On My Hiatus

Some have noticed I’ve silently re-emerged from hibernation. Just in time to recommend Wings Of Bluestar. Coincidence? No, not at all. If you like reading words, let me ramble about why I needed to reset.

When I created ShmupLife, I could not find a single shmup curator on Steam that was alive and kicking. Steam’s shmup sale rekindled my love for these games. As a kid, I wasn’t a huge shmupper, but I do have fond memories of some random military shooters I played on the Sega Genesis. Oh and Einhander on Playstation, I loved that game. And so began ShmupLife’s journey.

Discovering CAVE, discovering Moss, reading up on the different sub-genres, etc. It was fun and it felt good. I wanted to help the genre gain traction on Steam. I also wanted an approachable space for newcomers, which is why I never shy away from reviewing EuroShmups. The shmup community has this hybrid toxic/welcoming aspect which is quite interesting. Maybe I’ll share more thoughts on that dichotomy in the future.

Negativity & Burnout

Anyhow, so here I am, digging into Steam’s bowels to find shooter games. I try to be brutally honest, which leads to many reviews I still find hilarious to this day. Things were great and then Curator Connect came along. If you don’t know, it is a Steam feature which allows developers to send free game codes directly to curators. This fixes any trust issue a game developer may have when being contacted by a reviewer. It also makes the process smoother.

However, it had some negative side effects for ShmupLife. First off, trashing a game you paid for is one thing, but trashing a game some indie dev gifts you started to take a toll on me. Even though I can be extra spicy with my words, I am fundamentally a very positive person. My conscience was not OK with being so brutal when I down-voted a game, yet I felt it was integral to ShmupLife’s identity. Furthermore, even when lambasting a game that clearly shouldn’t meet Steam’s minimum requirements for quality, you are in fact giving it exposure. I believe some developers are truly ill-intentioned and use this to their advantage. There is a very scummy underbelly to Steam I don’t want to be part of.

Another issue with Curator Connect is the quality of games you receive. For the most part, games are very low quality. That is not to say no amount of effort was put into creating them, but they do not meet any reasonable standard of quality. Yet, I felt I needed to review as much as possible. Thus commenced a never ending time sink; play shit game, erode your enjoyment of the genre, feel bad for insulting the devs, rinse-repeat ad infinitum. That is a bad place to be in, and the result was burnout. I didn’t play a single STG last year and thank god for that. When everything you play is bad, you start believing there is no hope for shooters. Clearly that’s not the case.

Impostor Syndrome

As I’ve stated previously, I wasn’t that big into STGs when I was a kid. I enjoyed them a lot, but that was it. I never had the opportunity to play arcades living a very modest childhood. Even though I love the genre with every inch of my soul (can you measure souls?), I’ve always felt unworthy of being a successful curator on Steam. Now many would say ShmupLife isn’t that big a deal, and I agree! But still, I never thought ShmupLife would get as big as it is now. This puts me into a difficult position.

I suck at shmups. In fact, I suck at games in general. I love them to bits, but it takes me a lot of time and effort to gitgud. I am proud of the 1CCs I’ve got, but they are far and few between. I am also an introvert programmer with a time-consuming day job. After 8 hours of concentration, it is difficult to put in the time I need to get better at STGs. In fact, I can safely say, it will never happen. That boat has sailed and as a fucking boomer my priorities have changed ;)

All this to say, I look at all the amazing work others are doing on youtube or elsewhere and I feel inadequate. To add insult to injury, I really do feel curators don’t do much for game sales. Though probably that’s underestimating the exposure we can bring.

What Now?

OK so I came back for Wings. I had it on the back-burner, I played the demo a long time ago. It’s a game created by a single developer, it is solid and needs some love. So I had to review it. Doing so, I was surprised to receive kind words from a few strangers. I don’t really do twitter much, I maybe check once a month when I remember too, but it seems folks might enjoy ShmupLife? Maybe curators matter in the end? Who knows, and who cares really.

By chance, a really good Cute’em Up landed in my Curator inbox, Sisters Royale: Five Sisters Under Fire. In fact, I need to wrap this up to go play some more. Reviewing those two games felt good, because I believe in them. They aren’t Ikaruga or DoDonPachi, but hey, what game really is?

So I guess I’m back. I don’t expect I’ll be writing many brutal negative reviews anymore, nor playing all the garbage games I’m offered. In fact, I doubt I’ll be as active as I once was, because good shmups just don’t release that often. And that’s OK. I am here to make sure high quality releases get more exposure, whether I make a difference or not.

It also feels good that other curators have stepped up and gained traction. It has alleviated the pressure from being “the only” English shmup curator on Steam, which is what ShmupLife felt like for the longest time. Steam shmuppers can now choose from many styles of curation and I can focus on silly one-liners ;)

So with all that in mind, here’s to many more 1CCs! And go follow STG Shmups and Shmup Junkie, they are chill.