Steam SHMUP Fest (2023) - September 25 to October 2

[TyrianMollusk]

Twin Ruin a twin-stick, polarity switching deal for $1.80. Honestly, I haven't had a chance to play it yet,

It's pretty good, if a pretty narrow game. I felt it was a little better before the dev made it easier, but it's still good and has some neat play and feel. They really should have made an option to play the original way as well as the easier way, but maybe they need to see some people buying it first. Things change from run-to-run, but after you get the characters unlocked, you don't have any roguelite style metaprogression to make it less arcade. Has two modes: the main adventure style mode, and a non-procedural time-limit score mode. There was talk of another mode coming ("gauntlet"), but haven't seen any sign of that for a while.

There are some other great proper twin-stick shmups in the sale, too. Devader is actually pretty fantastic and full of weird stuff--especially notable for the dev's great misinterpretation of bullet grazing, where you follow near to a bullet for a bit to absorb it and get a boost or trigger a secondary effect. I know some shmup fans hate slidey movement/momentum, so be warned Devader uses that. Then of course, there's Assault Android Cactus running its usual $5 sale price, which is crazy good, and Waves (and the unfinished Waves 2) always free now in memoriam of its dev. The tolerant may also enjoy the janky and under-polished XenoRaptor
and Touhou Endless Dream (much more a roguelite, with lots of upgrades and metaprogression, but still has that twin-stick feel).

And then there's space thruster style shooter Nova Drift, which has long been chugging away at early access, but is starting to talk of being ready for release after a couple more updates. Very upgrade heavy, but a neat game and we never get many thrusters.

[TyrianMollusk]

Weirdly, my biggest disappointment was that none of the 'nu' Atari titles are on sale. As I've been eyeballing the Black Widow one, but don't want to spend $10 to confirm it's lame.

If you enjoy Black Widow, it's very, very lame. It's more like someone saw Black Widow played a bit and then described that to the devs. If anyone is looking at that one, make sure you buy through Steam and watch your playtime so you can refund it.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

The twin stick shooter by the name of "Rhythm Storm" demo is quite stellar on a Steam Deck. Another cool Steam verizontal stg demo worth checking out is "Birdcage - Halcyon Prototype Module" -- it has scanline effects that can be applied as well.

The Steam port of Ray'z Arcade Chronology is 20% off with a $39.99 usd pricetag today 9/27/2023. Price is good until the end of 10/4/2023.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[To Far Away Times]

That moment when Ray'z Arcade Chronology launches at $49.99 and is then discounted to $39.99 two days later.

Kinda lame to price it so high to get the Day 1 people and then put it on sale immediately after.

[m.sniffles.esq]

If you enjoy Black Widow, it's very, very lame.

I actually owned a Black Widow/Gravitar cab, hence my interest*. And yeah, the consensus seemed to be "they somehow made an intense/enjoyable game really boring"
Still... curiosity and all (but my curiosity only goes as high as $5)

*it was actually my booby prize at an auction I was attending for the sole purpose of attempting to score a Xevious cocktail, but got outbid by a Barcade douche. Same douche actually made a bid on Black Widow, but then loudly declared "I don't give a fuck about Black Widow" like he was allowing me to have it, as he deemed it unworthy...

Guess who I ended up selling that cab to a couple years later (for almost double what I paid)?? Almost a last laugh, except I STILL don't have a Xevious cocktail while some sorority girl is vomiting on theirs

[TyrianMollusk]

The twin stick shooter by the name of "Rhythm Storm" demo is quite stellar on a Steam Deck.

Nice. That reminds me I forgot to include the former most recent radiangames arcade twin-stick with the others above, Devastator, which is only $1.

[FunktionJCB]

That moment when Ray'z Arcade Chronology launches at $49.99 and is then discounted to $39.99 two days later.

Kinda lame to price it so high to get the Day 1 people and then put it on sale immediately after.

If you reach out to Steam's customer service, and request a fund (click on your purchase in the support tab, and select that you would like a refund), citing this new price, I'm sure they will grant you.

If you have less than 2h played, it's a sure thing. If you have more than 2h, you may need some "back and forth", but I'm sure you'll get it.

[XoPachi]

I picked up BHM Black. Aside from certain attack affects not being visually clear sometimes, I'm having a lot of fun. Hit top 50 for stage 3.

[FunktionJCB]

Since I own too many shmups on Steam already , these sales aren't as "mind blowing" to me as it could, but I just noticed that Ginga Force and Natsuki Chronicles are 80% off, 3,99€ each (and there's a double pack of both with an additional discount), which is an awesome price for these two:

Ginga Force:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/885910/Ginga_Force/

Natsuki Chronicles:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1175 ... hronicles/

---

Additionally, here's another shmup that launched during the event:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1555 ... st_Strike/

[Starfighter]

These are the ones I bought from this sale!

Xmas Shooting – Scramble!!
TouHou Makuka Sai ~ Fantastic Danmaku Festival
CosmoDreamer
Kamui
Super XYX

[shmuppy-puppy]

That moment when Ray'z Arcade Chronology launches at $49.99 and is then discounted to $39.99 two days later.

Kinda lame to price it so high to get the Day 1 people and then put it on sale immediately after.

If you reach out to Steam's customer service, and request a fund (click on your purchase in the support tab, and select that you would like a refund), citing this new price, I'm sure they will grant you.

If you have less than 2h played, it's a sure thing. If you have more than 2h, you may need some "back and forth", but I'm sure you'll get it.

It’s at 66% rating, that’s about as bad as it gets on Steam. Some people seem to have problems with the ports, including but not limited to Deck users.

[FunktionJCB]

Another Japanese indie shmup launched during the event:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1978 ... er_Nozomi/

This one appears to have some Cotton vibes to it.

[AimeeSH]

If you reach out to Steam's customer service, and request a fund (click on your purchase in the support tab, and select that you would like a refund), citing this new price, I'm sure they will grant you.

If you have less than 2h played, it's a sure thing. If you have more than 2h, you may need some "back and forth", but I'm sure you'll get it.

Valve considers this a valid reason to refund/rebuy. It's on their website under the ABUSE heading.
---

We do not consider it abuse to request a refund on a title that was purchased just before a sale and then immediately rebuying that title for the sale price.

https://store.steampowered.com/steam_refunds/

[Steven]

I refunded my Ray'z after playing it for 19 minutes and rebought it at the reduced price. Taito really should have made it 20% off when it launched instead of doing it this way.

[FunktionJCB]

I refunded my Ray'z after playing it for 19 minutes and rebought it at the reduced price. Taito really should have made it 20% off when it launched instead of doing it this way.

Yeah, I did the same (in my case, I was 10 minutes away from 2h played ).
And it wasn't just 20%. They launched the game with no discount, then a few hours later (or was it a day later) they added a discount for it for owners of Dariusburst CS + the RayForce DLC (through that complete the bundle option), and then 2 days later, they added the 20% discount.

By refunding it, and immediately re-purchasing it through that bundle, I saved about 15€.

[m.sniffles.esq]

Yeah, Ray's was $4 cheaper because I own Dariusburst (although, they didn't really make that apparent, as I had to search the bundles to find that out)

Very odd, but it's not like I'm going argue...

Anyway, TIME IS RUNNING OUT

Buy things now, or complain about it later.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

A new Space Harrier tribute appeared on Steam by the name of "Asura The Striker" that runs at an arcade-spec 60fps framerate overall presentation. It's currently being developed by a two person dev team under the name of Left Over. The demo of ATS will be made available for a limited time and then subsequently removed & replaced with the option to buy it at a later date. Give it a spin on the ol' Steam Deck and be prepared to be blown away.

Makes me wonder if famed M2 would do a PC/console port of Sega's Planet Harriers arcade coin-op game sequel? They do have the expertise & capability with getting arcade software to run without a hitch on consoles indeed. It'd certainly compliment Yu Suzuki's groundbreaking classic Space Harrier arcade game (circa 1985) any ol' day quite easily.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[m.sniffles.esq]

A new Space Harrier tribute appeared on Steam by the name of "Asura The Striker" that runs at an arcade-spec 60fps framerate overall presentation. It's currently being developed by a two person dev team under the name of Left Over. The demo of ATS will be made available for a limited time and then subsequently removed & replaced with the option to buy it at a later date. Give it a spin on the ol' Steam Deck and be prepared to be blown away.

Makes me wonder if famed M2 would do a PC/console port of Sega's Planet Harriers arcade coin-op game sequel? They do have the expertise & capability with getting arcade software to run without a hitch on consoles indeed. It'd certainly compliment Yu Suzuki's groundbreaking classic Space Harrier arcade game (circa 1985) any ol' day quite easily.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

Weird, I wonder if it's related to this one somehow??

[PC Engine Fan X!]

Yep, that's the same link indeed.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~