🎆 Bullet Hell Jam 🎆

Hosted by Harman Kamboj, SkyanSam · #BulletHellJam2021

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A jam submission

RED BUMBLEBEE GAIDENView game page

Hot blooded bullet hell shoot 'em up! Rid the Japanese seas of the Kaiju threat!

Submitted by 730 (@CoolBeansDevs), Player_Unknown08, Bagingi123, denki (@___denki), Janeator (@janeator) — 28 minutes, 35 seconds before the deadline

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RED BUMBLEBEE GAIDEN's itch.io page

Results

Criteria	Rank	Score*	Raw Score
AUDIO	#4	4.433	4.433
VISUALS	#6	4.667	4.667
OVERALL	#15	4.200	4.200
FUN	#30	4.100	4.100
EASY TO GET INTO	#93	3.900	3.900
CREATIVE	#164	3.067	3.067
THEME	#268	2.000	2.000

Ranked from 30 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

Do you have any bullet or projectile in your game?

Yes

You added some projectile or bullet in your game

What was the size of your team?
5

Credit all team-members that worked on this project (you can link itch.io/twitter/youtube/twitch)
https://twitter.com/___denki
https://twitter.com/Janeator/
https://twitter.com/Player_Unknown8
https://bagingi123.bandcamp.com/
https://730.itch.io/

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Comments

Viewing comments 25 to 6 of 25 · Next page · Last page

ecaroh.gamesSubmitted3 years ago(+2)

Reminded me so much of the top down scroller shooters I played at the bowling alley as a kid. The music, art, and sound was top notch!! Felt so nostalgic and perfect. GREAT execution on the concept and design from the team!

Playing it was really challenging!! I had to give up on the final boss cus it had so much HP and I really couldn't get into a groove for dodging the patterns consistently

Loved the feeling of hundreds of enemies throwing themselves at me and them dying instantly in my barrage of bullets :D

Submitted

kintrixSubmitted3 years ago(+1)

I cannot say much about this game, it's just a lot of fun. The bullet patters had great variety, it was the enemies and there combinations were really nicely scripted, the music is great, the sfx is fitting, and the visuals look really damn good!

Submitted

KreastriconSubmitted3 years ago(+2)

You know, out of all the games I played in the entire game, I think this was the only one I played that actually felt like a traditional bullet hell game. The visuals, the small hit boxes, the beautiful bullet patterns and the simple controls with gamepad support are great.

I think my only problem with it is that it isn't very creative, but then again you have a flying frog and a cat boss, so that is something. I'd like to see if you could add more mechanics to it.

I am not fond of glitch that makes the game unbeatable when you die against the frog boss, that's a little annoying.

Submitted

Tax Evader 9000

Pens_n_PixelsSubmitted3 years ago(+1)

During development of my own Bullet Hell Jam game I made a joke about not being responsible for anyone trying to insert coins into their computer or laptop, but this game... this game here is way more deserving of comparisons to arcade machines. Brutally-difficult, but at the same time immense fun; all lushly-presented to boot. For sure, I'd stick more than a few coins in a cabinet that housed this beautiful beastie. <3

Submitted

730Developer3 years ago(+1)

Wow, thank you so much! This means a lot coming from the dev of what I consider one of the best and most polished games of the jam!

Pens_n_PixelsSubmitted3 years ago(+1)

Just calling it as I see it. I mean, your game's plenty polished as it is but there's so much of the SMALL (but important) stuff done right; the player ship movement speed, bullet speeds, the way the player bullet spawn rotates (like, dang, I should've done that!) and so forth. Ugh, so good! <3

730Developer3 years ago(+1)

I appreciate that, glad you like the details! Saw the rotating player shot thingy in Stellavanity a while ago, and while doing the jam I saw it again on eXceed 3rd, and I just had to replicate it because it's so cool.

E.T.C.LundbergSubmitted3 years ago(+1)

Good art and effects, I especially like the water background, how it moves forward and to the sides.

I miss a smart bomb, it's good as a palette cleanser for when the screen gets too crowded.

Good idea to add free continues in a game jam.

Overall solid entry!

Submitted

Super Pipe Hell

MathieuFretSubmitted3 years ago(+2)

I just love it, the music is dope, the sounds are great (I love the menu sound, even if it doesn't loop well) the start of the music synced with the animation just gets me so excited each time! The art is gorgeous, the enemies are so well design, it's fun from start to finish (that cat is hard tho). It has some bugs but it's so good I can forgive it x)

Submitted

JaneatorDeveloper3 years ago

Thank you! The cat is a pain in the ass for sure haha

GambsmooreSubmitted3 years ago(+2)

Wow this is awesome. Dripping with style and polish. Everything felt so fun and responsive. I did have an issue after the first boss, we died at the same time and the game never continued on. But didn't happen second time around. 5 stars guys, awesome work.

Submitted

Bad Day on Majoris VIII

JaneatorDeveloper3 years ago

Thanks!

Yeah, unfortunately that is a known issue, we just couldn't get it fixed in time for the jam. The only solution for now is to start over, sorry! I'm glad you enjoyed it regardless!

DezueSubmitted3 years ago(+2)

Heyho! Really well done, I think hardcore shmup fans will enjoy your game a lot! Production values are spot on, too.
Great job! Stay funky,
Dez

Submitted

JaneatorDeveloper3 years ago(+1)

Thanks! Definitely not for the faint of heart, haha. Can't beat it myself without more than ten continues!

DezueSubmitted3 years ago

It was a good decision to include endless continues haha

PixelMetalWolfSubmitted3 years ago(+3)

Amazing presentation and music !

Feels really polished, the sprites have an awesome design to them, the music is a total banger, and i like the "battle the kaiju at sea before they reach the city... again" theme ^^ overall the game feels quite solid already as is

The difficulty is kinda insane, i kept dying so often that if this were an actual arcade machine you'd be swimming in quarters (more likely i couldn't really affoard the amount of credits i used XD) so i'm thankful you made them unlimited for the jam

But i still had a good time though, and i also like you went out of your way to make the actual aspect ratio of a vertical shmup it's a nice touch.

One small issue i encountered (but i think it's probably cause of the jam's time) is that when you choose no on the continue screen the game seems to freeze,

and i think i had a bug but it only happened once so i'm not sure what caused it, when reaching the frog boss, after beating him(while dying often) the game kept running and could move and shoot, but it didn't continue to the cat boss.

Other than these, its a cool game, good job to your whole team :)

Submitted

Starfighter Mercforce

730Developer3 years ago(+1)

Both are known bugs yeah, the first can apparently be solved by pressing pause (Esc key) when it gets frozen, the second has no fix other than playing again unfortunately. Thanks for playing!

PixelMetalWolfSubmitted3 years ago

Oh i see, no problem, i just gave a heads up just in case these bugs haven't been reported :)

ralle97Submitted3 years ago(+2)

Really enjoyed playing! Great art and amazing audio. Retro shoot 'em up vibes were just cherry on top. Had a lot of fun playing. One of the best games of the jam, in my opinion. Great job!

Submitted

Fast Food Fight

JaneatorDeveloper3 years ago

Thank you for the kind words!

Moon9RabbitSubmitted3 years ago(+2)

Great art and music. Gameplay was really satisfying and very polished. I had some issues with the difficulty, but thanks to continues I could still finish the game. It was a fun experience, one of the best games I played this jam :)

Submitted

Rabbit's Bullethell

JaneatorDeveloper3 years ago(+1)

Thank you! The current difficulty is pretty hard for sure haha, I'm a total noob at shootemups and can't beat it without at least 15 continues or so!

RafagarsSubmitted3 years ago(+2)

Love the art style and great music. Support for Linux and Mac is a nice touch. With a little more polish this game can be amazing

Submitted

shmup with very bad title

JaneatorDeveloper3 years ago(+1)

Thanks! We'll probably pick the game up again at some point in the future and expand it but for now we're a bit occupied with other projects.

LopheeSubmitted3 years ago(+1)

I like this game a lot! The music slaps, the effects are great and your visual style makes it a complete joy to play. Kinda hard to get into for me personally as there were so many different control schemes used in this jam, but that's just a minor thing. Simple idea well executed. Nice work :)

Submitted

JaneatorDeveloper3 years ago

Thank you! By next version there'll probably be controls explained in the title screen, in case anyone missed the game page instructions.

takokikoSubmitted3 years ago(+2)

Really liked the graphics and music! The game is very straight-forward and easy to get into, and the patterns are fun enough to get around. Quite simple, but very well executed. Such a shame that you didn’t have time to implement the JAM mechanic! Looking forward to the polish update, good job :)!

Submitted

JaneatorDeveloper3 years ago(+1)

And I made the sprites too... hahaha. Unfortunately we didn't have time indeed, so posting the game without it feels a bit like cheating our way into the jam, but hey, we figured we were pretty proud of the result regardless, so better to post it then not :)

Thanks!

WayfarerGamesSubmitted3 years ago(+2)

Excellent entry, really well-executed. The team (wow there are a lot of you) is clearly pretty experienced! I don't really have much to say. It was clean, polished, not particularly creative or anything but really didn't need to be.

A few minor points:

the ui is really small. I didn't even notice that I had a score for a LONG time!
needed a bit more juice when the player gets hit I felt
mechanically it's really straightforward, there didn't seem to be any strategy to playing for score - which is something I like about games like this. I get that it's a jam game and there's not much time for this sort of thing, though!

Really solid entry. Not going to win any awards for creativity, but doesn't need to xD also, I LOVE how much stuff there is to shoot. A lot of the entries seem to miss a trick here. Fill that screen with popcorn!

Submitted

730Developer3 years ago(+1)

Thank you for your comment!
I initially thought it out with a more interesting score system, with a timer mechanic where you had 10 seconds before you died, and you could pick items up to refill it, but you would have a score multiplier inversely proportional to the amount of time left, rewarding risky play. Was halfways implemented but I didn't have time to add the actual pickups so I just dropped the mechanic altogether. The score itself seems to be bugged too, with enemies giving out score multiple times after dying, so right now the score is little more than an afterthought.

WayfarerGamesSubmitted3 years ago(+1)

yeah I totally get that - jams are always that way 😂

boghogSubmitted3 years ago(+1)

Pretty decent shmup with awesome visuals & nice music. Mechanically it does feel a bit too barebones, definitely missing an on screen shot limit and some kinda bomb mechanic, but overall it's a fun time. I have some gripes about game feel (lack of bullet impact splash sprites, enemy/player shot hitboxes feel too small, player shots feel a bit small, explosions barely cover enemy sprites) and level design (there doesn't seem much of a flow to how the enemies spawn and attack, maybe I need to play more and get in the right rhythm tho) but I'm sure most if not all of that comes from the jam deadline

Submitted

[JAM] MagiGhostDEADline

730Developer3 years ago

Thank you for your very detailed comment! Definitely the deadline affected many of these elements.
There are actually player shot hit effects that exist but went unimplemented (also didn't get to make/get a handful of SFX, including player shot hit). Never planned for a bomb mechanic but I was going to add powerup pickups, and also considered having a special attack tied to the timer (which also went unimplemented), so it'd dry down the timer in exchange for big attacks.
I did get some complaints while devving about the enemies looking like they just magically disappear due to the way the explosion worked but we didn't consider just making it bigger, I'll take that in mind, maybe spawn several if making another or multiple explosion anims is too much.
As for the hitboxes not sure what to do. The player shot hitbox takes up a bit more than the whole sprite while the enemy bullet hitboxes tend to be a little circle in the center, felt fine to me but they're definitely not that well thought out.
The stage design and layout is the result of putting together ended some patterns I had + some new ones I had to make while dying of stress, all the day before the jam ended, so definitely some of it might feel pretty haphazard. I'm planning to rearrange it into something more sensible for the update. I would have liked the music to guide the stage design as well but didn't have enough time to properly think that out. I also need more time studying other games, had never done that before this jam.

boghogSubmitted3 years ago(+1)

Multiple explosions that cover up are the way to go IMO, they always feel quite good.

I think the enemy hitboxes being so small is the problem, you wanna separate the enemy body hurtboxes and hitboxes, making the hitboxes small while keeping the hurtboxes quite large, this is the best of both worlds.

Enemy wave design is tough yeah especially on a time limit since you don't exactly have the time to do a shit ton of playtesting to make sure it flows great, but well that toaplan left to right to left pattern never fails

730Developer3 years ago(+1)

I see, right now the hurtbox and hitbox are the same thing, but that sounds like a logical recommendation, I'll apply it in the update, thanks.

CROW'S NEST3 years ago(+2)

Very polished and aesthetically pleasing, with fun stage design too. The final boss felt a bit too tanky, though.

JaneatorDeveloper3 years ago

Thanks! The final boss' patterns and HP definitely need some tweaking heh

KaitoMajimaSubmitted3 years ago(+2)

This is a WONDERFUL game, really, this is a favorite. Really faithful by the bullet hell genre, it's amazing in all aspects: Art is stunningly beautiful, audio is top-notch and gameplay is badass. I like that the ship has forgiving hitboxes, it's a nice quality of life detail everyone should take into account. The only real problem that I have with this game is that it sometimes lag when there's a load of bullets, but it's really optimal for a jam, great job for the team!!

Submitted

JaneatorDeveloper3 years ago

Thank you!

Do you remember which points gave you the most trouble in terms of performance?

thyrotoxicosisSubmitted3 years ago(+3)

Great to see a well-executed orthodox STG here! Is it just me or are they surprisingly hard to find for a bullet hell jam?

RBG is nice looking, and overall fun to play with few quirks. The music is great on its own, even though I'd have loved it more with more integration with the level design. The early stages of the boss fight can be a little bit irritating with the boss moving around the stage much faster than I can possibly follow, making it hard to deal damage, but the later stages get better. Above all, it's amazing that you managed to put all those content together!

Submitted

RedShift Prototype

730Developer3 years ago

Thank you for your words!

I would have loved music-stage integration too. Before putting the stage together I thought in fact the music could help as a guideline, but I ended up building the whole stage on Wednesday so I had no time to think it through and just put together patterns I had made in the most reasonable way I could.
The first phase of the boss does indeed have unreasonable movement, though I adjusted its HP so it takes around 20-30 seconds to kill it if you focus shot on one of the sides.

Zero_KiraiSubmitted3 years ago(+2)

this a really awesome game and this is hard. the music is really SICK, the art, everything is great. a control info would be great cuz idk how to shoot until the boss fight. anyway this short game is awesome.

Submitted

JaneatorDeveloper3 years ago(+1)

Thanks!

Controls info can be found in the game page, but we'll be sure to include it on the title screen next version in case anyone misses it!

Zero_KiraiSubmitted3 years ago

ok thanks :D

Viewing comments 25 to 6 of 25 · Next page · Last page