Non-Shmuppers Say the Darndest Things

[CaptainKraken]

Ahoy!
So, quite a while ago I was showing off a game I was working on to a discord server (of mostly non-shmup people).
One of the compliments I got (I will never forget this) was, and I quote, "I like the variation in mob bullet trajectories."
Which has got to be the clumsiest synonym to "bullet patterns" I have ever heard.

Anybody had similar experiences? What's the silliest thing you've heard about shmups from people outside our bubble?

[CerealPT]

usually people criticizing how easy and short they are after credit feeding them in 20 minutes.

[PerishedFraud ឵឵]

What annoys me the most is that people (on average) don't even dislike shmups, they just need to be spoonfed this stuff. Show them a shmup and they won't touch it with a 10 foot pole, but sneak it into something else and they praise it. Such bizarre culture. In fact I've seen some devs specifically try to avoid terms like shmup, stg and shoot-em-up in their games/ads because of this.

For a more direct answer, I was once called a cheater because the ship hitbox was small. "Invincibility" and all that. Then they lost trying to prove it.

[AGermanArtist]

Cygni devs' relunctance to use the term or even be associated with it, for fear of being ghetoized. Tried to make a Shmup for people who don't play 'em and wound up making a game that appeals to no-one. Money wasted by Konami that could have gone into a Team Ladybug Gradius VI. Idiots.

[Lemnear]

Every time I show to a casual gamer a shmups the comments are:
"ah but it's like Space Invaders"
and if it's a Danmaku
"ah it's like Metal Slug"
WHUT?

[davyK]

Try saying Call of Duty is like Doom.


The usual comment is about being able to "beat" a game in 30mins or whatever but that's because mainstream games are played that way.

There's the usual poor review comment about them being impossible and too short as well. But what are you going to do? These games require focussed replay and that doesn't really suit your typical mainstream gamer.

[Sumez]

I guess the bigger annoyance is how "bullet hell" get used nowadays to retroactively cover pretty much any shoot'em up. Or occasionally any genre with more than one bullet on screen.

[Nahar]

I guess the bigger annoyance is how "bullet hell" get used nowadays to retroactively cover pretty much any shoot'em up. Or occasionally any genre with more than one bullet on screen.

This is going to be a problem. Look at what happened to the roguelike community.

[Hazuki]

I guess the bigger annoyance is how "bullet hell" get used nowadays to retroactively cover pretty much any shoot'em up. Or occasionally any genre with more than one bullet on screen.

Similarly, I also get annoyed with how "Metroidvania" is now used retroactively to cover pretty much anything that's an exploration/search based 2D platformer (without a linear, stage based system).

[Sumez]

Similarly, I also get annoyed with how "Metroidvania" is now used retroactively to cover pretty much anything that's an exploration/search based 2D platformer (without a linear, stage based system).

What's an example of a game that is like that, but not a metroidvania though?

[Hazuki]

What's an example of a game that is like that, but not a metroidvania though?

Personally I'd not call simple games with just a bit of exploration like Kid Icarus, Madoola no Tsubasa or Kenseiden "Metroidvanias", but some people insist they are just for not being 100% linear.

[Faith]

I guess the bigger annoyance is how "bullet hell" get used nowadays to retroactively cover pretty much any shoot'em up. Or occasionally any genre with more than one bullet on screen.

This is going to be a problem. Look at what happened to the roguelike community.

Not just "bullet hell."

Remember when Steam did the "Shmup Fest?"

[Sumez]

Personally I'd not call simple games with just a bit of exploration like Kid Icarus, Madoola no Tsubasa or Kenseiden "Metroidvanias", but some people insist they are just for not being 100% linear.

I feel like that's just assumptions based on people not really having played them though? Kid Icarus does come across like a game which would be one, but it *is* completely linear.
I didn't play too much of Madoola, it's way too kusoge for me. But what I did play of it, absolutely felt like a metroidvania? I assumed it was one for sure.

[Starfighter]

Not just "bullet hell."

Remember when Steam did the "Shmup Fest?"

I'm still baffled over the lack of knowledge displayed in that event. If they wanted to expand and hint players towards similar games they could've done so with "others also looked at" etc, not having all sorts of genres be main features. Oh well.

[PerishedFraud ឵឵]

What's an example of a game that is like that, but not a metroidvania though?

Turricans, Phantom 2040, Iconoclasts for a modern game, and many more.

[sunnshiner]

Similarly, I also get annoyed with how "Metroidvania" is now used retroactively to cover pretty much anything that's an exploration/search based 2D platformer (without a linear, stage based system).

What's an example of a game that is like that, but not a metroidvania though?

They used to be called arcade adventures BITD.

[Sumez]

Well of course the actual "metroidvania" term wasn't coined until after SOTN (describing CV games mimicking the Metroid design), but obviously the genre itself existed long before then
I think it's ok to have more names for the same thing. People also didn't call Wolfenstein 3D an FPS, but it definitely is one.

[AGermanArtist]

[Sumez]

Most definitely a metroidvania. One of the seminal ones I'd say.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Well of course the actual "metroidvania" term wasn't coined until after SOTN (describing CV games mimicking the Metroid design), but obviously the genre itself existed long before then

Every time discussion comes up I think about how mind-blowing it was for me to be told the Japanese already had a name for the genre that perfectly encompasses it: "search action". I vastly prefer this over "metroidvania", even though I know Metroid and SoTN were the ones most responsible for popularizing it.

One of the compliments I got (I will never forget this) was, and I quote, "I like the variation in mob bullet trajectories."
Which has got to be the clumsiest synonym to "bullet patterns" I have ever heard.

This is pretty harmless; it's a compliment, and it only sounds weird because they're more familiar with what's likely MMO terms ("mob" to describe enemies). We have weird terms that would sound weird if you used them to describe games they play too most likely, such as zako for weak trash enemies. They knew exactly what they were describing, they just didn't have the same language. This sorta thing happens all the time like when people who don't speak a language natively try to speak in that language tend to be way more literal and use slightly incorrect terminology. You still get the gist of what they're expressing.

[Hazuki]

I didn't play too much of Madoola, it's way too kusoge for me. But what I did play of it, absolutely felt like a metroidvania? I assumed it was one for sure.

You certainly didn't play enough then. It has a stage based progression system. 16 stages total and you go through them in ascending order. No alternate routes, warps or anything.

[stellar_light]

Metroidvania is an inadequate name but conversely I don't like search action much either--it's a very broad term given that most games involve some degree of searching and action, makes me imagine something like Doom. At that point it's choosing between something too specific vs. a name that's not specific enough. A lot of genre names have been conceptualized as awkward placeholders that caught on anyway because we've gotten too used to them, metroidvania is definitely an example of that but I'm not sure if using a different term would do much to fix the core issue (being that the precise structure can be sometimes loose to define and is caught up in already existing genres like adventure games or platformers that we have to distinguish them from).

[BareKnuckleRoo]

I don't like search action much either--it's a very broad term given that most games involve some degree of searching and action

Not as broad as "shoot 'em up".

[CaptainKraken]

This is pretty harmless; it's a compliment, and it only sounds weird because they're more familiar with what's likely MMO terms ("mob" to describe enemies).

Yes, of course! I did not mean to imply it was not appreciated or welcome, I was just surprised and amused by the language used.
I was wondering if others had similar examples, born more from unfamiliarity than anything malicious or condescending.

[stellar_light]

I don't like search action much either--it's a very broad term given that most games involve some degree of searching and action

Not as broad as "shoot 'em up".

Oh, for sure--hell, I mentioned adventure games in the same post and that's a strong contender for one of the least helpful genre names out there

[BareKnuckleRoo]

I think in a gaming context having names that sound somewhat generic is fine. We know what is meant by "search action" in a gaming context as much as we know what's meant by "Metroidvania" (especially given lots of Castlevania games are not Metroidvanias!).

Adventure games generally suffer because nobody seems to want to both to add descriptors like "top-down adventure", "sidescrolling adventure", "point and click adventure", or "text adventure" and so on, which all play rather differently!

[Jonpachi]

"1CC? What's that, like the world's smallest motorcycle engine?"

[Sumez]

Every time discussion comes up I think about how mind-blowing it was for me to be told the Japanese already had a name for the genre that perfectly encompasses it: "search action". I vastly prefer this over "metroidvania", even though I know Metroid and SoTN were the ones most responsible for popularizing it.

I'm sorry to say this, but regardless of how dumb metroidvania sounds, "search action" definitely sounds at least as dumb

[AGermanArtist]

NON-LINEAR ACTION PLATFORMER AKA I HAVEN'T PLAYED THIS THING FOR 2 WEEKS AND NOW I'M COMPLETELY LOST AND MUST START OVER GAYME.

If Maze of Galious qualifies, then surely also

[Faith]

I'm sorry to say this, but regardless of how dumb metroidvania sounds, "search action" definitely sounds at least as dumb :P

It's probably just a literal translation and likely sounds "more correct" in Japanese.