This game is obviously a labor of love. Obviously a proof of concept, as the game play is extremely basic. The art style, character designs, exploratory nature, and interchange make this a charming experience.
This game certainly had a lot of thought put into it! How the actual systems work is very obscure, it’s not clear what the actions are doing, such as why one would vore their own friends. There’s a consistent vision, so hopefully there’s a larger game that comes out of this small one. Thank you for sharing with us! 💙
Thank you for your kind words. 💙 Choosing colors with the Sega Master System palette is a bit of a challenge - it’s all pure saturated 3-bit RGB.
And definitely, there needs to be sound effects! The SMS sound chip has two kinds of noise generators, there’s plenty of options available. I’ve been getting more experience with chip-tune arranging. Ragtime is especially good: public domain, simple melodies, and lots of variations to fill out the time.
I have pondered that maybe inflated enemies could be manipulated. 🤔 I didn’t want to be too much like Klonoa. Here’s hoping I get to revisit this soon!
Thank you for your kind words. 💙 I hope to finish this, but in the spirit of the game jam I feel I should wait until judging is done.
Like the NES, the SMS has a maximum of eight 8x8 sprites per horizontal line. The current implementation wouldn’t work on genuine hardware. The workaround is that SMS video memory is directly accessible, so it would be possible to use tile memory to simulate the inflations. I have a theory on how to implement that, but in the interest of getting the basic game to work before deadline, I simply used sprites. 😅
Idle-clicker is an excellent choice! 🤔 I’m not sure if there’s ways to add to the dynamic, its simplicity is its virtue. I did have difficulty getting the browser-window version to behave, though it’s perfectly fine if you play full-screen. Thank you for sharing this game with us!
It’s fun and simple! Sometimes it was possible for me to land my ball in the rough but the game still wanted me to play through; the trees would obscure my pointer so I had no idea where my ball would go! ☹️ Otherwise it’s delightfully distracting. 🙂
Thank you. 💙 The sound chip we emulated was used in a fair number of arcade machines. (Or at least, its clones were.) Analog sticks were rather rare, though.
The tiny little nucleus floating in the blob is so cute. 🙂 The core concept - that your hit points and ammo are all parts of your slime - is a great idea. The large sprites, slow movement speed, and lack of dynamic environments made this feel more like an endurance contest than a bullet-hell dodge game. (And since the dodge move costs slime to use, it’s not really worth using — just tank the damage.) This game calls out to feel more slippery. The visuals and sound are ideal for the aesthetic. 💙 Thank you for sharing this with us!
Thank you for your kind words! 💙 I tell myself that the coders of the era weren’t making a retro-game, they were making a game. So even if it has a retro-feel, it should still be fun to play, first and foremost. I am happy that you enjoyed yourself. 🙂
Thank you for your kind words! 💙 During the DOS Game Jam, the final design had only one type of enemy, and I was thinking about how boring the score would be if it only measured kills. 🤔 Putting in a score multiplier to reward riskier play (waiting for enemies to get closer, letting your gun run empty, etc.) was easy to implement.
Many bullet hells keep track of “grazing”, so I thought that a score multiplier might be nice to do here. The “don’t bomb” rule was added at the 11th hour, and I’m rather pleased with how it adds replay value. 😄
Thank you for your kind words! 💙 In the, ahem, “spirit” of the old-fashioned retro game, there are no i-frames. Instead, the longer a bullet is in contact with you, the more damage it causes. The skulls fire clouds of 3 or more bullets at once, and if all those intersect, they become very deadly, very quickly. The amount of danger that you’re in is shown by the shaking animation of your sprite … but if you’re hit with five bullets at once, you’re usually dead in 1/20th of a second. 🤔 After the jam, I’ll see about making hits less punishing without trivializing them.
Thank you for your kind words! 😊 I would agree about the power-up collecting. I kept making the power-up’s collision boxes bigger and bigger and I was still have trouble getting them. 🤔 Time to figure out how to code a magnet.
Thank you for kind words. 💙 The play rewards you for not using the bombs, as they decrease your score multiplier, so it’s a good compromise.
Near the end of the jam, I thought of a way to put in a difficulty selection, where you could scale the amount of damage taken, to make play more or less challenging. But I didn’t want to miss deadline. After the jam, I’ll see if I can implement it.
Total aesthetic. 🤘 The way the blade simply slashes through targets is satisfying to a degree that makes me uncomfortable. 😅 The way the knifing-cultists pause to look around is a very nice touch. 💙 Thank you for sharing this with us!
Total aesthetic. 🤘 The way the blade simply slashes through targets is satisfying to a degree that makes me uncomfortable. 😅 The way the knifing-cultists pause to look around is a very nice touch. 💙 Thank you for sharing this with us!
Thank you. 💙 Sadly, Gamemaker’s HTML support has been falling behind; otherwise I would embed this in a browser window. The installer should be respecting Windows’ uninstall process, at least.
The UX and hand-drawn aesthetic are wonderful. The trade-offs of color-immunity vs. offensive power is clever but also far beyond my ability to juggle. 😅 I only wish this had controller support. 💙 Thank you for sharing this.
Very atmospheric. I wish there were more reasons to explore. I couldn’t find any items to scavenge, and everything is so dark. This game could be large, sprawling levels and sudden jump scares! 😱
It’s too easy for enemies to crowd my avatar and then keep them from moving. Once, they pushed my avatar through a solid wall. The dodge doesn’t work if you’re crowded, and in the narrow spaces, it’s very easy to get crowded.
The darkness, music, color-choices, and low-poly aesthetic make for a very spooky game. This has a lot of potential! 💙 Thank you for sharing it with us.
The lack of a visible timer, the finite quantity of meds, and the inevitability of taking damage all work together to create a feeling of palpable anxiety. Which works well with the theme. This could be developed into a more complex game! Thank you for sharing it with us. 💙
When the stamina bar runs out, the avatar can’t move or catch bullets. And stamina depletes far too quickly. Your own bullets are destroyed by incoming fire. The enemies track you with their shots. And you can get stun-locked. 🤔 These are certainly interesting choices for a game! The bullet-devour is already on its own cooldown, so the game requires a very methodical pace with no room for error. Thank you for sharing this with us. 💙
The bullet patterns don’t cover the whole screen. It’s easiest to find a spot where the bullets can’t reach and then destroy the shooters at your leisure. If the action were sped up, this could be a fun and frantic adventure. 💙 Thank you for sharing it with us!
It’s a very nice touch that the arrow changes colors based on whether you’ll roll forwards or backwards! 🧑🦽 I found myself using the side-pointing guns more than the forward one. The graphics were very nice. 💙 Thank you for sharing this with us!
The core concept is a good one. This game could be more fun with some nice audio, animated characters, and maybe pulling the camera back so we could see more. 💙 Thank you for sharing it with us!
There’s no visible grapple-line, it’s difficult to visualize what’s going on with the swinging. The hit-boxes are rather fine — collecting a cube requires very precise movement. The combination of fast-grapple movement with slow fine-tuning has a lot of promise. Thank you for sharing this with us. 💙
My avatar kept dying and I wasn’t sure what was killing them. I couldn’t see anything on screen, then was notified I was dead. Maybe it was obscured by terrain but I can’t be sure.
It’s possible to throw knives at enemies far outside their aggro range. The monsters just take the hits and then die.
Overall it’s a good concept for a game. Thank you for sharing this with us. 💙
The boss has multiple attack animations! 💙 It’s really nice to see the traditional “wrap-around” shooter rendered on a sphere, in real time. Thank you for sharing this with us.
There doesn’t appear to be a way to restart the game. The pixel art is wonderful, the concept of environmental puzzles and bullet arenas is a good one. Thank you for sharing this with us. 💙
Binding “P” to pause is nice, but then there’s words that end in P so the game immediately pauses after you type. I love the concept. Thank you for sharing this with us. 😁
This is a wonderful concept! It feels more methodical than a typical bullet hell. Maybe if the walls weren’t hurting you, only bullets - something like Omega Race - would capture that frenetic feel. Thank you for sharing this with us!
