I've a wrist injury that's been playing up recently. The only shmups that I can play are simple games with a trackball. Fixed shooters are the best for me just now.
I've come across the old Star Defender series and I love Titan Attacks!.
Fraxy perhaps? With its ludicrous content of player-made bosses, at least half are designed for a single screen (as opposed to freeroam which is also supported).
Shatter? PC ports of gun games (HotD2&3, Virtua Cop)? I expect some mice to sport enough buttons to control something like Crimsonland. Gridrunner Revolution, some Tempest-alikes (Arashi, Space Giraffe) should be playable with a mouse.
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Obiwanshinobi wrote:Gridrunner Revolution, some Tempest-alikes (Arashi, Space Giraffe) should be playable with a mouse.
I don't think Space Giraffe offers mouse control. But speaking of Llamasoft, donationware Gridruner++ might fit the bill. I couldn't get past the floaty controls on the systems I tried it on, but the OP might have better luck or be more tolerant. Also, it isn't strictly fixed field.
Thanks for the suggestions. Unfortunately, I'm stuck with small horizontal movements so as much as I'd love to being a lot of these games, I just can't.
I probably should've been clearer in my OP.
More unfortunately (for me!), The Bug Butcher doesn't have mouse support - that would've been cool!
Not strictly a shooter (more of a Breakout clone, like Shatter), and - much to my grief - last time I tried playing it felt way more floaty than it was in my memories, but BreakQuest on the PC is controlled with horizontal mouse movements.
Though if I was impaired somewhat along those lines again (used to be) and wanted some real-time action, I'd try Ballance (assuming I could handle four keys). Not a shmup at all, but relatively slow-paced for its genre and digital controls work surprisingly well there. Far from topic I know; it's just that everything about this game speaks "convalescence" to me. Should work with arcade sticks too (not quite the way arcade games typically do).
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Not a shmup, but if you like music, Audiosurf 2 can be controlled entirely through L/R mousing. You can turn the sensitivity up to a high level as needed for small movements.
Not a fixed shooter, but Gunroar has a mouse-controlled game mode.
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Since the thread keeps reminding me of Arashi, here comes another humble classic for Mac - by default a first person shooter (most playable this way if you ask me), Spectre Supreme can be controlled with very minor mouse movements in four directions only (those are 100% digital controls, mind; mouse happens to work a treat is all).
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