Episode 164: Mr. Sparkle (Shmup Enthusiast)

Mr. Sparkle drops by to chat classic, modern, easy, hard, fun, and weird shooters! Alex drops an elbow smash halfway through the episode!

Shmup Wiki - digital library of shooting games, great resource of basic information, strategies, and trivia - <https://shmups.wiki/>

**ShmupJunkie** - YouTube channel (<https://www.youtube.com/@ShmupJunkie>) focused on shooting games, with a really active and friendly discord (<https://discord.gg/yPKzubzKRW>) that has a beginner section, friendly scoring competitions, and strategy discussion - the discord also has a curated list of beginner-friendly shmups at different levels of difficulty <https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1MZz8Q_8HdGyh2QU9BX4lNgyVAP9JZxxuy_YYbOLf1CM/htmlview>

**Jaimers** - high-level player, puts up very high level clears but all videos also include helpful commentary in the description, and often advice/strategies in closed captions (<https://www.youtube.com/@JaimersSTG>)

**The Electric Underground** - a more in-depth shmup-related resource, also has a very helpful beginner introduction section (<https://www.youtube.com/@TheElectricUnderground>)

**Boghog** - designed of the excellent Gunvein, really interesting discussions of shmup and action game design (<https://www.youtube.com/@boghogSTG>)

**Aktane's Arcade** - some very helpful quick start guides, but also more in depth conversations about enjoying and improving at shmups - very interesting stuff on shmup culture and the hobby <https://www.youtube.com/@AKTANEARCADE>

Rob’s CGP with Aktane https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/classic-gaming-podcast/id783265787?i=1000733070633 

Crazy Boss Fight Mr. Sparkle mentioned that Japanese player Sairyou had been the first to 1cc SDOJ - what he meant to say was ‘first to 1cc the game with the true final boss’ - check it out below https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCRI69pQpY0&t=1612s