Episode 164 - Mr. Sparkle (Shmup Enthusiast) Artwork

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Have you ever wondered how YouTube sausage gets made? DrunkFriend (not a dating app) aims to learn how different YouTubers in the retro-gaming space deal with the ups and downs of maintaining successful channels. Learn about their inspirations and influences to getting started, their philosophies on creating content, and their processes for video production. There will be plenty of fun stories along the way! Hosts Alex (SNESdrunk) and Trav (NESfriend) come together, along with the occasional featured guest, to answer listener questions, share the YouTubiest of YouTube comments, and find out how everyone else deals with this hobby. Listen to more Kulor here: https://kulor.bandcamp.com/

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Episode 164 - Mr. Sparkle (Shmup Enthusiast)

December 26, 2025 • SNESdrunk and NESfriend, Mr. Sparkle • Season 7 • Episode 164

0:00 | 1:14:57

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Mr. Sparkle drops by to chat classic, modern, easy, hard, fun, and weird shooters! Alex drops an elbow smash halfway through the episode!

Shmup Wiki - digital library of shooting games, great resource of basic information, strategies, and trivia - <https://shmups.wiki/>

**ShmupJunkie** - YouTube channel (<https://www.youtube.com/@ShmupJunkie>) focused on shooting games, with a really active and friendly discord (<https://discord.gg/yPKzubzKRW>) that has a beginner section, friendly scoring competitions, and strategy discussion - the discord also has a curated list of beginner-friendly shmups at different levels of difficulty <https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1MZz8Q_8HdGyh2QU9BX4lNgyVAP9JZxxuy_YYbOLf1CM/htmlview>

**Jaimers** - high-level player, puts up very high level clears but all videos also include helpful commentary in the description, and often advice/strategies in closed captions (<https://www.youtube.com/@JaimersSTG>)

**The Electric Underground** - a more in-depth shmup-related resource, also has a very helpful beginner introduction section (<https://www.youtube.com/@TheElectricUnderground>)

**Boghog** - designed of the excellent Gunvein, really interesting discussions of shmup and action game design (<https://www.youtube.com/@boghogSTG>)

**Aktane's Arcade** - some very helpful quick start guides, but also more in depth conversations about enjoying and improving at shmups - very interesting stuff on shmup culture and the hobby <https://www.youtube.com/@AKTANEARCADE>

Rob’s CGP with Aktane https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/classic-gaming-podcast/id783265787?i=1000733070633

Crazy Boss Fight Mr. Sparkle mentioned that Japanese player Sairyou had been the first to 1cc SDOJ - what he meant to say was ‘first to 1cc the game with the true final boss’ - check it out below https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCRI69pQpY0&t=1612s

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