Shmadow

One night I was sitting in my chat room and got a message from a friend.. He said:" Wany!! there is this new developer made his first new game! Try it out!!" I was like.. what the heck... any games that increase my game collection count would be fine! So I did just that. One week later the review count for this game was still kinda low but the rating of the game stayed 90% postive after 32 people reviewed... Well.. I better play and try this... First impression.. What is this!!.. you are a white dot travel in black space and shoot black dots hidden in shadow? At least music is great!! Second impression.. Hmm this is a bit harder then i throught.. Being a TouHou veteren it's nothing that i couldn't handle... Third impression ...Wow.. speed is increasing.. and enemy is going getting more massive... Hmm beat all boss achievements already? Well.. at least it's still keep getting harder.... Fourth impression.. okkiee.. this is getting much more insane and crazy to stay alive... Darn it I died and lost all my power.. Darn it again.. IT's like impossible to recover at this stage without my power.. And I am dead again!! And Again!! Grr... Last life!.. Bosss? no.. Dead... Thus end my first try at this game.. Rank 28 on Normal .. beats all my friends that tried this.. CatzZz rank 45, dkny rank 182.... Cool... Since I unlocked a few new weapon.. Let's try this again!!! Simple Indie Game and i would call it great success!! Keep up the great work! 8.5/10 Recommend for everyone to try.. and Beat my score my friends!

Personal Rating: I like my game sessions short Classic Rating: ★★★☆☆ Shmadow is a simple game under every aspect but yet entertaining, if you don't mind short/casual game sessions. It's a twin-stick shooter in a 2D environment: you are a light "bulb" (or something along the way) and there's plenty of dark enemies coming your way.. if you leave auto-fire on, left stick moves the bulb, right stick aims and then dodge and shoot is what you'll do, as long as you can, before death comes. Electronic Soundtrack is also very good, keeps the pace on; if you ever played "Really Big Sky" and you liked it like I did, you'll enjoy Shmadow without any doubt. I haven't been able to play local-coop yet, but it's a thing I'll have to try, sooner or later.

[h1]"Shrinking dot in darkness"[/h1] Does shmadow mean "mad shadow"? However this game is a simplistic space shooter and bullet hell. You fly through dark space and only your shots can light it up. Black bubbles everwhere. Then appear the bosses in a row. Like rotating red and yellow bullet spreading twisters, rotating lasers or bubble spaceworms. One is changing gravity so that all background bubbles come from one side. Tho the game is flat 2D and the powerups are not very useful or there isn't even a decent tutorial the game makes fun for a short while. If you get hit your dot shrinks down to a minimum dot. A nice game mechanic. Achievements just count from normal difficulty up to nightmare. Local coop included, steam leaderboards and a techno loop soundtrack. Nothing special but quite enjoyable.

"Shmadow" ist ein kleiner, minimalistischer Twin-Stick-Shooter. Die Mechanik ist extrem simpel: wir sind ein weißer Punkt und müssen auf alles schießen, was sich so bewegt. Das sind zum einen kleine schattenhafte schwarze Punkte, aber vor allem immer wieder auftauchende größere Gegner, die jeweils ihr eigenes Angriffsmuster haben. Besiegte Bosse lassen ein Power-Up fallen, die uns jeweils, wenn wir sie einsetzen, eine kurzzeitige Verbesserung geben. So haben wir einen schnelleren Schuß, eine besondere Waffe oder wir können kurzzeitig die Zeit für unsere Gegner verlangsamen. Nichts, was man nicht schon hunderte Male in anderen Titeln gesehen hätte. Besonders ist allerdings die Ästhetik und das grafische Design. Alles basiert auf simplen geometrischen Formen. Die meisten Gegner bestehen nur aus Kreisen und schießen mit Punkten. Auch das hat man schon oft gesehen. Allerdings ist die Spielfläche erstmal grundsätzlich dunkel. Wir als Spielfigur und unsere Schüsse erleuchten die Dunkelheit. Auch die farbigen Gegner geben ein diffuses Licht ab. Durch dieses grafische Prinzip entsteht eine Ausleuchtung, die einen Vieles als schattenhaft wahrnehmen läßt. Die treibende Musik ist wahrlich nichts Besonderes, paßt aber durchaus zum Genre. Ein großer Pluspunkt ist noch die Steuerung, die relativ direkt und responsiv ausfällt. Dadurch ist das Spieltempo hoch bei gleichbleibend guter Bedienbarkeit. "Shmadow" ist nur ein kleiner Titel mit beschränktem Umfang. Der Endlos-Shooter schickt einem immer wieder dieselben Gegner entgegen. Dadurch ist der Wiederspielwert begrenzt. Das Vorhandene funktioniert aber gut und ist macht für begrenzte Zeit durchaus Spaß. [h1]Wertung:[/h1] 6/10 Atmosphäre -/10 Story 6/10 Grafik 6/10 Sound 7/10 Spielmechanik 6/10 Balancing 6/10 Spielspass [h1]Fazit:[/h1] Klein und gut. [h1][b]6/10 Gesamtwertung

If I had to describe Shmadow in a few words I'd have to say it's as if bullet hells, endless runners, and sidescrollers had a child. There isn't very much to say about this game but let's talk about it anyway. You're a ball of light who shoots other balls of various colors. Your character and your bullets produce light allowing you to see through the darkness. The more damage you take the less light you produce making it harder to survive. You get get an attack that recharges over a short cooldown and you pickup powerups which can also be used to assist you. You fight bosses and your objective is to make it as far as you can without losing. That's pretty much all there is to say about Shmadow. The Good [list] [*]One of the easiest achievement hunts you'll ever see. [*]You can play through the entire game and refund it if you don't enjoy it due to the game being so short. [*]You don't need a controller to do well (I got every achievement using keyboard and mouse). [*]Due to trading cards existing you'll make a large portion of what you spent on the game (if you bought it on sale) back from selling them. [*]Very short soundtrack although it's a very fitting song that doesn't get annoying. [*]Regardless of how much playtime you get it's still only 2 USD. [*]Several difficulties/modes. [*]Really cool bosses. [/list] The Bad [list] [*]Super short playtime (15 ish minutes if you're playing normally and 30-90 minutes if you're achievement hunting depending on how good you are at Shmadow). One playthrough of the game is enough for a player to see every boss along with the majority of the content. [*]I like the graphics although I cannot deny that there was very little effort put into them. [*]There's no tutorial although there's a controls section on the main menu. [*]You have to use the powerup to know what it does (they have no titles, just icons) and for a game this short I doubt you want to memorize all of them. [/list] If you're poor (and I mean very poor) this game isn't a good choice for you considering the lack of playtime you'll get out of it. If you aren't poor you've got nothing to lose no matter how much playtime you get out of it.

Shmadow is a shmup where a flying death flashlight shoots glowy light bullets at a never ending asteroid field of darkness. Every now and then, you encounter other orbs of light - dark, sinister glowing red suns that shoot scarlet death lazers at you, and command the shadow asteroids to swarm your light ship like spherical ninja zombies. It's clever, it's tricky, and its' simple premise lends itself well to short play sessions. Plus, Shmadow is just fun to say. Shmadow. Shma-dough. Shh-mad-ow. SCHMA-doh. So good.

A highly addictive game with music that will definately put you into a trance. This is a good game to pass by time and to collect the achievements. Pros: Nice music Reminds me of certain old school side scrolling shooters Upgrade system Cons: Lose everything when you die Starts to get really repetative after playing a hour or so It's a fun game and worth it c: 7/10

Good

Not Recommended

Yes.