ImmaculateClump

I think a lot of shmup devs have been trying to move away from the infinite continue system, and trying ways to gently funnel newer players into the mindset that these games aren't to be credit fed through and ditched. Sounds like he's lifted that whole earning continues and starting at checkpoints thing from zeroranger. There is an achievement called "Freeplay - Unlock 9+ continues." which nobody has gotten yet. So I think you can stack up a good amount of continues at least. If you're someone who's always credit fed to practice then I think you're supposed to just use the practise mode instead and jump into arcade when you're ready. I really like the slower ship. It starts to feel underpowered once you get to the final boss on intense though. I really want to get a clear with that ship since I'm scoring better with that one at the minute, then I'll try and do the third one.

Got my intense 1cc today. Man, that final boss! Yup, this game is amazing. I'm looking forward to trying out the roguelike mode. Boghog was talking the other night in the shmupjunkie discord about how he got the job.

Gunvein - Intense 1cc

Yeah, I thought they were all coming out at the same time, but this makes more sense. They can catch any bugs and weirdness on pc and make sure everything is rock solid and patched up all nice before coming over to console. I won the game for coming third in the high score competition, but I've already had hours of fun in the demo alone and feel like I should pay it forward. If any of you lot fancy it on steam, give me a shout. You might have to add me as a friend, but you can fuck me off straight after. Edit: This has been taken.

I hate to be that guy, but wiper already posted about this earlier in the week. It was a good video.

Killer Sally - ***½

Gunvein coming November 11th

Yeah. Not that I'm the biggest fan of the platform, but his discord is way better than all the other shmup discords combined, as well. No noncery, no weird in-fighting. Just chill groovy folk helping each other out or having friendly competitions. Here's a working invite if anyone fancies sticking their head in - https://discord.com/invite/KXwzNPQFge Elixir is bowing out of posting shmup news on twitter. That's a shame, it was always a handy resource - https://twitter.com/shmups I think a lot of people are jumping from that sinking ship since it got a little too musky. This Japanese guys blog is a great alternative for keeping on top of new releases - http://blog.livedoor.jp/indie_shooting/

No autofire options. Hey, mate, you had one job! Good luck with that on the switch. I don't have my old joytokey settings for mecha ritz neither so I'm starting from scratch. 5 times a second seems good enough for the red ship. That'll do me for now. I'm liking it, you have to get up close and personal to the bosses to take out the sweet spots, and if you bomb, the sweet spots don't take damage for a while. They've fixed the milking on the final pattern of the last boss. It's good! Feels very different, they've left the previous version as a launch option which is nice.

Smile - ***

Sing it, sister! Very unfairly maligned, that game. I don't even think it looks that bad. Mecha Ritz update oot the noo. Not had a chance to play anything today, will give it a shot tomorrow. https://store.steampowered.com/app/463070/Mecha_Ritz_Steel_Rondo/ https://www.nintendo.co.uk/Games/Nintendo-Switch-download-software/Mecha-Ritz-Steel-Rondo-2283163.html

Yeah, I never really got into the second one. I play the original on a 360 pad with the analogue stick and that didn't feel right in the second one. The deadzone felt much lower, and with no way to tweak it I found myself grabbing hold of ladders and vines that I didn't want to, and jumping off the odd turkey, so I just binned it. It felt very much like a third rate tribute act as well from what I saw of it. I'm sure there's some good stuff in there but I didn't stick around due to the control issues. I could play with an arcade stick or move to keyboard, but spelunky has always been my lounging back with a pad and a podcast/album/audiobook game so I don't think that'd feel right. First game is more or less perfect. It's a fools errand to play a roguelite for score when the procedural generation can have such a huge impact on the scoring potential of each individual run, but if it's fun to play, then you play it. For over a thousand hours.

Beat my score today! Still nowhere near @MarkN though.

I don't like the final boss to be too hard. You should be able to adlib them after a few goes, I reckon. Make some of the bosses utter cunts and make the last stage a nightmare, by all means, but you're usually burnt out by the very end. Some games will make their final boss as hard to get a handle on as the rest of the game combined, and if it's coming right at the end of a run, where you haven't had a chance to get familiar with it's attacks. Nah, that's not fun. If you give the player enough resources to just bomb through the tricky bits, then that's OK, and then you award points for lives and bombs remaining for the guys who can manage to get through it unscathed. I like the idea of the main villain being a coward, and once you've taken out their army, they're just a frightened little tosser and not as powerful as the bosses you've previously encountered. There's a thing in shmups "true last boss" where if you meet certain requirements, or do certain things during the game you get to fight them, or they'll show up in the arrange mode regardless, and honestly, they are the bane of my life. There's loads of times I've been celebrating, leaning back in my chair having a well earned swig and some absolute heid the baw will turn up with his ominous music and unleash a pattern that you'd have to practise for half an hour to understand. It's technically still a 1cc, but it never feels like it. I like that true last bosses exist as something extra for the nutters, but I think it should always be the players decision whether or not to fight them. Fair enough having them mandatory on the hardest difficulty but not on arrange modes and shit.

Haha. You can at least use a dishcloth for drying plates. Congrats, Strawdonkey! Steam page for Schildmaid is up https://store.steampowered.com/app/2154760/Schildmaid_MX/ Ooh yeah, beat my score in Dead End City normal Second on the leaderboard overall. Really loving this game. It's very unique. I'm gonna try and get a decent score with the cat lady now. She's pretty slow but she gets lots of bombs and flings cats at the enemies.

Dead End City - Hard 1cc

Steam page for Akai Katana is up https://store.steampowered.com/app/2076220/Akai_Katana_Shin/

Pearl - ***

3, 2, 1 for me so far.

I've downloaded the first one again, gonna go back and give it another try soon. I couldn't stick with it when it came out as it bored me rigid, but I'm curious enough to see it all the way through this time.

Yeah, the sword and the wings and stuff, that's all cheesy 80s horror pastiche. Naff, but knowingly so. and yeah, the film has it's flaws, but a lot of them work in it's favour. The indulgent, loose feel where scenes just keep going too long works to begin with, though you're right, it doesn't work for the whole film, and it does need tightening up a lot, but again, it's part of the loose grindhouse feel, and you have to be careful you don't spoil something by sanding off it's rough edges. It's not a film I'd defend to the death. I only rated it three stars, but it's a lot of fun and there's a plucky underdog spirit there that carried it through. Guy playing the clown is great. This popped up on my youtube the other day.

If there was any truth to the reports of people swallowing their own chins in fright, then it could be like with new years eve when people are starting fights after four pints, maybe you get part timers going out to the pictures around halloween time, knowing that the movie studios are expecting a wider audience, expecting things will be a bit more toned down and ready for prime time. Not expecting Casper the ghost, exactly, but certainly not something as gory. Even something as small as the film grain effect, that's immediately conveying something to the audience, even if it's just subconsciously. The purposefully over the top, bad acting. The colour of the blood. That kill in the middle with the salt and the bleach. If you're up to date with the vocabulary of modern horror, and you've seen, for example, the french nasties like Martyrs, À l'intérieur and Haute Tension, that scene feels like a parody, and then you've got the mothers ridiculous reaction and Art's silent mocking laughter. Enough to soften the blow, but maybe if you're out of the loop, that'd all just feel like it was mocking your visceral reaction, and then you'd just be left with the shocking horror of the scene. I wouldn't describe it as edgy, try hard, or torture porn, personally. I think Stanley is more on the money. It's camp, knowingly excessive. It's like a drag queen at halloween, instead of sequins, they're just throwing more corn syrup blood and pink jelly up their outfit.

Been playing more of Dead End City lately - https://store.steampowered.com/app/1880840/Dead_End_City/ It's pretty cool. Feels very unique. I really like the red car that you can unlock, Rockset.

This looks cool!

Yeah, I found that jarring as well. Don't make any character in a horror film ever say "nope". It's not cute, it's not endearing, it's not relatable. It makes me want to strangle the writers. To make a thing of that and then to have her minutes later doing the daft shit anyway, that's just doubling down on the idiocy. I'm more than happy to suspend my disbelief, believe that the character is giving another character the benefit of the doubt, or trying to do the right thing or whatever, but don't make that hard for me by calling too much attention to it. I think you're right, they might have been trying to do some meta winking with her going from "nope" to "for the plot!" in the space of a minute, but it didn't really work.