#bullet heaven

[askstrangeweird]

made some more Vampire Survivors inspired pixel art for me and @gorjee-art the other day.

[theredmark-dev]

Purpose of a "secondary" weapon

Hi there!

So in a recent update to my game Survivesmith, I added a secondary weapon in addition to the primary weapon which was given to the player by default. The first-ever "primary" weapon I had already given the player was a pistol. You might already be thinking, "That's not a primary weapon, that is the definition of a secondary weapon" and that is exactly what went through my head.

How are secondaries used in other games?

Having a pistol as a primary weapon is not bad or wrong by any means. It can be heavy and powerful. I may have seen many games where the player is rocking a pistol without ever having to think of any guns that go brrrrrrr. Pistols were pushed down more into the "secondary" hole due to multiplayer FPS games. In almost all games where the player has a super powerful gun, they also get a secondary weapon (in most cases, a pistol) to switch to mid-fight. There are several situations where a player may use a secondary weapon (a pistol to be exact).

The primary weapon may run out of ammo, forcing the player to switch.

The primary weapon may be under the reload state (empty magazine).

The primary weapon they hold may be more suited for long-ranged fights rather than short-ranged ones, meaning the pistol may be a better option in a close-range encounter.

These are only some of the situations I can imagine where the player will switch to their secondary weapon with or without being forced to do so.

How should secondaries be used in MY GAME?

In the case of a game like Survivesmith, an auto-shooter/bullet-heaven game, the laws of an FPS game don't apply. The main reason for this is the "auto-shooter" part. The gun is always firing at whatever it can find in whatever range it is given, and it will do it frantically. In an FPS game, there is more precision and meaning in every bullet fired by a player (unless jumped by an enemy of course!). This makes every bullet count, and the player is more conscious of using their ammo reserves.

I tried adding ammo boxes in the ground which spawn frequently enough, and was planning on adding a system where the player can CRAFT ammo packs by collecting resources. This sounded fine at first since my game was focused on being a rogue-lite bullet-heaven game with crafting mechanics. But as I kept on developing, I realized that running out of ammo and having to switch to a lower DPS weapon mid-game took some of the fun out of this game.

I wanted to player to feel the value of the primary weapon so that it becomes a constant struggle to go around the field, collect resources or ammo boxes, and switch back to their primaries to maw down enemies faster. But I soon realized that even I would give up on caring about the primary weapon altogether and just use the secondary weapon with unlimited ammo, while my other special weapons do the work. I saw the value of the primary weapon drop and the chore of having to collect ammo all the time becoming not-so-fun in the long run.

I could've simply introduced a higher ammo count, more frequent ammo boxes, or any way to make the primary weapon get more ammo quicker. But then again, this defeats the whole purpose of using two weapons. The game is not about managing ammo. It's about having fun without worry. So this is the idea that I came up with next.

How are secondaries used in my game now?

I got rid of the annoying ammo collection chore completely. Both weapons now function without any ammo usage. The player only has to worry about their timing with the reloads.

However, the primary and secondary weapons are now more or less having a similar DPS. The primary weapon (an assault rifle) deals less damage but has a high fire rate and a magazine capacity. The secondary weapon (pistol) deals more damage, has a low fire rate, low magazine capacity but reloads much faster. This works! It totally makes sense. There are now 2 weapons that suit different situations. This will work even better on weapons that deal damage in different ways. For example, a secondary weapon that deals area damage but has a low fire rate would complement well with a primary weapon such as an SMG.

So there you have it! This is my take on the use of secondaries in a bullet-heaven game. This was a long post and I kinda cut short towards the end.

Thanks for reading!

Cheers! MaRK

[aeroplanestouchthesky]

When is this website gonna get on Picayune Dreams, it feels so up Touhou and indie fans' alleys.

Picayune Dreams is a bullet-hell bullet-heaven (twin stick shooter) about a cyborg trapped in an loop trying to save humanity from space attacks. Really satisfying gameplay with a neat story tying together the bodily freedom seen in vampire survivor-like games (augmenting, building, etc) contrasting the stolen autonomy in the narrative.

Plus, it's very intentionally styled. Mid-run weapon descriptions use code-style language to explain the gear. Dialog occurs as transmissions. Story beats, expressed as memories, lean into the surreal to express characters' relations to those memories.

It's $5 on steam and easily 15+ hours of gameplay for completing it. I hope you like it!

[craftedcircuitry]

Deep Dark Wrath will be joining the Bullet Heaven Fest 2.0 on Steam! So the -35% Off Sale ($3.24) continues to the end of this event!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2891520/Deep_Dark_Wrath/ https://craftedcircuitry.itch.io/deep-dark-wrath

I may look into announcing the new additions to DDW during that time as well.

[sam-keeper]

oh shit new Heather Flowers roguelike

[gamemakings]

Trying out a new visual style... Thoughts?

[broadsiderenegade]

I am here to announce, the official Steam Demo is live! Next Fest is just around the corner, so hop in whenever you're ready! Your goal is to take out the first boss, but I allow you to continue on endlessly to go for a high score and see how much you can ramp the enemy difficulty up!

[jsuika]

PICAYUNE DREAMS

Speedpaint video will be posted on the 5th of February. Also this is for the art contest on NEWGROUNDS’s Picayune Dreams made by @stepf0rd, Andy4Land, and Milkypossum.

[captainchaosartworks]

Halls of Torment: Exterminator

Halls of Torment has really grabbed my attention lately. It's one of those "Bullet Heaven"-type horde-survival roguelites. This one is a bit more methodically-paced and channels the aesthetic of the old Diablo games with pre-rendered sprites and such.

I wanted to draw something from it so here's the Exterminator, my favorite class. Need a light? 🧑‍⚕️🔥💀

Posted using PostyBirb

[hazzieandnord]

Checking out the new character, Fire Queen, in the bullet heaven game, Nightfeed by WRF Studios.

[daswuseligealien]

Games I want to prototype - Dieselpunk Bullet Heaven

I really enjoy bullet heaven games and i want to make one that is more focused on movement. Dieselpunk Desert Centipede Fortress Fights Motorised Hordes Of Enemies

control a giant centipede fortress (it never stops)

use special abilities to aid in combat

survive hordes of attackers for 10 mins

continue a run for another 5 mins if your feel cocky

fight bosses

upgrade your centipede and guns

hire units to help you in fights

collect meta resources to upgrade between runs

Its basically your run of the mill bullet heaven but with a focus on mobility and ranged combat. Which is the main issue i have with the design. Nearly all bullet heavens are melee. If I add lots of shooting enemies it becomes a bullet hell again.

Another challenge is that i think i need procedural animation.

[askstrangeweird]

I made pixel Art of Strange and Charles ( @gorjee-art ) in the style of a Vampire Survivors clone game.

[theredmark-dev]

Splitting biomes, splitting the load

In my game Survivesmith, the original hook was to make a bullet-heaven with crafting elements. It felt pretty good in the beginning but when I kept testing out different ideas into this frame, the game started feeling boring and slow-paced for a bullet-heaven game.

Gameplay before

The initial features were good enough. There were 4 biomes with 4 very vibrant (and scorching on the eyes) colors. They were unlocked one after the other, after defeating each boss enemy. Each biome had a unique enemy which dropped a unique resource and the player had to collect different resources from different biomes to "craft" upgrades to their weapons and modules (stuff like shields, magnets, etc.). This was fine, but then the gameplay loop started becoming stale. I only understood this by playing the game for way too long myself.

Reasons for change

I wanted to make this game have some sort of crafting element built into its core. It was there, but it was starting to become a hassle for the player, an unwanted necessity to play the game.

I had thoughts of adding even more crafting resources to make things more interesting, but that made the game even more annoying to play.

I looked back and thought to myself, "Biomes are different enough, but they are not worth exploring". So I decided that as an additional element, I would incorporate a simple "exploration" aspect into the game. Crafting would still be there and would play a core role in the game, but collecting resources for crafting would be more fun if I didn't ask the player to do it for survival.

Gameplay after

So here's how it goes. You, the player, pick a biome (only 1 available at the start, no randomizing sh*t), drop into it, and are immediately given a reason for WHY.

Mission objective:

A single objective to WHY you're here in the first place. You're here to collect something that is extinct in your time and is essential for the survival of the human race. Collect it, get out. Simple.

Primary objective:

Also a single objective, which leads TO the mission objective. The thing you're looking for (a rare plant) is guarded by a boss enemy. You need to lure him out in order to collect the resource. Defeat enough enemies of the biome to lure him out. That's the primary objective.

Secondary objectives:

Note the 's'. The character you're playing as is here to defeat the boss and extract bla bla that doesn't really concern you does it? Well, this is what DOES. A random secondary objective will appear from the beginning of the run. Complete the simple task to get an "upgrade gem". This gem lets the player upgrade or unlock one of their equipment (weapon or module).

But here's the catch...

Secondary objectives don't need any attention at all. You just have to survive and usually, they present themselves to you rather than you having to find them. They are more involuntary.

Here are some examples:

Collect 10 flowers (They spawn all around you).

Defeat a tough enemy (It will find you, not the other way around).

Find hidden treasure (A scanner would ping faster based on your distance to it. You will eventually come across it if your hearing is good).

Objectives like this will randomly pop up and you, the player get to complete them if you want to upgrade your gear. It's all up to you. Besides, you level up and gain more power just by defeating all the bots coming at you. If you're confident enough, you could beat the level with zero upgrades to your equipment.

So there's that. There's a lot more thought and ideas behind the change of the biome system. But that will be covered in a separate post.

Thanks for the read!

Cheers! MaRK

[hardcoregamer]

Steam Bullet Heaven Fest Kicks Off with Firepower Overload

There are endless dozens of shooters wreaking havoc in the Bullet Heaven playground right now, and today Steam started a gaming fest to highlight them plus a few other games that can just barely fit within the definition.  Demos, upcoming games, Early Access titles and even a few fully-released games all populate the festival, not to mention a good number of sales.

Check them out!

[dzamie]

Apparently the guy behind the Epic Battle Fantasy and Bullet Heaven series is (was?) making a third Bullet Heaven game, and released a prototype a couple years ago? It's pretty fun, though the controls take some getting used to, as a fan of more classic-style bullet hells.

[gamemakings]

Been experimenting this week with a new feature, modifying other upgrades with extra effects. Very good potential for breaking the game