Shoot 'em up
Game genre theme
Informal group for finding shmup sub-genres.
9
games
3platforms
Parent group
Most common companies
This is a container group; its children are:
| Defender-like | Anything that replicates the basic gameplay introduced in Defender. (too short) | 1980 / 2022 | 88 games |
| Bullet Hell | A sub-genre of shmup where the whole screen is literally filled with projectiles, usually with the main challenge being avoiding those bullets (often by recognizing/memorizing firing patterns) rather than destroying enemies. | 1983 / 2024 | 155 games |
| Multi-directional shooter | A shooter sub-genre defined by open two dimensional environment with freedom of orientation and movement. | 1976 / 2019 | 180 games |
| Run and Gun | Shoot 'em up sub-genre, with both horizontal or vertical scrolling and may feature multidirectional movement. | 1972 / 2024 | 1176 games |
| Scrolling shooter | A shooter sub genre characterized by automatically advancing (autoscrolling) environments, both vertically or horizontally. | 1975 / 2023 | 2170 games |
| Tube shooter | Shmup sub-genre where player moves alongside the inside surface of an abstract tube. (too short) | 1979 / 2016 | 78 games |