Scowsh and Game-To-Play Methodology

I had the chance to read through Scowsh's (@ScowshMolosh) 2024 Year in Shmups covering their numerous 1CCs, and I really appreciated it; both on its own merits as a piece of genre documentation, and because of the way that it links into my current contemplation around identifying a more meta 'game-to-play' methodology.

Scowsh's describes their piece as being about their 'experience and approach to clearing some of the more intermediate shmup/stg games' which purposefully leaves the more granular strategy breakdown to a range of other referenced content creators.

Espgaluda Was Scowsh final arcade clear of 2024, with a list that also includes Rayforce, GanaBlade, Ketsui, Battle Garegga and a host of others.

While Scowsh highlights their concern that the result is 'pretty long winded & self indulgent' I think this unfair self criticism. While I can understand writing it might feel that way (with the personal outcome being to solidify ones own thoughts and map progress made for a feeling of continuity) the piece has also clearly been written with a focus towards actionable takeaways, and with the 'why' behind these learnings coded within the overall narrative it makes for clear and communicative reading.

I also really appreciate the overall format/ level of explanation which this hits - not granular strats but rather highlighting their methodology for overall personal game-play; meaning how do they choose which game to play, what are their goals in playing it, how do they organise their time to best meet these goals in a way that is meaningful to them. I feel like this is a space that is talked about less but is worth so much. This viewpoint situates these games as interwoven with everyday life of the players who dance/dog-fight with them, rather than just being limited by the bounds of the screen and the time block of the final uploaded Youtube playthrough video. A shmup players experience is a journey of growth which passes through a range of different games, while most material seems to be individual game centric, each one becoming a node of discussion and thus the player path becomes faded (beyond potentially the 'so you're a beginner' narrative).

I am at a similar life stage to the one Scowsh describes, and so the meta 'game-to-play' process resonates strongly: i.e., planning your play to make sure that you are using limited available time well. Perhaps there is also a shmup-like optimization and routing mindset that we are employing here even at this level life planning in an attempt to find the 'highest scoring' possibility...

Regardless, reading Scowsh piece is an interesting overlap and counterpoint to the system I've been developing to work with my own goals and neuro-build. Overall I think I have less of a focus on high end completion than Scowsh, but I do need the feel that I have spent meaningful time with games. This is usually interfered with by my habit of flitting from new thing to new thing and then forgetting what I was going to go back to. Having a holistic view is quite hard because it's not in a clear singular list anywhere (rather being distributed between Steam library, Switch purchases, download folders and wherever I thought to save the latest doujin). So my response was to buy a white board and actually create a clear singular list.

While I've had some fun here creating some little labels (and there are some notes for the ones i still need to make), having this board as a physical thing I can just glance at when I sit down to play has been so useful for focusing my mind. Now I feel like I'm getting some much needed consistency in my own game-play narrative rather than feeling that I am circling aimlessly through a cloud. This is just the first step though and I've taken a range of ideas from Scowsh as to how i might like to expand this meta system so my overall journey has an even stronger value.

Let me know if you have any good resources and tips around this idea of a game-to-play methodology. Is there somewhere where this type of discourse is more common? Radio in if you have heard anything.

_DYR