this post was submitted on 21 May 2026
7 points (100.0% liked)

Shmups

214 readers
12 users here now

Description:
This is a place on Lemmy to talk about arcade, PC, and console shmups/shoot 'em ups/STGs. (We can talk about other arcade-based/scoring genres too, if you'd like.) All experience levels welcome.

Rules:
This community is kindly hosted at lemmus.org and follows the rules of that instance, which are:

  1. Be a good neighbor
  2. No porn uploads

Links:
- Shmups Wiki
- Shmups Forum
- STG Discord

Shmup Deal Trackers (not affiliated):
- PC shmup tracker
- Console shmup tracker

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
sundray@lemmus.org
pasdechance@jlai.lu
7
[Sort of on topic] IDK About ‘Bullet Heaven,’ Steam (aftermath.site)
submitted 22 hours ago by sundray@lemmus.org to c/shmups@lemmus.org
3 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Steam has added "bullet heaven" as an official tag, in an effort to separate games like Vampire Survivors from danmaku, "bullet hell" shooters. The author would prefer "survivors-like." But it's pretty clear that "surviors-like" has been rejected, broadly speaking. Either way, I hope this helps people find the kinds of games they're looking for.

You can see more background here: https://lemmus.org/post/18552033

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] pasdechance@jlai.lu 2 points 13 hours ago

The first time I heard "Bullet Heaven" I thought it was silly. This is because some people refer to all shmups as "bullet hell" as if they the same thing. Not that long ago, when I was trying to wrap my head around shmups, I would ignore some games because I saw them labelled as "bullet hell" and decided that I wasn't ready for that yet.

I disagree with the author. It looks like a community of people that enjoy these games pushed for this tag. Gaming nomenclatural cannot be controlled, just like with music (if I say to someone that I like metal, and they respond with "oh I love Metallica" I don't give them a lecture). Bullet Heaven is going to stick, and now I associate it with games like VS, and it won't erase Survivors-like from the list of common gaming neologisms.

(Now, if the author wanted to write something that would get engagement and really start something, he should have suggested that Metroidvania games be renamed to Zeldavania games!)