Shmup-Dev Results Announced!

Posted by Albert Lai Sun, 04 Nov 2007 09:20:00 GMT

Warning

The results from the latest Shmup-Dev competition have been announced! The theme this year was "Options" a-la those from Gradius I keep losing to the scorpion things.

Varia has popped in at first place, a abstract shmup which uses options to clone enemy abilities and send back bullets at the opposing boss. A highly polished game which has completely obscured its Game Maker roots, in the same way the son of a farmer goes off into the city to become a high rolling urbanite, only to discover that, yes, you can run from your past. A high quality game by Kairos!

Akuchizoku is in second place, by cactus, who chugs out game at a rate that would be more alarming if we didn’t know he was half machine. This game is so retro that you can almost feel the pixels, which are, to quote, "the size of hams". Even so, the game is exceptionally well made in the style of most old-school shooters (ie, masochistically hard). Plus, there’s a talking dog.

Clocking in at third place, Linley of Excellent Bifurcation fame ("The reason I have two eyeballs in my head is for stereoscopic vision, thank you" – DrDerekDoctors) has created Garden of Colored Lights, a game I found interestingly evocative, from the small blurbs that punctuate each sub-stage to the way that bullets correspond to music. Here you kit your ship out with three different options from a large beginning selection and set out to blow shit up and level up, your options and your options, respectively.

A very strong showing overall, and congratulations to the winners!

Posted in , ,  | 6 comments

Comments

  1. Akhel said about 2 hours later:

    “completely obscured its Game Maker roots, in the same way the son of a farmer goes off into the city to become a high rolling urbanite, only to discover that, yes, you can run from your past.”

    …what?!

    Anyway, congratulations everyone. :)

  2. Tr00jg said about 3 hours later:

    Well written! :)

    And yes, how does Cactus manage to churn out games like that?

  3. raelz said about 4 hours later:

    Varia.. That was obvious long time ago, excellent game

  4. Radnom said about 18 hours later:

    Note that all three winners belong to Poppenkast. Hooray Poppenkast! Congrats not only to the three winners but to all the entrants, there were a lot of consistently incredible entries this yeat.

  5. gnome said about 19 hours later:

    An absolutely impressive bunch! And that’s putting it mildly…

  6. Moose said 2 days later:

    Hooray Poppenkast!

    Hooray + Clique = Wrong. :(

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