Newgrounds Has A New SHMUP

[mrsmiley381]

And it's called SHMUP.

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/574900

I tried it. I swear hit detection is off. Speed is piss poor. Music is so-so generic Flash game music. Weapons are weak. Not to mention you have a ship that levels up in a way that you could grind early levels for EXP. Oh, and there's a health system. Scoring is pretty bland, too. It's a damn shame because the controls aren't super laggy like I'd expect out of Flash. Aspect ratio is clearly 3:4 so you would think the guy behind would have put more thought into it.

I suppose the question here is how much people know about shmups before they actually use the word to describe their game. Has anyone really done a shooter project in Flash and actually gotten anything out of it?

[RNGmaster]

Arcanacra and Pararalyzer are pretty good. Other than that, most flash shmups are by western devs. They unilaterally suck.

[Moniker]

"Unilateral" is such a strong word...

There are some decent ones out there if you've got an open mind about what a "shmup" is...

Space Rubbish - King of the asteroids clones.
Luftrauser - A small score attack type game with gravity.
Bat Country - A horizontal with an interesting shooting gimmick.
Warning Foregone - An oft-maligned, but very decent demake of Warning Forever.

And I hesitate to mention: Frantic 2 - Yeah, it's basically Touhou with a health bar and an upgrade shop between levels. But it controls well, and isn't *terrible* if you play on arcade mode at the highest difficulty.


...So maybe that's not the best case for western flash shmups, but they're good for breaks at work or just for goofing off.

[Rozyrg]

It has all the failings you'd expect, sure; but for this kind of off-breed shooter common in the Flash-game-hosting internet wild, it's pretty solid and it's definitely very easy on the eyes. I actually like the music, too.

Naming it "shmup" is admittedly pretty annoying, though. You'd better make the penultimate example of the genre or bring on a serious dose of sarcasm if you're going to go that route. >_>

[mrsmiley381]

It has all the failings you'd expect, sure; but for this kind of off-breed shooter common in the Flash-game-hosting internet wild, it's pretty solid and it's definitely very easy on the eyes. I actually like the music, too.

Naming it "shmup" is admittedly pretty annoying, though. You'd better make the penultimate example of the genre or bring on a serious dose of sarcasm if you're going to go that route. >_>

I've noticed this a lot with what I guess are indie devs, or hipster indie devs, or whatever the hell you'd call them. They name a game based on the genre they're trying to emulate and this tips people off that the game is clearly an homage and since it's named as such it must be made by someone who knows what they are doing. Then I hear people talk about Bullet Heaven and they come up with shmup concepts that involve no shooting and just item collecting. So basically half of Dangun Feveron. They probably don't even know about Batsugun.

Really, some of these games just need better maneuvering options and some real enemy patterns. Do they not realize how much time they would save by dropping all of the RPG mechanics and just making a straight arcade shooter? At the same time, they're really only guilty of trying to do something a little different. I wonder how many of them know about this place.

[Sumez]

Stop acting like shoot'em ups is a weird loony game genre no one has ever heard of.
EVERYONE knows shoot'em ups, most of my generation grew up with them, it's just that most people don't play them anymore.

[BeruBeru]

The problem is that most of these flash games are made by ppl who try to cater for the "nostalgia" feeling, like it's something of the past "maaaaaan remember the good ol' galaga days?? man wish there were games like this today", but they absolutely don't understand anything about the genre, the core gameplay is the thing that suppose to attract you to the game (aside for the regular visual/audio element).
Instead they make boring as fuck core gameplay because that is what they think they remember from the games, and add "modern-age" elements to spice-up a truly sub-mediocre gameplay

[Udderdude]

It's Newgrounds, what do you expect?

I tried it out. Well, it fails on almost every level, but at least the ship doesn't have inertia. :P