BLM

by smealum
Overall★★★★★★★★★★3.84
Fun★★★★★★★★★★3.82
Innovation★★★★★★★★★★3.24
Theme★★★★★★★★★★3.73
Graphics★★★★★★★★★★3.52
Audio★★★★★★★★★★2.95
Humor★★★★★★★★★★2.76
Mood★★★★★★★★★★3.28
Coolness★★★★★★★★★★74%
BLM is an arena shoot em up. The player's goal is to minimize his size : shooting makes you smaller, getting shot makes you bigger.
It features a total of 45 stages which ramp up from very easy to hellishly difficult.

Controls are explained in-game. However, I can NOT stress enough that it is essential you master cannon locking in the game's practice stage before starting to play, it's a really important mechanic of the game. :P

Don't hesitate to share your high scores ! I have to admit I can't get much further than the 20th stage without using a few retries. :P

This should run on Windows without any problem. If you *do* encounter problems however, please contact me either in the comments or at [email protected]

Unfortunately, there is no native linux version because while compilation isn't an issue, it introduced a lot of gameplay bugs that aren't present on the windows version. This isn't too surprising considering how horrid the code is, but it's very disappointing. I guess next time linux should be my primary target !
Nevertheless, I'm told the windows version runs well enough in Wine. I'm a little concerned about performance to be honest, but it's better than nothing, so don't hesitate to give it a try !

here's a timelapse of the development process : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLV_NOViO50

screenshot

Comments24

DdlyHeadshot
DdlyHeadshot29 Apr 2013, 11:07
I LOVE THIS GAME!!! Shame that trying to use the select level function crashes the thing, but otherwise THIS IS SO AWESOME!!!
TheSnide
TheSnide29 Apr 2013, 15:56
Never underestimate the power of too many particles !

Awesome.
kannas
kannas29 Apr 2013, 18:13
Woah, the square becomes huge in a wink. anyway, this game is epic! it's a lot of time i don't use a Massive particle Shooter game xD you did a really good job ;D
vidarn
vidarn29 Apr 2013, 18:45
Wow, this in insane (in a good way)!
HelkeGames29 Apr 2013, 19:44
Simply awesome ! Well done!
Ernyz29 Apr 2013, 19:49
That is very nice, fast paced games like this are awesome :) only thing i miss is the possibility to control the square with arrows (probably because im right handed).
fullmontis
fullmontis30 Apr 2013, 15:42
I love this game! Minimalistic yet over the top. If you could control the firing with the mouse it would be perfect :)
Arkazon30 Apr 2013, 16:13
Controls are a bit fiddly - would be nice to be able to aim with the mouse. Other than that, great game. Nice concept.
pighead1030 Apr 2013, 16:53
Awesome! Controls are a bit awkward.
goerp30 Apr 2013, 19:10
Bullithell is a type of game I always want to try to make.
This looks great and the gamemechanic where you get bigger when being is shot is brilliant!
Another autotracker, but here its speed is adjusted for the type of game.

I am used to using WASD but then combined with mouse in lefthand. This was a bit hard to steer.
Alex Rose
Alex Rose30 Apr 2013, 19:13
Man, this is insanely difficult, and that's what I love. Awesome game. Perfectly fits the theme. Awesome.
Jellycakes30 Apr 2013, 23:17
Nice looking shooter! Played well too kept me engaged even though I kept dying. Nice job!
SuperDisk30 Apr 2013, 23:19
WOW! What a polished game! A bit too hard for me, however.

I like it!
FREEZX
FREEZX30 Apr 2013, 23:22
Seriously awesome! Loved everything about this!
GetFun1 May 2013, 09:59
wow. this works so good with all these particles on screen. I rally like it a lot. gratz
Blizzil1 May 2013, 15:00
It has a nice feel to it, easy to learn and hard to master. Very well done! The visuals are simple, but due to the insane amount of particles it looks really stylish.
PsenFilip1 May 2013, 16:10
First impression: Lots of on screen text! Oh my...
I think the rules are solid. I don't think the text is really needed on there. You could've just let the player find it out!
The practice stage idea is neat, anyway. Good!

I would say that aliasing WASD to Arrow Keys would be a nice addition. Took my a while to get used with WASD+space and arrow keys would certainly help on there. It felt rather uncomfortable by the end of my play session.

The graphics are really cool and the music fits your aesthetic quite nicely.

I didn't manage to pass level 27. I tried several ways and approaches. I die after the first or second kill.

+1 for C source code. I skimmed through and the code structure surprisingly looks quite nice. Also GL immediate mode is not for the faint-hearted! :D
Puccini
Puccini1 May 2013, 16:22
A great game! I really like it!.

I find it dificult to point.
Norgg
Norgg1 May 2013, 18:57
Nice! Soooo many particles. Q and E were a bit awkward to get to while using WASD and my right hand wasn't really doing much other than pressing space, being able to rebind those or having them on the right side of the keyboard would be nice.

I got to level 40 without really using bombs, then they became very, very necessary.
marnaouf5 May 2013, 09:45
Really fun and awesome game
Benjamin16 May 2013, 15:16
First time I can heal myself by consuming super attack in a shooter :D And it feels pretty good. It's a fun shooter you have here. And also very well executed : I never saw as much bullets on my netbook with NO lag at all. The getting bigger trick is interesting but not so fun I think. It really mess the difficulty curve because you think that's everything is alright and suddenly the time you realize you should pay more attention to hits you are already dead. I think it would be like having half energy bar on your second round at Street fighter, or a pad shrinking at each death in arkanoid... or ... well you get it.
free_napalm20 May 2013, 19:56
The controls could be better. It would be a much better experience with a twin stick controller of course, but it would have been nice to incorporate the right hand on the keyboard for bomb and shockwave (as somebody said before).
Otherwise, great arena shoot em up that runs really fluid.
shawn4220 May 2013, 21:00
PARTICLES!! Love it. I really like the "size as a health meter" approach. It makes the game SO hard once you start getting hit.
smealumauthor21 May 2013, 14:36
thanks for the ratings and comments everyone !
it seems the main gripe with the game was the controls and i can get behind that to an extent. while i do like the cannon locking (which i more or less borrowed from bangai-o spirits), it's true that key placement wasn't optimal, and just making it possible to change keys for actions would have help many of you.
as for Benjamin's comment about how getting better alters the difficulty, the thing is that difficulty in my game kind of grows exponentially with how little health you have, instead of the linearly as is usually the case. I actually like that (the idea that the more fucked you are, well, the more fucked you're going to get), but I guess it would have been a good idea to have a way to regain health in between rounds.
anyway, thanks again for all the comments, see you next time maybe ! :D

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