10 Crazy Obscure Indie Shoot Em' Ups Review | Deep Web Gaming

[@boghogSTG]

Thanks for covering my old-ass game! Id love to come back to it some day, via a remaster or a sequel, there are so many fun ideas I had to leave out due to a lack of skills/experience. Really just need the time (or money)...

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Yeah a remaster is a project that you look at on paper and think, yes, and then you look at the process and think, oh dear God ha. I have some video ideas like that :-)

[@naejimba]

I watched a playthrough and really thought it had a lot of good ideas. I think it would be worth returning to at some point in the future.

[@thomasroehrman7587]

Yo Boghog, this is going to seem a little out of nowhere but I'm not sure how else to contact you. Just letting you know I got Universe running on Steam Deck using Lutris and standard 9.0 system WINE.

[@AKTANEARCADE]

Mark! thanks for the shoutout honestly! - also no worries on the pronunciation, I appreciate the callout but legit its just some dumb nickname, you're all good man! I felt bad when I saw the text hahaha. Looking forward to our next random podcast topic to keep discussing shmups... and I guess MAKING THEM! since thats what we do now haha. How many podcast hosts not only critique games but then go ahead and make them too? We're a very special community that way, and you help drive a lot of that forward. keep on uncovering these gems

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Ha I m a simpleton with pronouncing things correctly I see the A and want to say ack so bad XD also you gotta keep the dev stuff going, now I know about your hidden talent I won't stop bugging you about it :-)

[@AKTANEARCADE]

@@TheElectricUnderground damn this is gonna be like Zero Ranger 2-all saga, all over again ... Except this might take quite a bit longer than that endeavor 😆

[@TheElectricUnderground]

@@AKTANEARCADE you better not make we wait till 2032 ... XD

[@MrJBRPG]

I’m the sole creator of Fintail Gladiator. Thank you for the feedback. Your critique on the movement seems to be nicely specific on the inertia. Many others notice that they think the default speed is too fast. Super fast speed plus inertia may contribute to some sloppy situations. I am glad to make a game prototype of the concept. Inertia is a hard one since I used Unity default physics 2D and toyed around to make it feel fast without being too dragged down.

[@MrJBRPG]

Several people that tested this game also suggested a tail flip button. Quite frankly, I designed the prototype that exclusively uses movement with no buttons. I can take that into consideration as an optional action even though the tail flip can be used through flicking reverse direction.

[@MrJBRPG]

@electricUnderground with your suggestion of the levels getting tougher and aggressive early on has some mixed results from various local play test sessions: Some folks want an easier start and my prototype does deliver a gradual difficulty curve that affects enemy speed. The more levels cleared, longer time taken, and little to no damage or stock losses will make enemy movement faster.

[@MrJBRPG]

You are correct that the game needs more graphical polish. I am primarily a programmer that focuses on the gameplay control. While I did some draft art on the fish characters and the spiky urchins myself, I quickly grabbed some free art that sort of fits enough to establish an underwater theme.

[@MrJBRPG]

Whenever I am in the right mood, I would definitely make an improved iteration to address such feedback. Much better to get stuff done proper before entering into polish phase.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Yeah I was thinking maybe do purely linear movement and then add a button the activates free turn? So when you have the button held down your inputs turn you rather than move, that could be a simple solution

[@Mister_Don888]

What’s interesting is that Super Galaxy Squadron Ex Turbo is published by New Blood Interactive, the same guys who published popular FPS games like DUSK, Amid Evil, and ULTRAKILL

[@mikematei]

14:58 I hate when there's no controller support.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Yeah It s a royal pain, or if there's bad controller support that s even worse ha. Antimicro is a life saver though, really easy to map inputs and you can jack up the response rate to 1ms

[@AKTANEARCADE]

Whoa a legend got to peep my game

[@balohna]

I'm not a hardcore shmup player but keep an eye on your channel (among others) to keep a pulse on the genre and pick and choose games to try out. Appreciate this look at more obscure stuff!

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Hey I m really happy to hear that!

[@chrisr024]

If I've learned anything from watching this channel it's that I know Mark loves inertia in his shmups.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

nailed it!! Lesson number 1

[@iaspis74]

Great video! My addition to the list would be Guxt, a free and kinda obscure game by Pixel (of Cave Story fame). I really enjoyed that one.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Oh yeah that one is really cool! That game was a big influence on zeroranger actually

[@dangunheadachron1603]

Awesome video bro. Crazy how many unknown indie shmups never leave Steam. I think I want to get into PC gaming more.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Yes for sure, and there a huge hidden population of them that never even get to steam and are on places like itch.io. :-)

[@ClockworkBard]

It was awesome watching Crossgunr take shape during the PICO-8 jam. Aktane really wanted to make something special. It was a good time. We even had Alter drop a Schildmaid demake on us. Wish I'd been able to spare enough time and energy to contribute a finished project, but it was nonetheless awesome to see the ideas everyone had. As venerable as this genre is, there's still so much territory left uncharted for it.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Absolutely! This new crowd of players aktane is a part of is awesome!! I could see him doing something really special with crossgunr in a full release!

[@StarfighterJohansson]

Two other Ouya originated shmups that are pretty much unknown (probably because one of them STILL is Ouya exclusive) are Teslapunk (this one is on steam) and Genocide Circuit Rebuild!

[@futureskeletons66669]

Twin Tiger Shark is also available as a PCB.

[@JohnshiBRPG]

It is a new version designed for 3:4 JAMMA cabinets

[@TheElectricUnderground]

that is crazy ha! Do they adjust the aspect ratio then?

[@D-A-K]

Super Galaxy is a sleeper hit. I heard about it from Marty dyr and I love it

[@TheElectricUnderground]

it did sneak under the radar, shame it didn't get more exposure and chance for feedback, I think some additional difficulty modes would have been fantastic for the game.

[@auellaitaela8035]

Would love to see more of this series. One of my favorite things I'm finding about this genre is just how many super small scale solo low budget games there are, but due to the nature of the genre a lot of them are gonna be really fuckin' good too.

[@bitbenthegamedeveloper90]

Great video one again! Thank you for all the cool games I have to check out now :) I played Super Galaxy Squadron and liked it a lot even though it felt a bit short in content. Fintail Gladiator seems interesting and reminds me of Starwhal and in general I can relate to it making a underwater twin stick shooter myself. Appreciate the hard work Mark!

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Thank you my friend :-) yeah galaxy squad was a really fun find, just be sure to play it on max difficulty ha. Also I really like the concept of fintail, just needs some work on the movement system

[@Undermog]

Awesome content, if you can find enough games to cover I would love to see you make this a series!

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Yes for sure! Def will be a volume 2

[@beetle_omiwatari]

Great video! There's a Flash game developer called Heriet who long ago made four shmups I think not a lot of shmup players know about, as well as Kohaku Manju, a simple game where you dodge kaomojis. There's an arena shmup from them called Saibo 9 where you lock-on up to 9 enemies and the more enemies you locked-on, the more items are dropped from them when killed, which when collected increase a score multiplier. I like these mechanics as well as the fact that abusing i-frames after getting hit is a great strategy in this game whenever enemies get numerous.

[@SuperSteaman]

Your content is fantastic! I love shmups and this channel is like a discovery for me. Thank you for the way you take your time and give so many details about every game you play (doesn't have to be shmup, I love your Cowabanga lag video for example)

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Oh that's awesome!!! I'm always happy to hear when my vids have crossover appeal between genres!! This vid was fun to make but tricky to edit with all the footage needed ha

[@ShmupsOnSwitch]

Great video. Cool to see so many games I've never heard of getting brought some attention - a lot of them look really decent too! Task Force Kampas, by the way, is actually already on consoles and got a physical PS4 release. However, above and beyond the issues you mentioned, it only has three stages total and is one of those eastasiasoft jobs where they just pick up anything and stick it on a disc/cart for collectors. I also remember seeing the publishers of Super Galaxy Squadron saying they were bringing all their games (most are not shmups) to consoles - but that was years ago and nothing ever materialised. Totally agree on the name on that one. It's so generic I can definitely see it turning people away. Naming games is tough, I'm sure, but I do wish shmup devs would stop going with these instantly forgettable 'star', 'galaxy' 'super' etc variations.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Oh interesting insight on task force, it has a sort of abandoned feel to it where the dev started all excited and kinda dropped the whole polishing and finishing the game part ha. Would love to see some patches and updates but that sounds unlikely. Also yes forgettable names are dangerous for small releases, the names are key

[@StarfighterJohansson]

Fun fact: The Mikael Tillander games (Twin Tiger Shark and Broken Pearl) were also on the Ouya! Two of the best shmups on the platform imo. :)

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Oh that is interesting!! Is he still making games currently?

[@StarfighterJohansson]

@@TheElectricUnderground I believe so! The last one I know of is Tänzer, a Mega Drive/Genesis game that's even on cartridge! I told him about this video and he thought it was so cool his games were brought up! :)

[@packpock4369]

I love Boghog's work thanks for covering these guys. Gryzor is probably my favorite indie shooter dev, I'm in ove with his art style ever since NGDEV with Gunlord and NYX not to be confused with Xyx not at all lol.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

No problem! Lots of really interesting titles, I m gonna do a volume 2 at some point :-)

[@MetalEmergenteArgentino]

Excelent work, i hope to see part 2 of this kind of videos

[@reiul9787]

Love this kind of videos. I would like to see a video review of nex machina.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Glad you enjoyed it!! Also your wish has come true kzbin.info/www/bejne/l3fXdoiqqNeHorc

[@gibdo7995]

I really enjoyed this. thank you for the hard work you put into these, it's appreciated. keep up the excellent work!

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Glad you liked it!! It was fun looking at these really small releases and discussing them

[@JoshCzoski]

Nice! Thanks for raising awareness so peeps can put this on their radars.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Absolutely!!

[@kitestar]

Super galaxy squadron I can actually pinpoint _why_ it isn’t covered as much is because new blood made quite the name for themselves with what I tend to refer to as “doomer shooters” or just old school FPS’s

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Oh yeah for sure! Good point!

[@doommaker4000]

But they do have things like Faith and Gloomwood and Fallen Aces. I don't think that's it. It's probably because it's simply just their earlier game.

[@DuckRotation]

Since you're going to do this kind of stuff can I recommend something a little forgotten to time? There is a very interesting shmup (it might be a little out of your wheel house in a sense but I find it interesting I still remember it a decade later) called Clean Asia. It's by Cactus who is now known for being half of the dev team for Hotline Miami. It's a very short game and I'd love to hear your opinion on it

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Oh that s cool! I ll keep that in mind for volume 2!

[@DuckRotation]

@@TheElectricUnderground lol someone's up late

[@BASEDSAKRI]

suwako-chan cubic is the coolest underground shmup Ive found

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Oh awesome recommend, I m gonna keep these in mind for volume 2

[@RewdanSprites]

I already was at the premier but commenting for the algorithmmmmm. Great video!

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Thank you my friend :-)

[@RewdanSprites]

@@TheElectricUnderground No no, thank YOU! 😎. It's nice of you to cover games like this that 'fly' under the radar.

[@ownageDan]

more games need to do 9:16 vertical. nowadays alot of ppl have rotatable 16:9 monitors that lend themselves to that. and ppl that don't might have an old LCD thats not being used that could easily be repurposed as a permanent tate screen :)

[@johngavalas712]

This game i got isn't indie but i think its obscure i got it yesterday and im wowed how insane it is Shoot 1up Dx you can control up to 30 ships that firepower gets nuts if you haven't played it you need to its $5.99 on the eshop

[@mareksekua4287]

I like Super Galaxy Squadron a lot, just like You said it's like guilty pleasure. Soundtrack is very good also, current version on steam is upgraded - more pastely look, polished and some cutsceenes added.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Oh interesting!! Tate support please

[@scienceandmatter8739]

13:00 broken pearl give me a 90s ghost in the shell nostalgia..

[@Albertredneck]

I was actually going to suggest you a video about obscure Steam shmups... :D

[@TheElectricUnderground]

We're on the same wavelength for this one :-)

[@Mamunur360]

Can I get your thoughts on Parsec47, I was hoping it would come up in this video.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Oh snap will definetly add to the list for volume 2, never seen it before :-)

[@aVataR_ehyeh]

Parsec47 is my absolute favorite shmup so feels weird to call it obscure, but objectively it's not the most obscure one just because of Kenta Cho being a somewhat not obscure shmup and video game developer. Having said that - more exposure for my favorite shmup is appreciated. 😊

[@PedroFerreira-sx2gd]

Love the vídeo. You really went for obscure games. Only knew 2. It is always fun to check itchio games. The good thing is that many of them (not only shootemups) have quite unique ideas/gimicks that Normally last a few minutes. But hey, We can t complain when they are free. I AM gonna try redpulse now, looks azing. Actually i AM trying to see tutorials about programming a shootemup, but most of the information plain sucks (their definitions of shootemups is mostly space invaders clones). Even with above average programing skills is hard to Start without examples.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Absolutely! This guide by boghog is a rock solid beginning point, so much strong info shmups.wiki/library/Boghog%27s_bullet_hell_shmup_101

[@PedroFerreira-sx2gd]

@@TheElectricUnderground thank you. I Will see it

[@konstantdrachenfels5446]

Man, you really should try Yakouga 4

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Oh yeah for volume 2 for sure.

[@OOOAAAIII]

Hi, any thoughts on Dangan GB?

[@TheElectricUnderground]

I've actually played it a little bit ha, pretty cool little game.

[@SicketMog]

That first one looks awesome; at least the aesthetics, graphics and colors are right up my alley. Maybe not the type of gameplay I'd sink a lot of credits into, unsure, but it's beautiful to look at. Sort of Space Moth 80's-ish color palette but more cartoony look.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Yeah it s bit too easy, so play it on the hardest mode but it is fun!

[@SicketMog]

@@TheElectricUnderground Will check it out for sure. Thanks for another great list; backlog miles long already but will keep looking to you for tips on what to play next.👍

[@arcimagogix9034]

Arengius needs something like Omega Fighters. OF had two shoots Type. One was a long "laser" and the other was a wider range attack. The more "lasers" you collected the more powerfull the shot becomes BUT at the sime time the shot shorten itself. The more wider shot you collected the more wider It becomes BUT also less powerfull. Something like that.

[@SuperLlama42]

I'm honestly surprised that Super Galaxy Squadron seemingly isn't known at all, seeing as it's published by New Blood (and yeah, they're mostly a boom shoot publisher, but still.)

[@msd5808]

Thanks for the reviews... You might want to check out Dezaemon games if you haven't? (Sega Saturn, PS1)

[@vorondanil54]

One day I've got Super Galaxy Squadron and liked this game so much I started to massively playing SHUMPs (especially ESCHATOS)

[@nobodytonobodysbusiness]

What CRT is that to your right (my left)?

[@TheDannylarson]

Blue gender has the best opening track! I'm not really into anime but blue gender is awesome, of corse I liked starship troopers as a kid 🤣

[@TheElectricUnderground]

I love that show, gonna do a review of it on the channel soon :-)

[@TheDannylarson]

I got the full series from the flea market a few months ago, I think its a korean bootleg but its in hd and its made well

[@DigitalNomad765]

Thank you for the post awesome

[@TheElectricUnderground]

No problem!!

[@hooksnfangs6006]

Sweet list! I've only played Super Galaxy Squadron. As always sword ship FTW! I gotta play some Laser Reimu n Touhoupatchi now. Ever heard of Cloudphobia? Doesn't get mentioned a lot but it's a hori-shmup that always stuck with me. It's a rather unique shmup that puts you on a timer and failing to clear enemy waves damages your mothership. Also it has mechs :)

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Oh that sounds cool, I love games with mechs :-) I ll have to look into it for volume 2

[@reikooters]

If you happen to make another of these videos, an older and lesser-known game that you might enjoy trying out is: "STELLAVANITY - Prelude to the Destined Calamity". Has a memorable soundtrack, colourful pixel art, lots of difficulty levels to choose from, interesting stages and bullet patterns, as well as interesting gameplay mechanics with a mix of different weapons to use, and the weapons also tie in with the scoring system, such as one of them enables you to overkill bosses to milk them for more points etc and the game even has a TLB. It's a game that I've keep going back to over the years, but never really understood all the game mechanics fully because the game was never released in English. (From memory, I read that a demo version released at a comiket was leaked online and the developer wasn't happy and blamed English speaking people or something like that). I still really enjoy the game despite that and enjoyed the updates they made to the game over time. For Super Galaxy Squadron, the one you played is actually Super Galaxy Squadron EX which is a remake of the original. There was an older version that just simply wasn't that good and I remember leaving a negative review of it on Steam. The developer made a lot of improvements and released the remake for free for those who bought the original, and the one you played is much better. Not that difficult as you said, but still fun. Black is my favourite ship too.

[@reikooters]

Another game you can check out is called "IKUSAAAAAAAN!". It looks like a Touhou inspired game and has lots of flashing colours and a speed up mechanic. I didn't play it a lot, but I think it's fun too.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Awesome! Thanks for tuning in! I actually have covered stellavanity before kzbin.info/www/bejne/Y56peYZ6qrJ9ars :-)

[@reikooters]

@@TheElectricUnderground Nice - I'll check out the video!

[@ty-xq7bl]

What about akiragoya? I guess you can't really feature his stuff since its very NSFW

[@contrabandresearch8409]

I can't remember what it was called or why I heard about it, but there was an edgy indie shoot em up that looked like the graphics were made in MSPaint and as you progressed I think it was a story about bullying.

[@dingo535]

The devs never updated super galaxy with tate like they said unfortunately for super galaxy squadron, devs kinda abandoned it sadly. I do own it and enjoy the large ship selection though

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Oh that absolutely sucks 😔 maybe this vid might inspire them to come back and add it (though unlikely)

[@ikagura]

Galaxy Squadron ? Nice.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Yeah it s a fun one, could use some work but still cool

[@honved_77]

By the way, I wonder why "Valhellio" never got a release on Steam or something.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Oh I ve never seen that game before, maybe I ll look at it for volume 2

[@wiznwar]

the Electric Underground Underground

[@TheElectricUnderground]

LOL that s great :-) 👍

[@ZatohRondohoon3227]

No Akiragoya/Artesneit games? :(

[@gfslamguitar]

I'm definitely gonna send you a code for my game when it's done! I'd love you to critique it! I'd be so honored lol

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Absolutely!!

[@caseball-uk386]

Absolutely awesome!

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Thank you my friend!

[@Axel_Kei]

If you ever need a list of actually really good, and obscure as hell doujin shmups, hit me up. I can list at least 20 that aren't (borderline) dawgshit like most of the ones that were listed.

[@johngavalas712]

Id love to see Touhoupachi on switch i see the cave influence definitely looks like a spinoff of dodonpachi and i don't think that's a bad thing

[@shanecorning5222]

( 14:40 ) ... pico is an emu

[@andyauthor2007]

LaserReimu looks like a rip-off of Demonizer. As I was watching the gameplay I kept saying to myself "that's Demonizer." Even though it is shop heavy, I still want to see you do Never Awake. I beat that game and I had fun with the shop, switching out accessories to fit the mechanics of certain levels was fun. The graphical style and the soundtrack are just bonkers good imo.

[@Aidan8N]

i don't see the similarities honestly laserreimu is about ten years old and plays more like cyvern

[@TheElectricUnderground]

It does look like demonizer ha! They may use similar open license assets or something.

[@KrystianMajewski]

Crossgunnr!!

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Here it is :-)

[@johngavalas712]

Super Galaxy Squadron needs to be ported to switch

[@Mingodough]

Woah new shirt sneak peak?

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Oh no prototype shirt ha. This was a prototype shirt for my first shirt :-)

[@zuffin1864]

i actually learned about task force kampas from following PS Vita releases. yea PS Vita getting releases from these indie devs still, somehow, by the power of the vita fanatics I guess haha

[@patriciozazzini3182]

I assume these are only Steam games???

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Nope most of them are not even on steam ha, itch.io and other places

[@Mingodough]

Today I learned super galaxy squadron is made by people who made some popular fps games like dusk and ultrakill. I guess those “boomer shooter” devs have a bit of arcade dna in them Edit: publisher, I thought it was the dev. Whoops

[@SallyMangos]

Ton of fun

[@TheElectricUnderground]

:-)

[@76mmM4A1HVSS]

LaserReimu is actually hard? I though I was just trash

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Yes it is, in kind of a jank way ha

[@76mmM4A1HVSS]

​@@TheElectricUnderground Managed to clear Easy Rank w/ Wait enabled using all 3 continues, same with Extra mode. I don't like the way the option switching mechanic works much, especially the fact it changes your movement speed. Other than that it's pretty fun. "Fuckin Bit" achievement get.

[@johngavalas712]

Hey Mark are you in the matrix 😳

[@gabrielesquaratti5709]

amazing

[@brianc7282]

You said shmup ...... 😭😭😭 Why Lord!!!!! Why!!!!!

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Next vid is all about that actually ha