🎆 Bullet Hell Jam 🎆

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A jam submission

Starfighter MercforceView game page

Bullet Hell Jam entry

Submitted by PixelMetalWolf — 3 hours, 27 minutes before the deadline

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Starfighter Mercforce's itch.io page

Results

Criteria	Rank	Score*	Raw Score
EASY TO GET INTO	#58	4.107	4.107
AUDIO	#66	3.607	3.607
VISUALS	#82	3.857	3.857
OVERALL	#102	3.464	3.464
FUN	#117	3.321	3.321
CREATIVE	#181	2.929	2.929
THEME	#265	2.036	2.036

Ranked from 28 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?
Solo

Please credit the resources that you used during the jam (if you used any)
Audiowide font from Google fonts

Credit all team-members that worked on this project (you can link itch.io/twitter/youtube/twitch)
Solo

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Comments

Viewing comments 24 to 5 of 24 · Next page · Last page

TesophusSubmitted3 years ago(+1)

The Graphics and the enemy design were nice.

I just missed some feedback for the actions... There was no impact FX on the bullets, that makes a lot of difference. And it was very hard to dodge any bullets, since the player is giant and the bullets so small.

And I couldn't really tell how or why my shield was recovering... Usually is more remarkable to have an item that does these important actions, something that the player can actively pursue and feel like he had to work to get some health.

The bosses were cool, but it felt an eternity to reach them... This should be simple to fix, since you made a lot of enemies... Just mix some spawning positions and movement directions...

Overall it was interesting, several missions, but lacking some polishing.

Submitted

PixelMetalWolfDeveloper3 years ago(+1)

Yeah impact feedback is really lacking as is right now, can't argue with that :p

The navigation issue i can underestand as well since i didn't really manage to make it obvious, but ships don't have a full sprite hitbox, that's why for instance even the biggest of the 3 should fit through even tight patterns (did it like this since older shmups sometimes had this rule of a smaller hitbox than it would seem) but i admit i failed to convey it properly, not helping that while small, all 3 ship still have a different one ^^'

Shields through powerup to have them be a bit more traditional seems like an interesting fix, if i have the time to work for a post jam version maybe i'll try it, though originally i wanted to have some self charging shields a bit like what's in Tyrian2000, cause i thought it would be interesting to have that margin for error and that as long as you have shields you don't take permanent damage to your actual hp bar. but hey that's jams, i wanted to try something XD

Bosses issues like i said totally agree that the level drags on way too much and due to issues i couldn't really make a better system in time, also agree that i should try and find a way to spice up the spawning a bit cause here thay just spawn from fixed positions so it can be quite repetitive :/

Anyway, thanks for playing and for your detailed feedback, and i hope you still enjoyed the game despite its many flaws :)

TesophusSubmitted3 years ago(+1)

Yeah... I had some fun playing

The auto-charge shield can be interesting and isn`t impossible to do... But probably would fit best in a fast pacing game, where you need to dodge a lot and you can really feel when you`re taking a hit. And I think it also leaves the gap on player grabbing something actively... But that could be solved with the points and upgrade you already have, just need some more impact coming from them.

Zero_KiraiSubmitted3 years ago(+1)

this game is pretty neat i thought it was just endless and the difficulty doesnt get harder in the same world so i thought it was endless until i see the boss in the depscription. then the visual are fantastic but a lil bit mix with the background because the color is pretty similar to the background maybe add a white outline or a high saturation color to indicate it could also be used to indicate the hitbox and u could make some flashing effect everytime enemy get hit to indicate ur dealing damage. other than that the music really bop i really liked it, great game.

Submitted

PixelMetalWolfDeveloper3 years ago(+1)

Yeah that's an issue i didn't anticipate and that got most people rightfully confused XD

Backgrounds could have been better for sure to help the playable elemens stand out more, i like the outline idea, if i have the time for a post jam version i'll se how this looks to hopefully have the play area more clear and distinct from the BG, visual feedback for hits is also noted ^^

Glad you liked the presentation and music none the less !

Thanks for giving the game a shot and giving some feedback :)

Lehan BothaSubmitted3 years ago(+1)

This game was fantastic, there were just a few moments where I doubted if the game was finished or not since the boss doesn't spawn until you destroyed all enemies that have been spawned previously, but I reached the credits, so not bad at all

Submitted

PixelMetalWolfDeveloper3 years ago(+1)

Thanks for playing !

Yeah the fact i kinda messed up my level structure by having the boss tied to remaining enemies made things drag way too long, but like i said some issues i encountered took me so much time to fix that i couldn't really rework these system once i was done, glad you enjoyed it even despite all this and got to the end credits :)

Lehan BothaSubmitted3 years ago(+1)

Same happened with my game, wanted to implement so many stuff, but something went wrong and had to solve that first xD

Btw I would really like to collaborate with you sometimes since your art is dope

PixelMetalWolfDeveloper3 years ago(+1)

Yeah this seems to happen a lot during jams :o but gotta deal with it :p

Thanks for the offer, could be interesting :) i'd like to try, but i'm not sure how i'd fair in a team, i'm not really that much of a social media person so i don't have discord and such so i don't even know how i could communicate to organize and stuff :(

Lehan BothaSubmitted3 years ago(+1)

Well if you want to avoid voice channels we can use Trello to set the things to do and comment it out xD

PixelMetalWolfDeveloper3 years ago(+1)

Yeah maybe this could work, hopefully i'm not gonna be a burden in a team :p

ralle97Submitted3 years ago(+1)

All the retro shoot 'em up vibes just reminded me why and how much I love this genre! Visuals are great. Audio is amazing, especially how it ties everything together. My only nitpick is to maybe have a bit more variety in enemies and bosses, but nonetheless, I really enjoyed playing this one. Great job!

Submitted

Fast Food Fight

PixelMetalWolfDeveloper3 years ago

Thanks for trying it out ! Very happy that you like it ^^

Yeah i tried having as much variety as i could but issues with some systems during developement made me loose quite some time so i had to make due with polishing as best i could what i already have and couldn't add more.

takokikoSubmitted3 years ago (1 edit) (+1)

The music rocks! But I think the stages dragged on for too long (especially the second stage) since there’s not much enemy variety and it gets repetitive very quickly. Otherwise, the game is well-made and it was an overall enjoyable experience. Good job :)!

P.S.: Godot’s HTML5 export works badly on some computers, I’d recommend also including windows/linux/mac downloads for people who have issues. In my case the sound was a bit stuttery, but I’ve had people who literally could not play the HTML5 exports because it was way too laggy, so be careful!

Submitted

PixelMetalWolfDeveloper3 years ago(+1)

Thanks ! Glad you thought the music rocked ^^

Yeah that's the main issue people rightfully grought up, i didn't take enough time testing my level structure cause of other issues during developement and couldn't change it when i finally got done with the rest.

Happy that you still found the game enjoyable with its issues, thanks again for stopping by and leaving your feedback :)

9NonamiSubmitted3 years ago(+1)

I loved the pixelated look and the design of the ships, very beautiful! To me, this is a calm, very pleasant and concise game. Congratulations! :)

Submitted

PixelMetalWolfDeveloper3 years ago

Thanks a lot ^^ !

Happy that you like the retro look and ship designs,

i'm a fan of retro and in this project in more ways than one, pixel art was a given cause i feel there's a certain timelessness to the style when done right, and as a big fan of oldschool sci fi i like to design ships in a kinda "star wars-ey" way with that characteristic grimy look and that these ships have already seen quite some use already with scratches and astuff all over the colorful paintjobs.

Also cool that you find it calm and pleasant, thanks again for taking the time to check my entry out and commenting.

cheers :)

AuerSubmitted3 years ago(+1)

Best controls I've used so far, very intuitive, and easy to pick up.
Halfway through level 2 I lost interest as the levels are repetitive, I think some more enemy patterns would help to keep the player engaged.

Submitted

You're the Bomb!

PixelMetalWolfDeveloper3 years ago

Thanks dude !

I wanted the controls to be direct with no smoothing since many of the older shooters were like that to get the most precision possible and i'm happy that this paid off in that people seemed to like it.

Yeah I ran into some issues with the bosses and some other stuff so i didn't have all that much time to rework my level structure so it drags on a bit too long, so i don't blame you for losing interest. More enemy variety with patterns etch seems like a nice fix though i'll just have to see how i could add that if i have some time to work on post jam updates.

Anyway thanks for playing and taking time to comment :)

lenscasSubmitted3 years ago(+1)

It is a little bit hard for me to see the bullets, and it also seems like they either do very little damage or the shield regenerates rather quickly as I was able to get quite far before my first death while not trying too hard to dodge them.

The music and art style is rather nice though, and so where the controls.

Submitted

PixelMetalWolfDeveloper3 years ago

Yeah the bullets are really not all that poping from the background i can't argue with that ^^'

The thing with the shields is that i wanted them to be different from ship to ship but i noticed that i may have been a bit too generous with some of them as the smallest ship charges way too fast and the bigger ship has way too much.

Glad you liked the art,music and controls still despite the rest !

Thanks for giving my game a try and commenting :)

trabitboySubmitted3 years ago(+1)

A bit easy for my liking, but I love the sound and visuals :)

In general I love pre-rendered 2d games, you have the look :)) !

Submitted

trabitboy_bulletjam_21

PixelMetalWolfDeveloper3 years ago

Thanks for playing and commenting :)

Glad you liked the presentation and sound, I like pre rendered as well for the possibilities it offers, as it saves a lot of time when working solo without having to sacrifice too much detail on your sprite because you don't have to redraw it by hand from scratch for all your frames ^^ cause the post render 2d work i add afterwards while still time consuming is quite a lot less than having to do it all by hand.

Yeah difficulty isn't all that balanced cause i had lots of issues to fix to meet the deadline and couldn't tweak a lot before release and i also wanted to have a 3 or so lives system with unlimited continues to compensate but couldn't implement it so late in the project, but i'll see how i could change that for maybe some future updates if i have the time, so that people who want a tough challenge can get it while people just wanting to play the game can do so with a fair and managable challenge.

trabitboySubmitted3 years ago

A bit easy for my liking, but I love the sound and visuals :)

In general I love pre-rendered 2d games, you have the look :)) !

Submitted

trabitboy_bulletjam_21

MathieuFretSubmitted3 years ago(+1)

I really dig the artstyle and the music. The ship design is sooo good. The music has some clicks issue, I don't know if it's clipping or performance issue but it's a little distracting. Other than that I like the gameplay, the huge boss is so good I love it. maybe the bullets are a little too small, and the player ship too big so it's a little hard to dodge, but beside those little nitpicks, I really enjoyed this. Would love to see a post jam version!

Submitted

PixelMetalWolfDeveloper3 years ago(+1)

Thanks a lot ! Very happy that you like the art music and ship designs ^^ i spent quite some time on them and the paint jobs cause even though they would be converted to some smaller sprites, i wanted them to have this "Star Wars - ey / Wing Commander - ey" used future look to them.

Oh that's something i didn't see or nobody mentioned yet, i'll have to look into that, could you be a bit more precise on what the issue is, what browser did you use ? (cause apparently they don't handle integrated html games the same way so who knows)

Yeah the bullets need more visibility i thought having their color animated would prevent that but i was wrong :p, the hitboxes is a bit of another mistake cause i feel like i failed to convey how they work just trough gameplay so i'll clarify :

- They're not full sprite, but when you have shields on they are still a somewhat significant area of the sprite around the cockpit glass

- When you're out of shields they are the exact area of the cockpit glass for each ship

-The module powerups can be used to "carve" your way into bullets as they just cancel them and even earn you a bit of points for it

Sorry for the long wall of text XD but glad you've liked the giant bosses and enjoyed the game, thanks so much for taking the time to comment after playing, have a good one, cheers :)

MathieuFretSubmitted3 years ago(+1)

thank you for the reply! it clarifies the issues quite a bit. I'm using Google Chrome, and the sound issue is some "clicks" that appears left and right. It can be the sign of some clipping of the sound (when it passes the 0dBfs threshold) or a micro stop in the music, caused by lags or bugs

PixelMetalWolfDeveloper3 years ago(+1)

Thanks, so i don't know what the issue is exactly but i have firefox as my default browser and it runs fine here, i tried it on chrome to see if i had the same issues as you did, and appartently for some reason i get the same thing where the sound is horrible : o like it's struggling but weirdly enough the game seems to run at normal speed.

I have no idea what causes this or how to fix that :/ so the best i could say for now is if you can/have another browser try it there and it should run fine, at least firefox which i tried, gonna try opera if it runs fine, and i have no idea or way to test on safari since i don't have an apple device so fingers crossed that this works fine here too ?

Sorry for the inconvenience, and thanks for bug report i did not expect that with the sound, especially since i never had this with past entries.

ererbeSubmitted3 years ago(+1)

Like already wrote here some hit feedback would be nice especially because the projectiles are quite small.

If there is a post jam update i would like to play it again :)

Submitted

PixelMetalWolfDeveloper3 years ago(+1)

Thanks ! Yep one of the main issues and i'm definitively taking notes from what's been said so far, if i have the time i'll probably try to add a few fixes to this one post jam cause i really cut quite some corners to make it past the deadline in time ^^'

Heg28Submitted3 years ago(+2)

Fun game, I especially liked the different ships and the power ups. I think the main thing that could really improve the game is hit feedback, for both the players ship and the enemy ships. Nevertheless, good job :)

Submitted

PixelMetalWolfDeveloper3 years ago

Thanks glad you've enjoyed it !

Yep that's one of the big noted issues and i agree, but i had some bugs that ate up quite some time to fix during developement so i didn't really have time to juice up the game with better feedback but i totally understand how the lack of it hurts the experience XD

Alejandro PHzSubmitted3 years ago(+1)

Very impressive for a solo project! My favorite thing was the different playable ships with their unique characteristics, maybe they could have been rotated each 10 seconds or something to implement the 10 second theme. Anyway, very solid submission, good job!

Submitted

PixelMetalWolfDeveloper3 years ago(+1)

Thanks ^^ well i went all out as much i could, but like the description on the page states the music tracks and some ships were done a bit prior to the jam which helps explain the quantity :p since this seemed allowed by the rules i made the most of it.

I'm a big fan of spaceship "sim" games so i wanted to somehow mix and incorporates some elements of these types of games into the classic shmup approach i went for, thus the different types of ships with different hp/shields and speeds etc... and i'm glad people seem to like that aspect so far, to be honest i didn't have any idea how to incorporate the 10 sec theme other than a bit of experimenting with a 10 sec shield recharge but that ended up not being that fun when testing so i scrapped it and decided to go without the theme, but the 10 sec rotation of ships sounds cool and i wish i would have thought of that during the jam :p

Thanks again for sharing your thoughts and giving my game a spin :)

Pens_n_PixelsSubmitted3 years ago(+1)

This gave me a lot of nostalgic feelings, in a good way. Reminiscent of late '80s shmups, this was quite fun to play. Great work! :)

Submitted

PixelMetalWolfDeveloper3 years ago(+1)

Thanks a lot ! I'm quite nostalgic for that era as well so i'm glad i could have my game feel authentic to that while trying to put my own spin on it and i'm happy that you had fun with it ^^

cheers :)

plutoprogrammerSubmitted3 years ago(+1)

This was really fun to play. Did you scaled down the 3d models in blender to make the pixel art or was it hand drawn??

Submitted

PixelMetalWolfDeveloper3 years ago

Thanks for playing glad you liked it :)

Yep those are some downscaled 3d models, with a bit of cleanup by hand afterwards

Mallapp StudioSubmitted3 years ago(+1)

Fully agree with alfredolinguini.The visuals are honestly fantastic for a jam game! I like the sounds and the music as well. All in all a rock-solid shmup!

Submitted

PixelMetalWolfDeveloper3 years ago

Thanks for your kind words !

I'm humbled, to be honest some assets i feel i could have done better like the hud and the portraits but i ran out of time XD

but i'm so happy the art has been so well received, music as well since i was afraid they felt too repetitive since i was able to make only 3 short tracks

Glad you found it solid even with the known issues gameplay wise

Thanks for playing, have a good one :)

ImpastaSyndromeSubmitted3 years ago(+1)

Wow, the visuals look great! I totally thought they were from an asset pack at first—I'm so impressed you managed to make that all in a week. I really like the different ships, and the shielded health system. but I found it hard to see the bullets, and even harder to try and dodge them. I would have appreciated some visual indicator for damaging the turrets as well, as on the first boss I had no clue if I was actually doing anything until one of them exploded.

Great job overall! I'm so impressed by the amount of content and that you did it solo.

Submitted

PixelMetalWolfDeveloper3 years ago(+1)

Thanks i'm real happy that you like the visuals !

Well like i said on tha game's page and credits and since it seemed ok by the jams rules some of the ships and also the music was made prior to the jam, cause when i decided to join since the theme was more an option in this jam i decided that i wanted to make a ship based shooter no matter what, but all done solo none the less took some effort so i'm glad people seem to like the various ships and all :p

Yeah the bullets are one of the main issues that's been brought up so far as well as a bit of a lacking feedback on impacts and i totally agree with that.

Thank you for your kind words, and i hope you had fun despite the games issues, cheers :)

Chase of BassSubmitted3 years ago(+1)

Can tell you worked really hard on this! I liked the art and i like how when you lose a ship it swaps characters/ships. Had fun playing this -great job!

Submitted

Discount Concerto

PixelMetalWolfDeveloper3 years ago

Thanks ! I always try to put my most into projects so it's always nice to see that people like it ^^

Since gameplay wise i only managed to make 3 ships i added the random paintjob stuff so that it would be a bit more varied with the characters also randomized cause i felt like having a visible pilot on the hud would add a bit more character to the game :p

Anyway thanks again for giving my game a spin and taking time to comment :)

MYline media 👤Submitted3 years ago(+1)

Quite a cool game. But I think the bullets are too small or the spaceships are too big, but otherwise the game is good.

Submitted

PixelMetalWolfDeveloper3 years ago(+1)

Thanks for playing glad you enjoyed the game even with its drawbacks :)

Yep i should have probably made the bullets a bit bigger and maybe animate them different cause the color change here doesn't really seem to work from the feedback i got so far, but hey thats how you learn afterall :p

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