My kid and I knocked up an improvised Kapla mansion. Playing card for scale! 750-ish identical planks (colour aside), all balanced and held in place by gravity. No studs, no clips, no glue. Nothing physically connecting them. One of Earth’s best toys! Destruction video coming when we destroy it!

One more review of a wonder that didn’t get as much attention as it deserved amidst the Christmas release schedule. Seafaring settlement-builder Flotsam is welcoming, nuanced, and superb. Reminds me of the vibe of the early Settlers games. And such an upbeat apocalypse! metro.co.uk/2026/01/07/f...

I braved the Neo Geo Pocket Color backlight mod. It worked! One of the best handhelds ever… aside from the lack of backlight. An ace but imperfect mod kit. Comparison shot and more thoughts below!

The lovely thing about this time of year is the chance to spotlight smaller games that got buried in the busy pre-Xmas release schedule. Here's my Metro review of Clawpunk, a superb 'feral cyberpunk' run 'n' gun that's equal parts West Side Story and Metal Slug! metro.co.uk/2026/01/06/c...

Right - I'd let Bluesky slip. Time to get back on it! Miss this place!

Need some pounding Luddite-gore to help wash the malicious algorithm from your brain? The new Mechanistic Butchery/Scissorhash split EP has you covered. Gabber donks, breakcore wonks, toilet gargling vocals, and rasping blastbeats all smashed up. 👌🏼 deliriumpsychosis.bandcamp.com/album/cyberg...

This Wednesday, our shmup Schildmaid MX is finally arriving on all major current consoles! To celebrate & pay homage to the games that inspired us, we'll be live streaming from perhaps the largest arcade on mainland Western Europe. Join us on November 26 from 3PM GMT+1 at twitch.tv/mkstayontarget.

As a controller junkie, it was so ace to write this for @bitmapbooks.com! Rather than just try and pick 'weird' controllers purely for how strange they are, I tried to go with ones with a bit more interesting going on, or underapprciated potential. And yes, I'm a Cheetah Bug stan. Best joystick!

I spoke to SNK producer Yasuyuki Oda about creating the remarkable Real Bout Fatal Fury 2! Thanks to @retrogamermag.bsky.social for the opportunity, and for making it look so great. In the new issue (279). GET IN THE RING!

Treated myself to some Neo Geo Pocket Color gold… Fatal Fury: First Contact!

In Scion you need to battle through many layers of a large planet to defeat the core. An idea later used by a rather more famous Taito shmup. It wasn't called Layer Section in some of it's guises for nothing

My favourite cosplays at MCM Comic Con? Firstly, this guy that ‘transformed’ into a D&D game, complete with detailed charcater sheets, snacks, figures, the table, and his mate as DM! #DnD #DandD #MCMComicCon

What a pleasure to interview the Creative Director of Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, Axel Torvenius, to kick off the @gamerepublic.bsky.social's awesome New Horizon's event. Full video soon. Lots of chat about game design and old skool practical movie effects. I will share! #GRNewHorizons

We are bringing our biggest ever Family Gaming Zone back to EGX! South Hall S1680. Over 100 games to choose from with experts on hand to suggest titles, explain PEGI and parental controls for consoles, Roblox and PC. www.familygamingdatabase.com/Family+Gamin... See you there? Shares welcome.

I popped downstairs to find this one in my living room! She didn’t even dash off. Sat there chilling, and watched us a while. 💚

Notepads for work lists and doodling? Pah! It’s my desk for me. Anyone else!?😁

Has anyone received anything for First PRess Games... say... this year? I'm still waiting for months on some 'in stock' shmups I ordered, and I'm desparate to hear anything to give me hope!

playing devil blade reboot again (after playing it a bunch at launch) and yup, still goated. it's on sale for the autumn sale and is a wonderful beginner-friendly shmup. "Let me show you the power of God! Hell is mine to command!" store.steampowered.com/app/2882440/...

Psyvariar isn't just one of my favourite shmup series - it's one of my favourite game series. 22 years after Psyvariar 2, Psyvariar 3 just got revealed! First screens! 👀 'Buzz' and 'Roll' systems remain. Arcade, arrange, caravan, and more modes. And a Cotton cameo!? PS5/Switch 1 & 2. #shmups

The game industry has been family to me when it’s come to my mental health, traumatic events, being an overwhelmed carer, & more. Support that’s saved me… as part of a dream career! I went on @gothbosscat.bsky.social’s podcast to talk about building a career in games when life is complex. You can!

Honestly getting a wee bit emosh rewatching clips from this week's episode of the podcast with @spadgy.bsky.social ❤️ It quickly became an honest conversation about his struggles & how the industry has rallied around him. Available now in all the usual places! youtu.be/9BU1BzVf7sk

Snagged the EP of a load of dot-matrix printers making ‘music’ together. Works lovely for my ears/brain. Love the vinyl sleeve with the floppy-style slots! Here’s the tunes/noises: staalplaatlabel.bandcamp.com/album/sympho...

First thought

I always liked the notion that danmaku wasn't invented for the sake of truly crushing difficulty, but rather to make shooters more visually enticing and thrilling. It's a little sad that these types of games got assumed by onlookers to just be completely impossible instead.

Today is 20 years exactly since I went full-time writing for and about games & the game industry. Shout out to all the fascinating, creative, supportive people I’ve worked with, & the amazing projects you’ve involved me in. I’m so lucky this is how I put food on the family table… thanks all of ya!

Generous dog turd bin! (Definitely wasn’t me. 😁)

what if every franchise have a shmup spinoff just like how they have pinball and/or racing spinoffs?

Raiden IV & Raiden III x MIKADO Deluxe Edition shmups by MOSS -35% Steam on Fanatical 👇 www.fanatical.com/en/game/raid...

Cracking Sunday, sat outside in the sun, reading about Tiger Heli with a cup of tea. Absolutely loving @spadgy.bsky.social retro gamer shmup/stg articles, making me wanna play this one again! #outside #sun #magazine #retrogamer #shmup #stg #tigerheli #toaplan

Check out the United Galaxy Space Force which is Namco's universe bringing together their space related games. Lots of #shmups like Galaga, Galaxian, Bosconian, Gaplus, Final Blaster and NebulasRay to name a few. ugsf-series.com

It's what you've all been waiting for.. 👀 The Platypus Reclayed Release Date Announcement! 👏 🚀 PC, Mac, PlayStation 4|5, Xbox X|S, Nintendo Switch 💥 Launching on September 18th #PlatypusReclayed #GameDev #Shmup

Deep breath. ✨ Mindset GO! is in soft launch now! ✨ 🔵 iOS: mindset.game/app/ 🔺 Android: mindset.game/app/ 🟨 ... Or web: mindset.game Mindset is a new smart casual puzzle that tests 👀 observation and 🧠 logic. Install! Play! Share! ENJOY. And let me know how you get on. Big day. More to come... 🔮

Stumbled upon this absolute unit! I think it’s an elephant hawk moth caterpillar! Away from my moth books. Either way, and utter fitty!

18th wedding anniversary today! Pair of silly brains tangled up forever more. Seem to keep having more fun and falling for each other more. YES! I fucking love what we have. Most exciting person in the world to me!

Oops. I did it again! Definitely going to wait a while before my next NeoGeo Pocket Color pick-up… …maybe!

I wrote a six-pager on the making of Toaplan’s iconic shmup Tiger-Heli, and its 2025 ports to the Atari 2600+ and 7800/7800+! It’s in the new issue of @retrogamermag.bsky.social. Issue 275. Thanks to original Toaplan staffer Masahiro Yuge for the insights and memories! #shmups #shmup

I finally picked up a NeoGeo Pocket Color backlight mod kit! Now to brave pulling apart my first Pocket Color, which I bought around launch in 1999. 😬 Cannot wait!

R-Type Delta: HD Boosted release date confirmed! An awesome shmup, last released for PS1 in 1998/99. New visuals and a reworked score (including by Chris Hülsbeck, of C64/Amiga R-Type fame). Japanese release confirmed so far (Nov 20, PS4, PS5, Xbox, Switch, PC). Physical coming to PS5 and Switch.🎉

I spoke with Torben Bakager, the co-creator of the influential Amiga shmups Hybris and Battle Squadron, about the impact of the Amiga launch on game dev 40 years ago. Such a pleasure… my first computer, an Amiga, made me fall for shmups, and inspired my career choice.

Philosoma, an early PlayStation-STG is turning 30 today. It's a rather fascinating title, mixing classic, not particularly complex shooter-system from various perspectives with ambitious (and certainly expensive) CGI-scenes - all published by Sony themselves!

With apologies to my bank balance…

Whoa! Writing about shmups has filled about 50% of my paid work over the past two weeks. For this shmup head… what a way to put food on the family table etc! Thanks shmups (and shmup devs!).

Whoa! The classic 2002 Windows shmup Platypus is being remade… with clay. Platypus Reclayed. Demo on Steam now. What an idea!

Reject "shmups", "shooters", and "STGs". Embrace "slide-and-shoots".

Unnecessary shmup pick-up. Is it any good? Guess I’ll find out!

IGS CLASSIC ARCADE COLLECTION is coming over to Steam after the Nintendo Switch release from 2023. This is mostly news for fans of fighting games, because of Martial Masters, but also for shmup folks due to the awesome DEMON FRONT.

In about 1996 my college decided to include me on the cover of their prospectus. I just found a copy. A very rare peak at my natural, curly hair! The shirt? Romeo + Juliet had just come out at the cinema! 🤦🏼

I finished Minishoot' Adventures. Rinsed every last thing out of it. Wow! Top-flight 2D Zelda-like (what a world layout, packed with discoveries!). Masterfully belnded with a twin-stick shmup (that gets less chilled than I suggested below 😅). So rich in great design. A favourite of recent times.

"Blaze of Storm" is a new vertical shmup that pays homage to Compile's shmups. It is scheduled for release on Steam and Nintendo Switch in late 2025. store.steampowered.com/app/3513070/ #Shmup #blazeofstorm