shmups posts

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]

Welcome to Freeware Friday, a weekly column showcasing excellent games that you can play free of charge!

The shoot-'em-up (or shmup) genre is a heavily saturated one, with countless games ranging from the classic Raiden to the insanely difficult Mushihime-sama. Regretfully, not many of the major shmup companies-ones such as Cave, Takumi, or Treasure-support the PC gaming scene. Thankfully, though, us PC gamers have an excellent shmup freeware scene, and near the top of this scene is Hikware's classic Warning Forever.