this post was submitted on 31 Aug 2026
4 points (83.3% liked)

Shmups

236 readers
17 users here now

Description:
This is a place on Lemmy to talk about arcade, PC, and console shmups/shoot 'em ups/STGs. (We can talk about other arcade-based/scoring genres too, if you'd like.) All experience levels welcome.

Rules:
This community is kindly hosted at lemmus.org and follows the rules of that instance, which are:

  1. Be a good neighbor
  2. No porn uploads

Links:
- Shmups Wiki
- Shmups Forum
- STG Discord

Shmup Deal Trackers (not affiliated):
- PC shmup tracker
- Console shmup tracker

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
sundray@lemmus.org
pasdechance@jlai.lu
4
The Autofire Issue and How It Changed Shmup Design (www.youtube.com)
submitted 4 days ago by sundray@lemmus.org to c/shmups@lemmus.org
2 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

(Invidious link)

From the description:

A rant about how and why autofire can (despite popular consensus) be problematic in certain STGs - particularly older titles. Using a combination of primary sources, secondary sources and good ol' conjecture, I seek to prove that autofire did indeed create a balancing issue for shmup developers. However, their solutions to this problem led to some of the most interesting and creative mechanics that the genre had ever seen.

EDIT: This video is about the hardware trends that were adopted by arcades, how that affected the design of previously existing games and how developers changed the mechanics of future releases in order to accomodate for these hardware changes. While using modified hardware that a game was not designed for is objectively an inauthentic experience (in terms of preserving the intended balance and game design), the purpose of this video is to discuss how and why these changes happened and how it changed the genre. I'm not trying to dictate how you choose to enjoy games in your own spare time, that's none of my concern.>

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] Elevator7009@lemmy.zip 3 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Seems like a fun video. Don't have time now but I see your work to keep !shmups having content, and I appreciate it. Interesting to think autofire was problematic at one point!