Supercharged Juggernaut Wasps

thevalofman 2018-12-04 16:04

a bullet hell where your "bullets" are your children, and being told their names when they sacrifice themselves for you, is an interesting concept. it took me a bit to realize that after right-clicking, you have to left-click to actually move the worker bees, and then you can detonate them, and i thought that the difficulty may have been a little high (that could also just be me, i'm not very good at bullet hell games), but i had fun! this is a cool concept.

arvejeitor 2018-12-05 11:57

Graphics could use some work, but the core gameplay is very good!

kaeveris 2018-12-05 19:27

This is a really cool bullet hell! I was trying it out with a mouse but I think it would be better with controller. I like the art and the music a lot!

cyberstarlight 2018-12-05 21:23

I really like bullet hell games, I like the bullet patters you made they feel really good! The main wasp sprite and animation is good.

I like the idea of actually trying to collide with your enemies in a bullet hell, it's opposite to what we're used to in those games. I felt a bit too hard, and the controls are a bit uncomfortable, I'd prefer if the wasp just followed the mouse without pressing it down all the time for example. Anyway good job on the game, interesting concept for sure.

nnnikki 2018-12-05 21:57

THIS IS AMAZING!!! YEEEEEAAAAHHHH!!!!!

Sorry. Got a little carried away there.

So, as you can tell, I really liked this. But why? I dunno. It's cool.

matoux42 2018-12-06 04:05

@thevalofman

Thanks a lot ! Yeah, the gameplay is a bit difficult to handle, particularly with the mouse, although we try to be as precise as possible.

@arvejeitor

Ahah, we're only devs, so graphics are made with our pour talents in design/arts, and of course it's not as good as if we had an artist with us.

@kaeveris @cyberstarlight

Thanks a lot for your feedback ! :smiley:

@nnnikki

I'm glad you liked it so much, it's very pleasant to see our game being so appreciated :wink:

floata-1 2018-12-06 18:08

fun little game enjoyed figuring out what to do

ecmjohnson 2018-12-10 23:23

I really liked the time slow down effect while you "aim" your mini-wasps! It made for some hectic moments when a large number of bullets were closing in. I'm impressed you guys wrote all this with only GLFW, SFML, and FreeType over a weekend!

syrok 2018-12-11 20:12

Very cool audio, it makes the whole mood of the game. The thinking of the gameplay is good, the graphics are at the level. I liked it, it looks like a decent finished game.

hi-im-greg 2018-12-11 21:34

Good choice of music and cute pixel art but I found it very difficult to control. Then again I was controlling a wasp so...

eatatjoes 2018-12-11 22:58

Great audio, love bullet hells. And i appreciate the theme being used to the core of the game's mechanics. Smart design.

howard-duong 2018-12-12 03:19

Very fun game! Although I got confused on what to do at the beginning. Once I figured out what to do, the game get pretty fun. Good job!

jacquouille 2018-12-12 11:10

Cool game, I had a great time once I figured out how to play (learning the control is one thing, but getting used to them and get into the "flow" of the game is another). I was playing with the mouse so it wasn't optimal (as you guys probably know), and the delay you have when moving is kinda disturbing for a bullet hell. I loved the bullet time effect with the small wasps, that was an interesting take on usual shooting. I couldn't make it to the boss, I'm not sure I was supposed to reach a certain size or distance (would love to have a progression slider !), and I wasn't probably using the baby wasps correctly (I rarely feel the need to use them, especially since sometimes one baby wasn't enough to take down an enemy). Speaking of the babies, your cover picture kinda sold me the idea of having multiple out at one time, defending and fighting with me, and I was a bit disappointed being limited to one at a time ! Anyway great game overall, good job :)

gaspard 2018-12-12 23:00

@ecmjohnson from scratch for life!

@jacquouille Thanks for the lengthy feedback! The boss spawns based on your size. I can beat the game without smol wasps, but that's far harder than with them, and requires good rng. Smol Wasps allow to get out of a lot of tricky situations!

It seems people have a hard time reaching the boss, so here are a few pointers: - you can use smol wasps to push enemies off screen. This despawns them, reducing the amount of bullets on screen and making the game more manageable. Keep some enemies on screen to eat though. - smol wasps also help create space, and cost less than taking a hit. Plus the slowmo can help assess the situation - you can send enemies towards, allowing to catch hard to get prey while staying out of danger yourself Be careful, this may also send projectiles at a rather high speed! - enemies lose size when getting life drained or hit by a smol wasp, this allows to eat potentially big enemies by staying on them while avoiding shots. Smol wasps can be used to keep them on screen / reduce their size further.

I won't give tips for the boss, he's a little hard, but if someone gets that far I doubt he'll give up ;) Also around 2/5 of the cool things of the game are at the boss...

I can speed-run consistently in around 40-50 seconds using cheese, my fastest being around 28 seconds. A non-cheese (read: normal) playthrough takes around 1 to 2 minutes, so winning is possible :P