While we here at Big Download do love a good shoot-'em-up, the genre does not exactly innovate in any amazingly great fashion. Most gameplay improvements are iterations of previous games, whether the improvement is moving in a new dimension or the addition of bombs. Which is why, naturally, Evolution Shmup took us completely by surprise.

Featuring gameplay systems that are randomly generated, Evolution Shmup is a social gaming experiment to create a shmup through darwinistic gameplay innovations. The engine randomly creates the parameters of a gametype and then allows the player to attempt to play it. After playing several gametypes, the engine starts to randomly mash-up the elements of the games played the longest by the players, creating a strange sort of natural selection aspect. It's more interesting as an experiment than a game, as some of the gametypes are literally unplayable, but it's still worth a try.

[Via IndieGames]