Alone in Your Crowd

KindGrind · Post by **KindGrind** » Sat Jul 26, 2008 12:17 pm

Just curious about something.

Most of my gamer friends (not people I know online, let it be clear, but people I hang out with in real life) are not genuinely interested in shmups. Some enjoy a random game of Ikaruga on XBLA but that's about it. Sure we play some things when people come over, but it seems these guys don't own or don't play anything shooting related when they're alone at home.

In that sense, I'm quite alone in my crowd; I'm like the different one. I get the feeling I'm not the only one in that situation. Are things similar for you?

elfhentaifan · Post by **elfhentaifan** » Sat Jul 26, 2008 12:48 pm

This is why we joined a shmups mass-board, full of those faggots that feel alone.

indstr · Post by **indstr** » Sat Jul 26, 2008 2:30 pm

Yes, same with music production, agnosticism, pretty much anything that identifies me as an individual here in north cackalacky

benstylus · Post by **benstylus** » Sat Jul 26, 2008 2:39 pm

most of my gamer friends like old-school games (inlcuding shmups).

maybe i just can't be friends with people who drool over the latest and "greatest" FPS games...

Post by **BulletMagnet** » Sat Jul 26, 2008 2:51 pm

More or less - my friends don't mind it if I pull out a few of my oddball games (shmups and otherwise) when they come over, but none of them (to the best of my knowledge) are involved with 'em much outside of that. I'm not particularly bothered by it (seriously, not that I'm particularly surprised to find that the stuff I'm into is niche in nature), though it would be cool to have someone you could geek out with face to face ("Oh man, that bullet pattern in stage 5..." "Yeah man, I know!").

ROBOTRON · Post by **ROBOTRON** » Sat Jul 26, 2008 2:58 pm

There is a shmup community here in michigan...but none here in Detroit. I'm pretty much alone unless I meet-up with Ubersaurus, Boagman, Sonic R, Dale and the gang...unfortunately, it doesn't happen enough.

I'm pretty much alone.

KindGrind · Post by **KindGrind** » Sat Jul 26, 2008 4:05 pm

@Bulletmagnet: Interesting you should mention oddball games, as I am known among my buddies to be a guy who likes weird games, too. Stuff like Cosmic Smash, Chu Chu Rocket, Rez, Gitaroo Man, L.O.L, or even Katamari Damacy tend to weird people out.

Shmups on the other hand are deemed too hardcore by most, and not really "out there".

antron · Post by **antron** » Sat Jul 26, 2008 4:14 pm

question:

have they ever played these games on a cab? if I didn't own a cab I probably wouldn't play shmups. gradius V was the only thing I could get my friends interested in on a TV. when I got a cab, that all changed.

kengou · Post by **kengou** » Sat Jul 26, 2008 4:34 pm

Yes, I'm very much alone in my circle of gamer friends. They mostly like the latest 3D stuff coming to the PS3/360. They look on my enjoyment of shmups and other older 2D games (hate the word "retro") as weird. I do have one friend who plays 2D fighters sometimes but he'd never try shmups.

I try to get my friends to try shmups, and sometimes I get them to play co-op with me in some games, but that's the extent.

Lordstar · Post by **Lordstar** » Sat Jul 26, 2008 4:44 pm

My friend who plays almost exclusively hyped games and RPGs came with me to JP. I was surprised at what he enjoyed and what he did not enjoy when we went to the arcades.

Azu manga daioh Puzzle bobble was his game of choice the whole time we were there (that and the fate stay/night fighter) and more often than not casual gamers the people who dont join forums to chat about games often just play whats put in front of them. as where a lot of people would happily take there time to track down obscure game from a designer they like a lot of people cannot be bothred and just play whats readily avaliable to them.

I think if we all sat down our friends and made to play some shmups and explained that the score and not just credit feeding is the aim of the game you would find a lot more shmup fans out there.

EDIT! I am not saying that everyone would play shumps if you sat them down and made them. ya know Trying to play a game to be the best you can be. But if World of war crack is any indication to it theres a lot of people love 1up'manship with tier 3 1337 armour and the sword which has 0.01% chance on dropping on a creature which only pops once every full moon (realtime)

. I guess high scores are a similar thing

Never_Scurred · Post by **Never_Scurred** » Sat Jul 26, 2008 5:14 pm

What sucks is I have to join a forum for every single niche i'm in. Music production-check, shmup head-check, foreign movies-check, trackers-check, fat chicks-check, old school games-check, math nerd-check. Check. Check. Check. Sometimes I wish I was like the masses. They only have two sites to join-Myspace and Facebook.

Lordstar · Post by **Lordstar** » Sat Jul 26, 2008 5:17 pm

Yeah I can only do so many forums myself. I am on ones for clothing production, shmups, Arcades (more than a couple) and I have abandoned a few of them

meh! whatever floats your boat i guess.

Frederik · Post by **Frederik** » Sat Jul 26, 2008 5:34 pm

Never_Scurred wrote:What sucks is I have to join a forum for every single niche i'm in.

That´s the reason the Off Topic section is so active. Because I, like most people, can´t be bothered to join a new forum for every new topic I feel like talking about.

KindGrind · Post by **KindGrind** » Sat Jul 26, 2008 7:02 pm

Quite right. I tend to limit my forum participation to shmups and random movies though, which happen to be my main hobbies. I can't imagine dealing with dozens of forums - the whole thing would sure get too damn time consuming.

EDIT: I hear gardening tips forums are quite hip these days.

Lordstar · Post by **Lordstar** » Sat Jul 26, 2008 7:05 pm

KindGrind wrote: the whole thing would sure get too damn time consuming.

And confusing. Specially if your selling items on them. But I guess that would not be a problem if your hobbies are quite different.

indstr · Post by **indstr** » Sat Jul 26, 2008 9:04 pm

Never_Scurred wrote:fat chicks-check

...