Welcome to Bullet Hell Artistry!

We - your jam hosts - are Bullet Hell Engines - a Discord server for all things bullet hell game development! We offer social spaces for sharing your works (including non-gamedev ones), as well as engine-specific forums for gamedev help and discussion (mostly bullet hell STGs, but not always).

Bullet Hell Artistry (BHA) is a (usually) bi-annual game jam that we have been organising for the past six years (since August 2019)! The goal is to make a shoot-em-up game following a specific theme/ruleset, with gameplay quality being the main focus. 

Even though "bullet hell" is in the contest name, we're pretty lax on its inclusion in your game. How many bullets is too little or too much? That's up to you.

While the previous BHA editions were organised semi-privately, this tenth iteration is special. The BHE community has grown a lot, and many incredibly skilled game developers and fans have honed their skills while finding the niche they love. We felt like for our "anniversary edition", we had to aim big - and now here we are on itch.io!

If you're interested in checking out the entries and results for previous BHAs, check out community member Sparen's contest database here!

The Theme is... Unlimited!

This time, the theme is unrestricted: produce any kind of shmup game you'd like!

Contest Rules

1. Engine: You are free to pick any engine of your choice. However, it is essential that your project is easily accessible for others to play. Please provide a launcher or executable file to avoid requiring users to download additional tools, software, or perform online logins to access your project.

2. Entry Size: You are not limited to pattern count or time limit. But refrain from making the game too long or short without a good reason, otherwise you risk to yield less points.

3. Voting Category: Despite not having a specified theme this time around, you still need to have some things in mind in regards to your game's qualities. These are the categories in which the public will vote on for your game.

  - Overall: This is a different category from itch.io's default "Overall", and is evaluated separately compared to the other three.

  - Gameplay

  - Visual Presentation

  - Audio

4. Copyright: 

  - You can use any characters in your game for as long as you have permission to use them or are characters of your own;

  - The audiovisual assets in your project may not be subject to copyright not under your ownership or for which you do not have explicit usage permissions. If you don't know where to look for those, our Resource category can get you started!

5. Teamwork: Working as a group or with other people is allowed, but have in mind that only one prize will be given.

6. Submissions: Please submit your finished entry to the jam page in itch.io before the due date.

7. Communication: For questions, discussions, and WIP-sharing related to the jam, join the BHE server (linked at the beginning) and mingle with the community! Note that you can only get prizes by joining the server (see below).

8. Be Fabulous.

Discord Prizes

Alongside bragging rights on the itch.io results page, we also provide prizes to the winners in our Discord server! 

For the top 3 prizes (Gold-Silver-Bronze), the Overall category will be used.

Prize distributions will be:

TOP 3 (OVERALL):

GRAND PRIZE!

"BHA#10 Golden Prize-Winner" Role + 1-month Discord Nitro (or Steam Gift Card)

"BHA#10 Silver Prize-Winner" Role.
 "BHA#10 Bronze Prize-Winner" Role.

CATEGORY PRIZES:

"BHA#10 Gameplay Winner" Role.
"BHA#10 Visuals Winner" Role.
"BHA#10 Audio Winner" Role.