this post was submitted on 31 Aug 2026
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Shmups

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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


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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.>

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[โ€“] pasdechance@jlai.lu 2 points 10 hours ago

I enjoyed this video. As a latecomer to the world of shmups, every game I've played has autofire by default. The games that do not usually have a way to fine tune it (at least a few of the Arcade Archives games I have played on Switch give you advice to which frequency to use). So far I've played a few games where I cannot use autofire because it makes it more challenging.

[โ€“] Elevator7009@lemmy.zip 3 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours 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!