There is hope!

[Evilmaxwar]

I still really dislike the word shmup...it sounds so...I dunno, goofy. I'll stick with shooter, shooting game, or STG most of the time.

Problem is when i use shooter, shooting game they think im talking COD or something, if i use STG they wont know wtf im talking about. So i use 2d scrooling shooters or sometimes, yes, shmups.
Anyway i live in a french speaking region and somehow Shmup feels less Goofy in french

[Deca]

Yeah...the term shooter being associated with FPSs annoys me to no end. When I need to specify I usually say "scrolling shooter" (and end up having to explain anyway)

[Sumez]

Using "shooter" about games like Wolfenstein 3D or Serious Sam = Makes sense and fine with me. Same with Panzer Dragoon or Starfox.

Using "shooter" about games like Call of Duty or Halo = meh...

[Lance Boyle]

Using "shooter" about games like Wolfenstein 3D or Serious Sam = makes sense and fine with me

Using "shooter" about games like Call of Duty or Halo = meh

Care to explain the difference?

[Sumez]

It's a personal/subjective thing I guess.

The first two aren't really that much different from a classic 2D shoot'em up IMO. They are still based around the same simple basics and tight mechanics despite the first person viewpoint. Even if it's not a classic 2D scrolling shooter, they are still obviously shooting games, based around shooting stuff!
CoD/Halo/basically any modern FPS since, well, Doom, are an entirely different type of game centered around exploration, solving puzzles, etc. as much as the actual shooting action. And the shooting itself is based on precise aiming and taking cover, rather than dodging your enemies' attacks and firing blindly back as in a classic shooter.

[ave]

Maybe he's referring to the recent trend of rendering first-person-shooters into interactive movies. Not sure about Halo though, hasn't this one always been a straight fps without too much story and drama attached to it? Haven't played anything beyond part 2 though.
I usually call them "2D-shooters" to separate them from simple shooters which is usually confused with FPS in my country. In Germany FPS are referred to as "ego-shooters", so if you call something a shooter most people will think it's something like Counter-Strike.

@first post
Interesting story. Good to hear there are still some exceptions, but from my experience these are really scarce. In my entire school life I've never encountered another student who liked 2d-shooters or even was into retro games. Or sometimes you meet someone who claims to be all into that stuff and then, like a month later, he sells off his just recently acquired gear and moves on to the next hastily purchased hobby equipment. It's not so often the case with 2D-shooters in particular, I'm probably rather referring to the retro collecting scene. Some 18-20 year old guys who claim to be "teh super-nerds" who "love retro" and then, three months later, they're selling it all off without hesitation to buy a PS3 and a ton of modern FMV adventures. :p

[Shatterhand]

All of my students know I like playing games, so I usually talk with them about games and stuff... but indeed, most of the time is about the latest Call of Duty or God of War game. I had a class once that had a few kids who are very much into The King of Fighters games (Which is a very popular series here, though the youngest kids wouldn't play a figthing game before SF IV), though all of them were destroyed by me when they challenged me in KoF 98 (And I am not even a good KoF player). Besides this, the most "retro" thing i've seen those kids playing is Counter Strike.

Last year we had a Fifa11 tournament organized by the students but as a "oficial" event of the school. I was the only teacher who signed for the tournament, and I got 2nd place in a final-match that went for an extra time that had 3 goals. It was really fun to play that


But finding a kid who actually knows the word shmup was really... unexpected. Some of the kids had done some very simplistic shmups before (and that was more because coding a shmup is easier than any other genre), but for the first time I think we may have a real cool shmup being done by a student. The kid begun assembling a team among his friends to develop his game. If you guys are interesed, I'll let you know how development goes

[shadowbringer]

Please keep us informed

Good luck to the team!

[spadgy]

It's a great tale; especially considering the guy's youth. I've managed to get a couple of my mates interested again (a workmate of mine so much so that he's atrated importing Cave games and has signed up here (as banjoted).

It must be great to see youngsters getting involved though. We need the next generation!

[Shatterhand]

Well, yesterday I was with this class again.

The "shmup kid" indeed formed a team, now it's 4 guys thinking about doing a shmup. The funny thing is that the other 3 kids doesn't have the slightest idea of what a shmup is, but the enthusiasm of the other kid is so contagious that they are really interested in doing this. And in the process he grabbed one the best coders in his class for his team (Well, considering they've been learning programming for like 1 month, "best coder" means someone who already understood how to use loops and "if-then-else"s with some confidence).

They begun drawing some graphics and building a simple engine for their game (To build a shmup engine in game maker is incredibly simple). And after the class ended, I had a talk with the 4 kids, and as a homework task I gave them a list of shmups for them to study.

I never thought that as a teacher I would tell students to play videogames as HOMEWORK. I really wish my school was like the one where I work

[Sumez]

How can people "not know what a shmup is"? It's THE most basic of game genres! If you don't know shmups, you don't know games.
Anyway, it's all good to hear

[harrihaffi]

How can people "not know what a shmup is"? It's THE most basic of game genres! If you don't know shmups, you don't know games.
Anyway, it's all good to hear

I think the reason is because most people don't care about all the facts. They just wanna play games and offen they want to play either really "good looking" games or puzzelgames and hence the genre shmup is never seen... I think this is true especially for younger people...since facts and knolege has become important to me somewhere around when I hit 18...

MVHH

[ShmupSamurai]

Awwwwwww!

That's really awesome to hear!....Nice to actually see a kid who not only has an interest in making videogames, but wanted to make a shmup....my heart is crying little tears of joy of on the inside...*sniff*

[Drum]

It's a personal/subjective thing I guess.

The first two aren't really that much different from a classic 2D shoot'em up IMO. They are still based around the same simple basics and tight mechanics despite the first person viewpoint. Even if it's not a classic 2D scrolling shooter, they are still obviously shooting games, based around shooting stuff!
CoD/Halo/basically any modern FPS since, well, Doom, are an entirely different type of game centered around exploration, solving puzzles, etc. as much as the actual shooting action. And the shooting itself is based on precise aiming and taking cover, rather than dodging your enemies' attacks and firing blindly back as in a classic shooter.

Wolfenstein 3D has a fair amount of exploration and secret discovering, and even some stealth elements. Levels can get pretty complex too. Not really a very clear line between that and Doom.

[Sumez]

You're probably right, really.
I guess Serious Sam is the only true shooter among FPS games then.

So what's keeping everyone from making more of them? Maybe that should be my next project.

[spadgy]

I really wish my school was like the one where I work

That's an awesome thing to be able to say about what you do for a living. Good for you man!

[Demetori]

I took my nephew to the only decent arcade here in New Zealand and had him play Mushihime-sama. I think I must have put in about $40 worth of credits for him because he was fascinated by what was on the screen! He managed to get to Stage 2 with some help from me.
After we got back home he started drawing pictures of the bugs and bullets.

This is probably the closest I'll get to seeing what it must have been like when I first laid my eyes on one of these machines.
But hopefully this stays with him and he'll want to play more in future.

P.S. I intend to show him various other shmups as he grows up! I also want to get some pictures of him playing.

Demetori

[Sumez]

the only decent arcade here in New Zealand and had him play Mushihime-sama.

Whoa! You almost manage to make it sound like you're in a tough situation where you live. I think the fact that you actually have an active videogame arcade is admirable. The fact that it even has Mushihimesama makes it close to epic!
The closest we have to an arcade where I live (the capital city of my country, too!) is a dusty old Soul Calibur cabinet (or maybe it was Soulblade...) in the basement of a popular movie theater...

I envy you

And congratulations with your awesome nephew, I envy that as well!

[Shatterhand]

I really wish my school was like the one where I work

That's an awesome thing to be able to say about what you do for a living. Good for you man!

While I was making a lot more of money doing regular IT work, I really am a much happier guy now working as a teacher, no doubts about it.



It seems the "4 guys" team got down to 2 guys real quickly. The "shmup" kid and the one who got the crisps with coding very quickly. After my last post they spend they both spend a late night working at a game together... they showed me the game yesterday... it's a very basic game (Vertical scrolling, the screen gets flooded with one single type of enemy that shoots one aimed bullet at the player), but the way it's polished shows they may have some bright future ahead. The graphics are very nice (And all drawn by the "shmup" kid, not ripped from anywhere!). I suggested them they could make the bullets faster as the player progress, and they changed their game.

Later in the class I showed them how they could do more complex bullet patterns, and they were like "OOOOOHH! That's what we need!!".

If those 2 keep working together, they will probably manage to be a good team. One has lots of ideas, seems to be able to make some good graphics and can do some basic programming, and the other probably will become a pretty good programmer in a few months. It's funny to see one saying "We could do something like this and that", and the other goes like "Yeah, I know how I could code that".

And this is from kids who, like I said before, had their first contact with coding less than a couple of months ago.

[Jeneki]

You're probably right, really.
I guess Serious Sam is the only true shooter among FPS games then.

How about Painkiller?

I would agree that dodging is one of the key differences between shmups and modern FPS games, and one of the primary reasons I have a hard time enjoying most FPS.

[Jeneki]

Yesterday in one of the classes where I use GameMaker, I was talking about how they wouldn't create the new God of War or another GTA, but they could make nice little games to show to their friends, and suddenly one of the kids, 15 years old, says exactly this (but in Portuguese) to one of his friends:

"I actually want to do a shmup".

This is the shmups forum. Aren't you supposed to reply "lolz n00b, no one wants to play your crappy eurotrashmup."

[S20-TBL]

It seems the "4 guys" team got down to 2 guys real quickly. The "shmup" kid and the one who got the crisps with coding very quickly.

What happened to the other two? Did they form a different team or something?

[BPzeBanshee]

It seems the "4 guys" team got down to 2 guys real quickly. The "shmup" kid and the one who got the crisps with coding very quickly.

What happened to the other two? Did they form a different team or something?

Maybe they realised shmups were way above their league and left?

[Shatterhand]

It seems the "4 guys" team got down to 2 guys real quickly. The "shmup" kid and the one who got the crisps with coding very quickly.

What happened to the other two? Did they form a different team or something?

Maybe they realised shmups were way above their league and left?

One of them didn't show up in the last class. The other kid was doing something else and nothing related with the other 2 kids. I dunno what happened and I felt I shouldn't ask. Relationships at this age are very shaky most of the times

[Herr Schatten]

If those 2 keep working together, they will probably manage to be a good team. One has lots of ideas, seems to be able to make some good graphics and can do some basic programming, and the other probably will become a pretty good programmer in a few months. It's funny to see one saying "We could do something like this and that", and the other goes like "Yeah, I know how I could code that".

Great! Now get them to finish Megaship SBE.

Joking aside, it's a great story. If I've had had a teacher like you back in school when I was attending IT classes some 15 years ago, I might have gotten something better out of it than that half-finished roguelike with ascii graphics written in Turbo Pascal.

[Shatterhand]

Great! Now get them to finish Megaship SBE.

I had thought about this!

Believe it or not, I am *still* working on it. I did some work on it in the beginning of the year, and then halted again when my vacation time ended.

[Hair]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-yYRejhne0

^^^This kid has good taste. His top 5 Mame shmups may not look like this forum's consensus, but he digs Boogie Wings and After Burner so he knows what he is talking about.

[tinotormed]

There is also a valuable thing in which each person had to do in shmups:

EMPTY... YOUR... MIND...

I know it's really based off some movies that I watched and it's hard to do, but we have to learn to let things go and focus through the point of view before doing things so such as getting a higher score, 1cc-ing or 1lc-ing in the game. It's like the a master telling his apprentice to do the things the specific way. Here's how it goes:

1) Clear all things out of your head. Let it go and focus on the game you are playing for, be it a high score run, a 1cc, or a 1lc.
2) Once you realised all the things in it already, begin showing what you have and don't let yourself or anyone down!...
... or die trying...

Hopefully this works even for people becoming future WR holders and on other accomplishments.

[gs68]

So I hung out with some cosplay friends today, one of which does Touhou cosplay.

Within the span of about 20 minutes, a couple of my shmup-playing friends who were with me picked up several things about this person:
- Plays shmups other than Touhou (i.e. various Cave games on iOS and in MAME, Strikers 1999 at their arcade before S1999 got removed, Raiden)
- Calls shmups "shooting games" (and is aware of the confusion the term can cause amongst more mainstream gamers)
- Wants a 360 for shmups
- Plays shmups on an arcade stick

...and it just hit me how rapidly such commonalities can accelarate a new friendship.

[Shatterhand]

They uploaded their first "beta":

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=JVMHHG37

if you guys want to check it out.


The current version is already better than this, but that's whats they wanted to "show to the world" for now.

It's still that "One enemy that shoots aimed bullets", but it's very polished IMO for a couple of kids who begun programming last month.