Delay the Destruction!! Danmaku Downfall

jonah-srg 2022-04-03 21:11

I'm a bit out of practice with bullet hell games but this is a lot of fun. Once I got the feel for the focus fire I was in business. Mechanically feels very solid, the breaks in between the kills make this feel like an endless boss rush. I got a bit of stutter in browser, though I imagine this is the kind of game that would run more reliably if I downloaded the .exe anyways. Not sure what the bombing does for score/survival differently than dying, so I'm wondering why it's worth it, but the effect is nice. The inevitable aspect of the timer works well with grazing, I feel like that where I felt like I was controlling time the most. For score: My best was 6057 with 1:40 on the clock. Overall really well done!

matthewrobo 2022-04-03 22:38

@jonah-srg Hey, thanks! The way the bomb works is that each bullet that gets bombed increases both your rank and your time, so a good bomb might leave you with more time than you started with, even if it initially costs more than dying.

jonah-srg 2022-04-04 02:22

@matthewrobo Aha, I like it. I think I was playing badly and bombing in patterns that weren't dense enough. The interplay between increasing rank/extending life is very clever.

sirjupitron 2022-04-04 04:54

Hi! Yes! really loved this one, bullet hell shmups fan here, those bullet patterns were great! Nice effects, cool strange shooting. 42 sec, my time, will try again.

dandala88 2022-04-04 05:59

I almost gave up on this one. There isn't any kind of ramp up in difficulty. It's just full on, right from the start. That's not a criticism. I'm not a fan of holding the player's hand. As long as you can keep the player engaged. Unfortunately, for me, it was that I found out how to cheese it.

Let me know if you'd like me to tell you how I did it. I stopped at about 5 minutes but was pretty confident I could go forever.

cheesedDelayTheDestruction.PNG

Although there isn't any background music, the sounds were pleasant enough. I really liked the bomb sounds as well as the visuals for when everything blew up.

If you're not well versed in the bullet hell genre, then you'll need some patience. Particularly if you play as intended. But for the initiated...Enjoy!

cerno-b 2022-04-04 13:34

I love Bullet Hell shooters, unfortunately, I'm really bad at them. This one took me on a journey. First I was only evading, which is where the fun in BHS games usually lies. Then I found out about the slowdown, shoot and bomb mechanics and started to get better at the game. Finally I found a loophole and from then on there was no stopping me:

2022-04-04_15h29_51.png

One important thing to take into account for the future: Don't use Y or Z in your controls, this is always messy with different language keyboards. Generally A, S is preferable instead, since WASD is supported in most countries.

It's a great, minimalistic, but very stylish game and it's a joy to watch in motion. Great job!

matthewrobo 2022-04-05 18:09

@dandala88 @cerno-b Hahah, yeah, I had a friend play it after the submission period ended and I got to see my game (and my heart) break before my very eyes.

@cerno-b I'm glad you at least enjoyed the base mechanics before you managed to find out the cheese though. Also, yeah, the keyboard language thing is my bad. I'm very used to arrow keys + shift Z X being the default (and often only) keybindings for basically every PC shmup ever made that I did neglect other regions. Whoops.

cerno-b 2022-04-05 18:16

@matthewrobo I know that feeling, man. Dang those players and their wily ways! :D

bloodbane 2022-04-06 08:16

I don't understand why I'm shooting downwards all the time and can't aim it elsewhere. But that gave me a crazy idea which makes the game easier... ;)

matthewrobo 2022-04-06 18:45

@bloodbane The bullets shoot down and _fall up_.

Your crazy idea is totally intentional.

fatsheep 2022-04-20 06:42

Extremely challenging and fun, until you eventually figure out the cheese. But i do like how satisfying the bomb felt when using it like normal and i think it's a good idea. I'm not 100% sure but i think one way to fix it would be to make it so that bullets can't be bombed for a short delay after they're spawned, so that the bullets would then not keep getting chain-bombed as they're spawning. Another fix could be to just force the chain to end as soon as a bullet damages the boss, and then have it deal a lot more damage, so that way you'd still get the damage but also still have incoming bullets to dodge immediately after.

Anyways, great game and it feels pretty good to play even for someone like me who sucks absolute ass at bullet hell.

glimmer 2022-04-21 15:57

pls don't use Z as input or have multiple buttons with the same function. On my keyboard Z and Y are swapped so I can't play the game so easy. otherwise the game is well rounded.

matthewrobo 2022-04-21 16:00

@glimmer Sorry about that! I'll do that next time.

Since it's a button that doesn't really ever need to be released (you still have to press it because pressing buttons feels good), you could always go with the good ol' coin trick where you stack like 50 coins on your Z key so that it essentially autofires.

jzucc12 2022-04-21 16:02

Took me a bit to understand how the game worked, but once I got there it was pretty cool. Nice submission.

zimny11 2022-04-21 16:04

The bullet-hell games are not something that I'm good at, but it was fut to try it out. Nice art style design. Some hype music is just missing :) Good job!

lemonscripts 2022-04-21 16:05

Nice game! Though with tutorial it would be better because it took me long time to figure out how the game works 😅

felkymike 2022-04-21 16:12

I really like bullet hell games. One problem: I'm REALLY bad at them, so I wasn't able to survive for very long. It was fun! And shooting down was really... Interesting, it caught me by surprise (not saying I didn't like it!).

mordsven 2022-04-21 16:23

I like bullet hell games, and this reminds me alot of Touhou games for some reason :p

Really like the gameplay and the concept. While the graphics is simple, it gives that retro arcade vibe which i really like !! Though i found an exploit where you can just stand in the boss's bubble (circle) and just stay there until you get bored and actually try to die. But overall, a good experience nonetheless.

Edit: i got a 3 min and a 15k score by using the exploit

OecavJw5TH.gif

matthewrobo 2022-04-21 16:26

@mordsven Hahah, yeah, I only had enough time to get playtesters after the event was over and sadly did not catch that when I was playing it myself.

Still, I'd like to think the game is actually pretty exciting before finding out that strategy, I remember feeling like fighting for every second on the clock using bombs and graze when I was playtesting it.

sakura-magika 2022-04-21 16:49

wow, you made touhou, nice! the controls felt too sensitive and jumpy for me. the "time halving" mechanic honestly felt unnecessary, like it didn't really add much or change how i played the game, i think a normal life system would have worked just fine.

slaninas 2022-04-21 18:14

The minimalistic graphics is really nice! The game is really hard for me, made just 1057 but it was fun.

trizalio 2022-04-21 18:30

Controls are too sensitive for me, can't beat even first boss =(

matthewrobo 2022-04-21 19:05

@trizalio If you think you move too quickly, try holding shift, it'll slow you down.