "simple thing to create" and "very hard thing to create".

It's technically simple to make a shmup to somebody, and some players also take this notion and undervalue difficulty of shmup making.
It's very hard to design, balance, attenuate and polish excellent shmup that will keep people happy for years and more, but you have to have some understanding to appreciate that and realise "oh, Clover spent 7 years on CC for a reason!".


Shmups: easy to get in, hard to master - now this seems to be applying both for players and developers, haha!

p.s.
Honestly, for me personally it's mind blowing how people do great bullet patterns, difficulty steps, scoring, etc. systems. I think it's more challenging task than something like "doing good graphics" as you can bruteforce gfx creation in different ways, unlike game design itself (though you may correct me that one can do kewl graphics but totally fail up art direction so it will be bland shit).

p.s.s.

Special World, you analogy is a bit weird at first this time. You may compare Depeche Mode to Toaplan or NMK, aka creators who no longer present on scene.

I m not sure if we can even compare game situation and music situation, honestly. You see tons of bands playing 80s style music, be that post punk or synth wave. New releases, and old re-releases, all happening together. Just so you remember... we see much more music releases than game releases per year, naturally.

Perhaps you wanted to compare shmups to niche genre? Like, for example, noise music or breakcore or musique concrete. But those genres were ultra niche right from the beginning.... and always have a mix of "major figures" and "smaller names" within them.

In that case you will be right that this stuff is always "under radar" to "your typical non-fan who only ever listes to radio or mtv or top spotify".
And musicians of such genres only ever do concerts in dirty punk clubs or some undeground art museums, and not on huge stadiums. This you were thinking of?

Oh, btw. Rail shooters and crosshair/cabal shooters surely more dead than shmups. Also kingsfield-like dungeon crawlers (even wizardry 3 clones have more life).

[Special World]

For the people playing in an 80s style, most are throwback artists. There are very few people breaking big on music that "sounds 80s," usually they are modern musicians who have taken what was learned over the last 60 years of music and using it to make something new.

To take an example i'm more familiar with, there are a ton of throwback thrash and heavy metal bands. But they are not becoming the next Metallica or Iron Maiden. The world has moved on from that. That's not to say they don't have a lot of fans, but they are not in the limelight of the cultural conversation.

For example, the band Graveyard is playing music that sounds very similar to Led Zeppelin. But they are not (likely) ever going to become as popular as Led Zeppelin, because that wave already exploded the music scene open. Graveyard is a great band, but they are not moving the conversation forward. That's also how things work in visual arts--you aren't going to "create" pointillism again.

[qmish]

But they are not becoming the next Metallica or Iron Maiden. The world has moved on from that. That's not to say they don't have a lot of fans, but they are not in the limelight of the cultural conversation.

I heard an opinion that world has moved on from such situation on a whole.

There will be no figures with such impact as Beatles or Queen anymore. It's just doesnt work like that anymore. We live in different era with different mechanics now.

There will be tons of artists, some more popular than others, but no more cultural phenomenas that influence the whole generations and countries in a way it was during previous century.

edit:
By the way, your post edit reminded me funny fact, that i never listened to "most popular" artists in post-rock genre that much (like Explosion in the Skies or Godspeed You Black Emperor or 65 days of static), instead often finding favorites among smaller band, some of which were only known mostly locally (Sacramento post-hardcore/screamo scene was a thing, huh) even if i was not present in that area.

Long live doujins?

[Special World]

Hm, I dunno. I think when Robert Smith of the Cure dies, you'll see a similar generational sadness. And maybe also something like that related to the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Radiohead. Those are all similarly generation-defining bands. You can say "well what about nowadays?" But that hasn't had time to shake out yet. Could be there will be a band that defines the climate crisis and the end of humanity as a species capable of spreading art. But that's all speculation.

And indeed. Long live the doujins! Long live the indies! May they follow their passions forever.

Also, if you never listened to Explosions in the Sky - The Earth is Not a Cold Dead Place... you're missin out!!