Are shmups too lonely?

[casualcoder]

I love shmups. They're just about all I've been playing lately. But I noticed that I sometimes find it a very solitary experience. Of course the games are designed as a primarily solitary experience, and part of that is what draws me to them. But I imagine playing these games in an arcade atmosphere alleviates some of that feeling. sometimes I find myself on this forum just to remind myself I'm not the only one playing these games.

I'm not looking for a 2player co-op necessarily (although that would be nice to try for once), but I fear that the real problem with STGs taking hold is that they are generally devoid of community. I know, I know, present forum notwithstanding. Other than that, what do you have? A few leaderboards like on the x360 which is just a jumble of names and doesn't even give much of a sense of competition? More and more you see the social component as important to not only the success of a particular game, but also of the very life of an entire genre (look at how fighting games came back from the dead with the advent of online competition).

Going forward, I would really like to see something that can bring shmup players together in some friendly or competitive way that is more direct and inspiring than it currently is. I'm not entirely sure what that would look like, but some sort of realtime "matchmaking" in which you can see another current players score/progress, and then afterwards compare replays and maybe have a chat function sounds like a fun idea. What do you all think?

[Ed Oscuro]

barely resisting foreveralone.gif

there's the high scores threads, some weekly competitions (when we bother to put them together that is), and so on...beyond that I don't think the space is well-developed for cooperative play yet, no.

[O. Van Bruce]

I have a friend who I constantly bug to try 1-ALL'ing Dodonpachi, DaiOuJou or Ketsui in cooperative.

Yeah, it can get pretty lonely. Better mix some multiplayer games to the mix. I play DotA 2, Team Fortress and know a bunch of guys who play fighters in a rented local every weekend, that pretty much saves me from solitude in gamedom.

I've tried to convince then of the virtues of shmups but they don't seem interested

[Skykid]

Nope, they're as enjoyable a way to game as any other.

Console gaming was always solitary when growing up unless you had a friend over. It wasn't a problem, it was just as awesome playing through great stuff on your own.

Shmups, like many arcade games, are designed to be mastered 1 player, so it's always better to take it on alone. The only problem is, arcade games are meant to exist in an arcade environment, which is social. Now they're like fish out of water, and that's the loneliest thing about them.

Fighting games on your own, now that would be lonely. Online has done wonderful things to save that genre.

[spadgy]

I agree with skykid.

Shmups are flexible socially.

It's a perfect genre for self-indulgent solitary gaming sessions when you fancy a break from life and humanity, but great fun if you want some mates round to spar/compete/show off.

I'm lucky, in that I have had an arcade to hang out in in the UK for years. I go there just for shmups, and as a resulthave made numerous, meaningful real world freindships with other shmup players. I know skykid, Dan76, CHI, hzt, JDE, MX7, Rupert H, Illyrian, Lordstar, smraedis, Aliquantic and quite a few others as great mates just because of the genre. If I didn't play shmups, I wouldn't know them at all - so for me it's a far from antisocial or lonely genre.

And here we are, because of the genre, sharing conversation in what is effectively a social website.

Most things of this kind, I think, can be as solitary or social as you want them to be.

And, yes - the high score threads on this very forum (my favourite part even though I'm pretty mediocre) making playing more social and meaningful. Whatever shmup you're playing, get involved in its high-score thread! Start today!

[Cagar]

Agreed with casualcoder, the loneliness is one of the main bad things if you start shmupping like gus. I often have to keep radio on, or just talk with my friends over skype. Playing alone in a dark room with zero social contact is terrible.
I'm damn happy about the "social aspects" of the upcoming SDOJ-port.

[spadgy]

Agreed with casualcoder, the loneliness is one of the main bad things if you start shmupping like gus. I often have to keep radio on, or just talk with my friends over skype. Playing alone in a dark room with zero social contact is terrible.
I'm damn happy about the "social aspects" of the upcoming SDOJ-port.

I guess my perspective is one of somebody lucky enough to choose to play alone or with others. I might be less optimistic if none of my social circle liked the genre.

That said, none of my longstanding social circle touch shmups. All the people I hang out with to play shmups I know because of shmups and through shmups. Certainly, the genre's a chance to meet people and make friends.

[Udderdude]

Play two player mode! Even if it's not serious, it's still pretty hilarious. :p

[spadgy]

Skykid and I were once the masters of 2-player Progear. (It wasn't really playable that way, but definitely fun).

The Strikers games work quite well two-player. My wife and I used to do that a lot.

[CptRansom]

What are these "friends" you all speak of?

[Hagane]

You can always play Twinkle Star Sprites if you want a more direct kind of competition. There's nothing in the genre like playing that game with your friends. You can play it online, too.

Anyways, I met people in real life thanks to STGs (KAI and Psikyo_ball). They might not be as obviously social as fighting games, but they still are plenty of fun to share with friends.

[Zaarock]

You can always play Twinkle Star Sprites if you want a more direct kind of competition. There's nothing in the genre like playing that game with your friends. You can play it online, too.

Wish there were more games like TSS.. Change Air Blade?

Senko no Ronde came to mind reading this, but if you approach that as a pvp shmup it's going to be disappointing because the movement system is more like Virtual-On(or even a 2d fighting game) than a shmup, you want to be dash cancelling around and using the shield etc, the normal movement is sort of floaty. Building bullet patterns to trap your opponent in is cool as you'd expect though. Don't like the melee system in the game much but apart from that I think it's really good when you get two skilled players together.

[iconoclast]

I think the loneliest thing about shumps is that there just isn't much to discuss about them. They're short & relatively simple games, so any questions you have can be answered by watching a replay, looking at a guide (if one exists), or loading the game up and experimenting for a little while (with some exceptions, perhaps). And aside from that, there are like 1000 shumps out there, so the player base for each game can be very small. If somebody wants to discuss high-level scoring techniques in Blast Off for example, who the hell are they going to talk to?

[neorichieb1971]

We could say that up to date games just mask crappy gameplay with community online aspects. If you play a facebook game you are lonely, sad and an idiot. But people still play them, things like farmville or whatever its called

Shmups might be old style, but they have raw gameplay attributes that games today rarely have. Shmups are one of few genres where if you put time into them, casuals cannot compete. What you really need is shmups to become popular again. Perhaps not in the 2D scrolling variety as I don't think that will ever happen again. But somehow shmups gameplay could be incorporated into something modern, new and exciting. Then the shmups skills you have learned will be adaptable to this new formula.

[AntiFritz]

You can always play Twinkle Star Sprites if you want a more direct kind of competition. There's nothing in the genre like playing that game with your friends. You can play it online, too.

Wish there were more games like TSS.. Change Air Blade?

Senko no Ronde came to mind reading this, but if you approach that as a pvp shmup it's going to be disappointing because the movement system is more like Virtual-On(or even a 2d fighting game) than a shmup, you want to be dash cancelling around and using the shield etc, the normal movement is sort of floaty. Building bullet patterns to trap your opponent in is cool as you'd expect though. Don't like the melee system in the game much but apart from that I think it's really good when you get two skilled players together.

There's also the two touhou ones too. Phantasmagoria of Dim.Dream and Phantasmagoria of Flower View.

[Skykid]

Agreed with casualcoder, the loneliness is one of the main bad things if you start shmupping like gus. I often have to keep radio on, or just talk with my friends over skype. Playing alone in a dark room with zero social contact is terrible.
I'm damn happy about the "social aspects" of the upcoming SDOJ-port.

Blimey, what's wrong with this picture? Moral of the story, don't shmup like Gus. We all said it's extremely (stupidly) unhealthy to be so reclusive when Gus revealed his inordinate daily play length - it's completely counter productive to having a life.

I met spadgy over a game of Progear, and since then we've enjoyed plenty of non-game related activities together, including ogling a real life Lara Croft's ass and shooting clay pigeons. Life is good, don't let it pass you by for a high score.

[O. Van Bruce]

You can always play Twinkle Star Sprites if you want a more direct kind of competition. There's nothing in the genre like playing that game with your friends. You can play it online, too.

Wait, you can play Twinkle Star Sprites Online? HOW?

[Aliquantic]

Casino felt more like a secret society to me... obscure, full of arcane rituals of questionable relevance, and dark and stinky Or like the annex of the church of Scientology... But shmups aren't social, it's an excuse to initiate social proceedings, at best.

[DrTrouserPlank]

Agreed with casualcoder, the loneliness is one of the main bad things if you start shmupping like gus. I often have to keep radio on, or just talk with my friends over skype. Playing alone in a dark room with zero social contact is terrible.
I'm damn happy about the "social aspects" of the upcoming SDOJ-port.

Blimey, what's wrong with this picture? Moral of the story, don't shmup like Gus. We all said it's extremely (stupidly) unhealthy to be so reclusive when Gus revealed his inordinate daily play length - it's completely counter productive to having a life.

I met spadgy over a game of Progear, and since then we've enjoyed plenty of non-game related activities together, including ogling a real life Lara Croft's ass and shooting clay pigeons. Life is good, don't let it pass you by for a high score.

How long was he playing for per day? 5-8 hours I'd assume?

It's a bit overboard, but it's disingenuous to pretend that people clearing any of these games even on standard difficulty aren't spending 2-3 hours per day for weeks and months on end to get their clears. Grinding and grinding the same sequences over and over again until they finally manage to put it all together into one run after hundreds of failed attempts at doing so previously

Getting clears in these games requires many hours of practice and grinding alone until the patterns and sequences are seared into your brain and the whole thing is more about muscle memory than what you actually see on the screen.

That alone is the worst thing about shmups. You can't just play them and get better over time. You have to set about putting in hours of monotonous and repetitive practice on each individual stage until what you are doing feels far more like work than any form of entertainment.

[O. Van Bruce]

Nobody needs to go full shmup to get better on this games. have you tried to play by short intervals? I can't get any progress if I stay more than an hour playing.

[Udderdude]

You can't just play them and get better over time. You have to set about putting in hours of monotonous and repetitive practice on each individual stage

That is getting better over time, you dip.

until what you are doing feels far more like work than any form of entertainment.

Can't handle it? Quit. Nobody here will miss you. Go away.

[KAI]

I have lost my job, my house, my wife and kids, my virginity, everything, because of shmups.

Shmupholics Anonymous anyone.

[DrTrouserPlank]

I have lost my job, my house, my wife and kids, my virginity, everything, because of shmups.

Shmupholics Anonymous anyone.

I'd imagine that's one thing playing shumps would allow you to hang onto for a long time

[Skykid]

It's a bit overboard, but it's disingenuous to pretend that people clearing any of these games even on standard difficulty aren't spending 2-3 hours per day for weeks and months on end to get their clears.

Rubbish, I never put anywhere near that kind of time into any of my clears. The longest was probably Progear, but then it was my first, so it was a case of learning the idiosyncrasies of the genre at the same time (and scoring, simultaneously).

I cleared Dodonpachi after about 2 hours invested in the PCB, and when I knuckled down to DOJ BL I spent about 25 minutes a day and played approx 5 days a week. Took about 6 weeks for the clear.

[Sly Cherry Chunks]

All I hear are more reasons for a DBAC console port.

[CptRansom]

I've been putting in 2-5 hours a day working on Touhous (6-8, 10-13 all done on Easy and Normal, 6-8 on Hard so far) for the last month or so because fuck it why not. I still see my kid when I can (joint custody, blah blah blah), work my full-time (and some) job, hang out with friends, go out with girls, read books, do some writing, play other games, AND I'm still actually noticing myself getting better (managing resources, recognizing patterns, streaming, blah blah blah).

You can't just play them and get better over time. You have to set about putting in hours of monotonous and repetitive practice on each individual stage

That is getting better over time, you dip.

until what you are doing feels far more like work than any form of entertainment.

Can't handle it? Quit. Nobody here will miss you. Go away.

Pretty much this entire thing right here.

I don't know why I'm bothering. You never listen to anyone. You're one of the most adamantly stubborn people I've ever seen on this forum, and I don't know why you continue to visit a forum for games that you're obviously not interested in actually getting better at or why you continue to purchase and play games that you've obviously decided are impossible despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

To address the topic with more than a "I have no friends" joke: I've tried many times to get my RL friends into STGs. I've had moderate success with my roommate. He owns Eschatos, Deathsmiles, Raiden Fighters Aces, and DFK. Out of these, the only one he actually plays is Eschatos, and he only ever plays it on Easy, and even then only once or twice every few months. I've been trying for years, and that's the closest I have to a success story. So yes, it's a lonely fucking hobby when I don't have any arcades near me and the only real gaming scene here is either DDR/ITG (something I haven't been competitive with since about 2004/5) and fighting games (I hate all the trash talking and shitty personalities that get attached to fighting games, so I don't waste my time).

I chat on IRC when I want to talk about STGs. The lack of any RL friends to talk to about this shit and get involved with has made my time in the genre an uphill battle. I've got nobody to directly compete against, and it makes motivation difficult, but I keep going anyway.

:words:

[Cagar]

Agreed with casualcoder, the loneliness is one of the main bad things if you start shmupping like gus. I often have to keep radio on, or just talk with my friends over skype. Playing alone in a dark room with zero social contact is terrible.
I'm damn happy about the "social aspects" of the upcoming SDOJ-port.

Blimey, what's wrong with this picture? Moral of the story, don't shmup like Gus.

I don't.
I didn't choose to live somewhere where are no arcades or people who like shmups.
Try living in Finland. It's all about luck.

How do you meet new friends while playing with mame at home? I'd totally prefer going to arcades or to play with friends.

[Skykid]

Agreed with casualcoder, the loneliness is one of the main bad things if you start shmupping like gus. I often have to keep radio on, or just talk with my friends over skype. Playing alone in a dark room with zero social contact is terrible.
I'm damn happy about the "social aspects" of the upcoming SDOJ-port.

Blimey, what's wrong with this picture? Moral of the story, don't shmup like Gus.

I don't.
I didn't choose to live somewhere where are no arcades or people who like shmups.
Try living in Finland. It's all about luck.

How do you meet new friends while playing with mame at home? I'd totally prefer going to arcades or to play with friends.

Do something else then. I appreciate gaming is your passion, believe me, but balancing it with other activities where you can also be social is crucial. Remember how Gus used to say he preferred to be celibate and play shmups, because they're more fun than getting laid? He was wrong.

If he's at the age where developing social skills are important, and decides to give up the opportunity in favour of a Futari ultra clear, he may as well get used to being celibate for the rest of his life. It's hard work to learn how to interact with the opposite sex, takes years of practice (men are just shit at these things generally) so you don't want to leave it too late. Gets harder the older you get.

More to the point I do pity the entire arcade free world. I just made my first group of friends in China at the arcade, the local SFIV team. Since then I've been out drinking 3 times a week and competed in two tournaments, won one last night. Got a big doll, a banner and 500 arcade tokens!

[Pallerå]

How do you meet new friends while playing with mame at home?

By posting on the forums and hoping for someone lonely to read the country tag below your avatar.

Who's Gus?

[Cagar]

Do something else then. I appreciate gaming is your passion, believe me, but balancing it with other activities where you can also be social is crucial.

I know, I try to, I don't play 24/7, I have friends.

Remember how Gus used to say he preferred to be celibate and play shmups, because they're more fun than getting laid? He was wrong.

Source?

If he's at the age where developing social skills are important, and decides to give up the opportunity in favour of a Futari ultra clear, he may as well get used to being celibate for the rest of his life. It's hard work to learn how to interact with the opposite sex, takes years of practice (men are just shit at these things generally) so you don't want to leave it too late. Gets harder the older you get.

I've had a girlfriend for almost 3 years.

More to the point I do pity the entire arcade free world.

so do I.

the forums and hoping for someone lonely to read the country tag below your avatar.

Believe me, this doesn't help.