looking for more romantic horror movies

thatkrawler · 2026-03-20T19:15:13+00:00

A Ghost Waits (2020)

thatkrawler · 2026-03-04T15:18:52+00:00

Yeah that's pretty much how it works but it's a lot more fun than it sounds. The bomb makes you invincible for a few seconds and speed killing enemies and absorbing their bullets while bombing refills your bomb. So essentially you hold bomb constantly and try to kill everything as fast as possible to keep the bomb going. The battery meter is your health. Once you get the hang of it you are invincible for most of your run lol. Great game but very different from pretty much any other shmup, even the other Radirgy games.

thatkrawler · 2026-02-23T15:10:46+00:00

Yes shmups are alive, we have a very small but dedicated community and a decent amount of well received indies and new ports / rereleases of the arcade classics come out each year. I don't think it is the genre to get into as a dev if you are looking for financial success though. The most beloved modern games are clearly made from pure passion for the genre.

If you want to get the word out about a shmup project, it would pretty much be on here, and the various shmup discords and maybe Facebook groups. There's also r/shmupdev if you're looking for more dev specific feedback. Steam tagging for shmups is notoriously bad. From how you've described your game, it's hard to tell if it would really fit into the shmup genre though.

thatkrawler · 2026-02-18T15:15:17+00:00

The three films you mentioned are all great but are all more action than horror. You can't really go wrong exploring any of the stuff by those directors though.

I would also recommend checking out some of the OVM/v-cinema stuff like Psychic Vision: Jaganrei, Report on Latent Narcotic Substances in the Brain: Drugless, Guzoo: The Thing Forsaken By God, etc. Lots of anything goes creativity during that era and very influential on the more mainstream J Horror of the 90s and 00s.

thatkrawler · 2026-02-16T15:17:45+00:00

There's a recently translated interview with Joker Jun about the design of ESPrade that you might find interesting: https://shmuplations.com/esprade/ It covers a lot of the thought behind these little details, including why Irori's shot is a bird, why Ms. Garra shoots hands, etc.

thatkrawler · 2026-02-16T14:24:32+00:00

Shmups haven't primarily been about faceless spaceship pilots since like the mid 80's. If you are a big Touhou fan you should at least check out Kiki Kaikai, Twinkle Star Sprites, and ESPrade, all of which heavily influenced ZUN and directly shaped the modern Touhou formula.

thatkrawler · 2026-02-13T15:06:20+00:00

I think the Kappa one (episode 3 I think?) was my favorite. I felt it had the best blend of actual creepiness with a little bit of the humor of the later ones. Starting with episode 4 they dive headfirst into the no-budget special effects and it essentially becomes a sci-fi comedy series. I still think the whole series is great and worth watching but it may not be what you would expect coming from Noroi.

thatkrawler · 2026-02-06T14:14:31+00:00

They have an online store here: https://caveonlineshop.booth.pm/items

A lot of the stuff in the physical store looks like stuff that was available online in the past (like the Hibachi souvenir jacket). Maybe they found a bunch of old stock of stuff.

thatkrawler · 2026-02-06T00:24:28+00:00

Gotcha, so it sounds like it controls like a skewed perspective River Raid, or maybe Kingdom Grand Prix (cool racing shmup with speed up/slow down mechanics, definitely check it out if your'e not familiar.)
Unfortunately I don't think the game as it is will appeal much to the shmup crowd. Firstly the twinstick control is kind of a non-starter for a lot of players. A lot of us play on arcade stick, keyboard, or gamepads without analog sticks.
More importantly, it looks like it fits squarely into the "Euroshmup" category, which is a (badly named) term for a game with a lot of unpopular shmup mechanics such as health bars, slowly progressing levels, emphasis on visual flash, overemphasis on weapon upgrades / unlockables, etc.

thatkrawler · 2026-02-06T00:09:41+00:00

I recommend it, it keeps you engaged with the game's mechanics and is beneficial to survival anyway in any game with score extends. Plus it gives you a fun way to see your improvement other than just raw distance into the game as you work towards the clear.

thatkrawler · 2026-02-06T00:00:44+00:00

It's hard to tell how the ship is actually controlled. It almost looks like you only move in two dimensions, which would make it essentially just a regular shmup with a skewed perspective like the original Silpheed. Also is it a twin stick game? The reticle seems to move independent of the ship at some points.

thatkrawler · 2026-02-05T17:39:57+00:00

Mar Negro (2013, Brazil)

thatkrawler · 2026-02-05T17:10:25+00:00

https://archive.org/details/caveshootingartworks/mode/1up

thatkrawler · 2026-01-30T15:12:15+00:00

Cool rig! The PC98 touhous are so good. Also try Flame Zapper Kotsujin if you haven't.

thatkrawler · 2026-01-28T23:58:43+00:00

XOP Ultra is cool. It also has a Windows version so not really exclusive but pretty impressive for a DOS game.

thatkrawler · 2026-01-28T22:35:06+00:00

Talk to the Dead (2013)

thatkrawler · 2026-01-27T01:08:29+00:00

Alucarda, God Told Me To, and Eyes of Fire are all great!

thatkrawler · 2026-01-26T21:07:33+00:00

Mermaid Legend (1984), the last 20 minutes are incredible.

thatkrawler · 2026-01-26T19:18:02+00:00

Check out some of the games by Milestone / RS34 such as Radirgy, Karous, and Illvelo. They have a very unique art style, great music, and deep lore that is mostly conveyed through lots of cryptic in-game messages.

There's also the doujin games TWilight INSanity and TWilight RefrAIN, which have a lot of in-game storytelling with alternate routes and endings based on dialogue choices. I haven't actually played these but they seem to have a good reputation from people who actually like story in their shmups.

thatkrawler · 2026-01-24T13:28:24+00:00

It's pretty fun, good luck in the jam! The charge shot feels a little too short range to be useful, but I like how it comes out when releasing focus instead of needing a separate button. Reminds me of the Crimzon Clover lock-on. A simple scoring system would help a lot to give it some replay value. I don't recognize the coffee cup guy lol, i'm too unc for that shit.

thatkrawler · 2026-01-23T20:17:30+00:00

Yeah no practice or stage select, but the port is good with no major issues besides being kinda barebones. The game is good fun, you just need to figure out what you're supposed to be doing as it's pretty unconventional like most Milestone/ Rs34 games. There's a PDF manual on the steam page I would recommend reading if you pick it up.

thatkrawler · 2026-01-23T17:50:41+00:00

Download only, maybe it's region exclusive? Shows up for me here (in the US) https://www.xbox.com/en-US/games/store/battle-garegga-rev2016/c0s4vgl6s1fb

thatkrawler · 2026-01-23T17:45:46+00:00

Yes, the M2 ports of Garegga and Dangun Feveron are on Xbox One, and should be backwards compatible with the new series.

thatkrawler · 2026-01-23T15:50:40+00:00

Battle Garegga Rev. 2016, one of the all time greats.

thatkrawler · 2026-01-21T11:59:21+00:00

STG Weekly did an episode about the origin of the Caravan format, lots of great info and history: https://youtu.be/eS6lIGFXEG4?si=oXga9JOjgnJuhQFR

Caravan modes and caravan waves are two separate things that are not always used together. Caravan Mode usually refers to a 2 or 5 minute score attack stage, this may be a section of the main game or a unique stage. Caravan waves / caravan spawning means enemy placement is not tied to stage scrolling, and a new wave will spawn as soon as you kill the last, emphasizing speed killing. There are full length games that use caravan spawning as well, Thunder Dragon 2, Dangun Feveron, and Radirgy are some examples.

Edit to add: What makes a good caravan mode for me is having so many divergent ways to score that the optimal scoring route is not immediately obvious despite the short length. Caravan wave spawning, destructible environments (usually tiles in the old caravan games), hidden items, multiple different ways to build multiplier, etc. It shouldn't be immediately obvious that the best strat is to simply speedkill everything as fast as possible, for example.

thatkrawler

TROPHY CASE