Guest post from Danielmakesmusic.com A.K.A. Fisch Loops- Let’s talk Shmups.

For those not in the know, “Shmup” is a British abbreviation for “shoot-em-up” left over from the 80’s. It describes these things:

1. player character shoots (usually in one direction), and is free to roam anywhere on the screen.
2. background graphics scroll by (usually top to bottom or right to left, and traditionally, the levels are set up in a dramatic way where the enemies and obstacles are overcome at an aesthetic pace until you fight a boss at the end).
3. the enemies fly around and shoot at the player.
Other words for this genre are “STG” (a Japanese abbreviation of sho-ting game), Bullet Hell (depending on how many bullets are shot), and any number of made up words used by people who can’t get through the dignity barrier of saying the word “shmup” all the time. They’re called “shmups” in the western world, people. Deal with it.

Don’t confuse these games with “borderliners” (or borderline-shmups), like contra (that’s a run’n’gun), space invaders (no free roaming player ship- I think they call those guys “slider shmups” in England??), and any arena shooter. No moving background (and you know, it has to be auto-scrolling till the boss at least), and it’s not a shmup. how come they can’t just add a little narrative adventure to the back of the one million arena shmups? so lazy! My favorite arena shmup that’s a real shmup: Sega’s Forgotten Worlds.

Just as this shmup genre is so tightly defined, the fans of the genre seem to be just as tightly defined! Here’s some types I’m familiar with.

1. Crazy Workout type: While perhaps skinny in limb, this type knows how to beef up the shmup muscles. This type will learn the game, practice the game, master the game, and work towards a 1CC of the game (read: default settings, one quarter, all the way to the end and beyond through the 2nd loop perhaps. A “One Credit Clear”). This type might be oblivious to things like beautiful explosions, rainbow arcs of laser fire, flickering star fields and the subtle shading of starlight on a space base. They just want to master the game in an extreme OCD fashion. These are the “body builder” type.
2. Math Nerd Type: This type is all about score, score, and more score. This is the one who says rank! rank! rank! Consult the Goog to learn all about how there’s batches of shmups that increase the difficulty level as you play well (the rank), so they can get another quarter out of you- but if you play very carefully bad, you can trick the game into keeping the rank low, and then you can last longer and get a higher score. What would Wharf do with these games? Of course we all know: fuck the rank and face the challenge like a man, but not this math nerd type; this manipulation of the workings of the game is what they see. And they love it. And want to tell you all about it.

3. Xbox type. In between hiking to the end of the latest fifty hours of adventure game, wandering to and fro in their “sandbox”, and driving through the city streets to unlock more city streets- perhaps a whole world of streets, this type will love to pump quarters into a shmup, to see what’s going to happen next, to see how many shots a boss can take before it explodes, to see what happens at the end. Score? What score? This type probably won’t even put in their initials at the end. But they might remember how far they got before putting in their second quarter. That’s called “playing for survival”.

4. Dramatic Type. This is the type who has seen a Stephen Spielberg movie. They notice the subtle way the boss shifts it’s wings on the approach. They think that every level deserves a “set piece”, as they call it in the movie biz; a special effect or occurrence that has the single intention of aesthetically blowing your mind. Visit Shienryu or the first level of Arrow Flash- or most levels of Darius Gaiden, to see what’s up. The action is the forefront, the set pieces are the backdrop. Wow! what a thrill!
5. Me: I was a firm Dramatic Type, and fundamentally I still am, but I am slowly morphing into the bodybuilder type. I try very hard to get a high score, plus keep track of my highest, plus play for survival otherwise, plus quite often keep it to one quarter. I 1CC’d Dodonpachi one time, so bite me. Control rank? I’d rather die.

Now, when I say “Tightly Defined”- get a load of this:
Flying over grass, perhaps a river, then a tank boss…. This describes the first level of COUNTLESS shmups. Just off the top of my head, Dimahoo… ALL Raidens… alright I’m drawing a blank, but all you shmuppers know that’s a common level theme, right? Duh. I’m poorly trying to illustrate the point that it’s a very formulaic genre, with lots of similar mechanics throughout, and not TOO much deviation from the basic shooty-shooty. It is a CLASSICAL medium of video game expression. It is the figure drawing of video games. it is the fundamental quarter-for-score equation, and it’s representative of the most primal survival motivations in the most pristine and pure setting. Yeah that’s right! I’m getting Caveman on this isht!

So. Does any of that sound compelling? Does it sound like shmups would be fun to make? Does it sound like there is an audience for these types of games, maybe in the type of wierdo’s who would attend a video game convention or buy video games? Apparently not. Apparently, the ten thousand or so people who are so off the deep-end that they’d play a hundred bucks to see what’s new, who can’t wait to see the next thing to fixate on and obsess over, in other words OCD, video game infatuated, fringe, passionate, in other words NERDS, are not the target market for these game makers who set up their booths. And it all makes sense- it’s takes a very different type of nerd to love a game, than it takes to make a game. I used to sit around designing the perfect nintendo game on lined notebook paper, but I never spent a second typing coordinates into my Commodore to make the dot move across the screen. And anyways, “Fringe” a.k.a. Nerds, are never the target market for anyone trying to generate any kind of market at all. Hmmm….. how ironic… Hmmmmm….

They call people who like shmups “hardcore gamers” sometimes- and they use that term to describe people who like really hard old games, like Mega Man or something, but shmups aren’t even hard- sure they are designed to kill you every single time, but that doesn’t make them “hard”, it actually makes them easy. You know just what to expect, and you can focus on how you play and what kind of score is going on. Just like, if you’re an enlightened individual, ta da… life.

If you tweak the term “hardcore gamer” a little bit, maybe take out “hard” and it’s negative connotations, and end up with “core gamer”, you could maybe describe someone who loves to play video games- someone who inherently likes the level of attention and focus required to play them, and who likes the kind of bio-feedback generated by the activity. That kind of person likes shmups. The people who like to PLAY video games and think they are fun, love them also- and perhaps mostly- in their most pure form: shmups. I challenge any gamer to spend some time getting into shmups, and than use that experience as a litmus test to see if they even really like video games!

Keep your eye’s on the internet and consult the Goog, retro gaming, and xbox live for shmups, and check the forums at shmups.com, #shmups on twitter and vine, and keep shmupping! Don’t forget about Turbografx’s and Neo Geos!