Anybody's kids play shmups ?

[the2bears]

My 8 year old son played a bit of Super Star Soldier R, and he does play some Gradius ReBirth. No passion for the genre yet, but he does prefer most 2D game types. Seems to really like run 'n guns. Oh, and he does play some of the games I write and wisely says he likes them

Bill

[captpain]

I always forget that Shmups Forum is full of a bunch of Grown Ups.

[BrightSuzaku]

Naw, we're really all just eternal teenagers, hanging out in arcades... Shaking our heads at the credit feeders and staring jealously as we watch the high scorers play.

Edit: I'm 20 years old, female, and childless, of course. Possible misconceptions about self averted! Success!

[TonK]

My daughter beat Deathsmiles and Progear, with lots of continues, but she loves the games.

[spadgy]

A long running duo of UK comedians named Adam and Joe do a great, possibly childish radio show (The Adam and Joe show) that is converted into a great podcast.

A couple of years back, possibly on a previous station they worked on, they discussed playing games with their kids (perhaps just one of them is a dad), and discussed a game I'm sure was Raiden. They said their kid loved it as, in their family, dropping a bomb was in fact considered to be unleashing a load of shit all over the enemies. Apparently his young kid would shout 'Poo poo bad guys! Poo poo bad guys!' whenever he wanted to bomb...

Excellent.

[BrightSuzaku]

Unleash the poo hatches!

Spaceships: Saving the world and excreting on their enemies at the same time.

[drunkninja24]

Tried getting a few of my younger cousins and such to play, but no luck thus far

As for any of my (possible future, maybe, I dunno) kids getting introduced to shmups, you better believe I will. Won't force them to play, of course, but maybe if I get at them young enough, they'll develop a natural interest and gravitate to the games anywhere they see them like I did as a kid

[spadgy]

Tried getting a few of my younger cousins and such to play, but no luck thus far

A simple excreta analogy will suffice.

[elvis]

I've got three kids, the oldest (and only one who really gets video games) is 8. She doesn't seem to really like shmups much at all. I'm guessing like most have said here, they're a bit too hard just yet.

RPGs and fighting games seem to be more satisfying for her. But I'll keep trying her on shooters every now and then to see if it sticks.

[Jonny]

My twin 3 year olds got to the first boss in Ibara Kuro last night.

i had some cousins over a few weeks ago and their 4 year old son got to stage 2 on kuro. i was laughing my ass off the whole time. it was great.

[Estebang]

I've credit fed through most of the Metal Slug games in 2-player with my 9-year-old nephew. He gets the "continuing is bad" thing, but we both knew that he couldn't handle any of the games without it.

[E. Randy Dupre]

Are the games really too hard for kids? I mean, I was playing Defender when I was about eight years old. Went back to it when it appeared on XBLA and that shit's seriously punishing. I've no idea how many levels I could get into it when I was a nipper, but I'm convinced it was more than I can now.

My first nephew appeared, blinking and screaming, into the world last week. I'm determined he'll be introduced to the joys of older videogame genres when he's old enough. Bonus points: being an uncle means I can get away with frittering his time away in a way that his mum and dad can't