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What is a “SHMUP”?

Lincoln Berry IIIReference

Look, y’all…before we can have a REAL conversation, you need to brush-up on your video game lingo.

With that in mind; the word “SHMUP” is short for “Shoot-’em-Up”. Chances are you’ve seen a SHMUP before and maybe didn’t care or weren’t interested. After all, SHMUPs are a somewhat esoteric genre of game that are generally not well-greeted by more “casual” gamers.

Anyway…I will eventually elaborate more on my own thoughts on the SHMUP genre and what it means to me, personally. But for now, I found this excellent YouTube video that should suffice as a primer as to what SHMUP fans like myself consider a true Shoot-’em-Up.

Once you’ve watched the video, please feel free to join me and other SHMUP fans in our ongoing discussions around the topic of SHMUPs over on our official Discord server.

“What the SHMUP? | A Brief History of Shoot-Em-Ups” — from the YouTube channel Press Start To Continue