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A jam submission

Neon BoltView game page

Submitted to Bigmode Game Jam (Feb 2025). An arcade shooter about boosting power to your ship systems!
Submitted by Bango (@heybango) — 4 days, 5 hours before the deadline
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Neon Bolt's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Theme#4202.8502.850
Fun#5092.3502.350
Presentation#5622.2502.250
Originality#6192.2502.250

Ranked from 20 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

How does your game represent "Power"?
In this arcade style shoot-em'-up, the player must destroy enemies in order to increase power to their attack, defense, and speed. Better power to these attributes helps the player survive longer as more enemies approach.

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Comments

Submitted(+1)

A cool twist on the classic space shooter!

Submitted(+1)

I like how this turns the main gameplay into the power scaling system! Normally you’d pick up attack drops or go to a shop in between levels to upgrade, but instead you do it by how you play. Good job.

Developer(+1)

It was fun to try something a bit outside of the roguelike "upgrade between levels" style. I'm glad you liked it!

Submitted(+1)

Not bad for 72 hours. Simple and fun.

Submitted(+1)

I really like how instead of powerups, you had to kill the enemy in order to increase your level/powerup. I also like that you could only go left and right, made it hard to doge, which was fun.

Developer(+1)

Thank you so much! I haven't even tried powerups in a game yet, so this felt like a solid first step. Glad you had fun with it. :)

Submitted(+1)

Addictive gameplay! Increased attack rate really helps, kept targeting the red ships, interesting mechanic to have such focus - plays out smoothly.
Thank you for the game <3

Developer

I ended up feeling like targeting red ships was the way to go, too! Glad you enjoyed it - thanks for playing.

Submitted(+1)

Would love to see a scoring system - I like the cartoonish design and the music is really nice

Developer

Completely agree - I wish I had fit one in before submitting. Thanks for the feedback!

Submitted(+1)

Nice arcade game, interesting twist with progression through killing different types of enemies. Good result result in 72 hours!

Developer(+1)

Hey, thanks so much - I really wish I had more time to work on this one, because there's so much more to be done with it. But yes, I'm happy with the result for 72 hours!

Submitted(+1)

Nice game! I like the aspect of collecting powers from enemies. Would've been awesome of it culminated in some boss fight after a while. (maybe it did but I just died to quickly haha)

Developer

Nope, it was meant to be a pretty short cycle (maybe 1-2 minutes before just getting swarmed). But I love the idea of a boss fight and I hope to learn how to make something like that soon! Thanks for playing!

(+1)

Fun idea.

Submitted(+1)

I love the idea of different enemies boosting different stats! 

Submitted(+1)

Soundtrack reminds me of Balatro in a goodway

Developer

Our music artist will be thrilled to hear that - thank you!

Submitted(+1)

This is a fun take on the shmup genre! It would also be neat having some different branching upgrades as you destroy the enemy types. Also, +1 for scoring!! Good job!

Developer(+1)

ooo - that's a great idea! That would be a nice challenge for me on the next project. And I promise to the universe I'll get a scoring system in on future jams. ( ͡~ ͜ʖ ͡~) Thank you!

Submitted(+1)

Fun little game and a nice take on the theme! The only thing that’s missing is a scoring system

Developer

Completely agree!! I wish I had implemented it before the deadline. I was thinking of a scoring system, or a win condition when the player maxes out all three stats.

What do you think - would you do one or the other, or both?

Submitted(+1)

I think going for the classic arcade setup would be perfect - just show a score that increases whenever you destroy a ship. Maybe you could award a score bonus whenever you max your stats and then reset them, but in my opinion an endless mode would suit the game better than a set goal

Developer(+1)

Love it. Thank you so much!!

Submitted(+1)

Cool concept, loved the idea of different colors leveling up different stats.  Enemies came a bit too fast at the end, and everything died in one hit anyway, so not sure why we needed to upgrade attack.  I see overall potential in the idea, good job!

Developer

Definitely my fault on not explaining attack well. Attack was actually just rate of fire. So rather than increasing the damage of each bullet, you're just getting more bullets.

Thanks for the feedback, seriously!