“shmup”, being some ungainly contraction of “shoot-em-up”, is a fairly dumb and ugly word we inherit from the european videogame press. let’s opt to use better terms instead, like “shooting games” or “shooters” or “stgs”.
anyway, the dragon stg competition over at the stg-dev forums is now closed to entries. the goal for entrants in the competition (which offers many fabulous prizes) was to produce a shooting game of any variety, with the one stipulation that the protagonist be a dragon.
all of the finished entries can be downloaded on the competition forum. (you may need to be logged into the site.) my favorite is smark’s lair, which plays the way a game starring a dragon should play: like rampage. smark the dragon endures an assault on his treasure horde by pesky humans. he can unleash flames to fry the meddling creatures or swoop down to snatch them up, then either toss them at their comrades or chomp them for health. munching the (well-defended) princess will restore all of smark’s health, but will also invoke the wrath of a powerful dragon-slayer. a pretty solid shooting game.