A Space Game (A [___] Game) is more of a proof of concept than a fully fledged game. Taking the "You Only Have One" theme, I decided to create a rogue-like game. I've always wanted to create a bullet-hell shoot-em-up so decided to use this opportunity to work on it.
The title is a play on the space theme of the game and the shoot button (space). Basically, I'm awful at naming games.
The game mode you enter is a simple survival mode, where every second 100 points is added to your score. As the score increases the number of enemies spawning becomes higher and occasionally a large ship with multiple gun batteries will spawn.
This is my first ever entry to Ludum Dare so as a result my time management wasn't great and I didn't have time to add sounds or music - but in the future this can all be added in due course.
You have two different ships to choose from, each with its own special attack. Each ship has a target indicator which will allow the ship to lock its weapon onto enemies which enter the target indicator zone. Pressing space will fire at all locked on targets.
A second special ability is bullet time, where holding shift will slow time down to 25% of normal speed which allows to dodge complex arrangements of bullets, but beware as this only works for a limited time and will need to completely recharge if fully depleted.
Looking at the source code you can see it's pretty sloppy but it works and that's all that matters. :P
Controls: <wasd> for movement <space> shoot bullets/special weapon <shift> bullet time
I hope you enjoy!
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Updates: 14:01 16/12/2013 - Fixed a bug where enemies would persist after death. 13:37 02/01/2014 - Fixed the missing bullet bug. Bullet entities were being deleted when they should simply be de-spawned at the end of a game, as they are cached and reused for efficiency.
ahh...a classic arcade styled shooter. That lock-on part is pretty cool!
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X-0r18 Dec 2013, 17:21
Oh yes, locking on enemies to blast them with rayguns =) Almost beat the final boss, it only had one or maybe two cannons left... I might try is again in a while :) The shift-key isn't too easy to reach for bullet-time (says the guy, who's game uses shift to activate shields^^) but it's an awesome ability to dodge!
Got to the boss with 39k points, put a good fight up to him, dodging bullets in bullet time, but his armor was too good for mu gunz. I was like the flash of lightning, jumping around in the darkness of the clouds, but the swarm of bullets gave me no way. I was cornered and killed. Overall nice, just wished there were some powerups. And sounds :)
Hah, a much more fully featured shooter than mine! The shift control for bullet time took just a bit of getting used to, but once I did it was smooth sailing. Great work!
Bug: Once the game resets after you die, bullets no longer shoot from either the enemies or your ship. I liked the 'lock-on' concept and I think the game would be more fun and unique if you removed the other means of shooting entirely. I don't know how you intended the theme to be interpreted in your game, I take it that it's supposed to be you only get one ship? I liked the attention to detail you put into your graphics. Audio and some vfx would give this game more punch.
Nice graphics and nice old school shoot-em-up ! The bullet time is a great idea but I think it's kindda too slow ? Don't really know how to put it, but I think it can be exploited in a better way, I had trouble using it properly. (no bugs, I just found it less playable when I used it)
Only 62560 points. :/ Got to kill the big guy twice in one play-through though. That was pretty awesome. Some sound would be nice, and enemy patterns were a touch repetitive.
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Almost beat the final boss, it only had one or maybe two cannons left... I might try is again in a while :)
The shift-key isn't too easy to reach for bullet-time (says the guy, who's game uses shift to activate shields^^) but it's an awesome ability to dodge!
I liked the 'lock-on' concept and I think the game would be more fun and unique if you removed the other means of shooting entirely. I don't know how you intended the theme to be interpreted in your game, I take it that it's supposed to be you only get one ship? I liked the attention to detail you put into your graphics. Audio and some vfx would give this game more punch.
The bullet time is a great idea but I think it's kindda too slow ? Don't really know how to put it, but I think it can be exploited in a better way, I had trouble using it properly. (no bugs, I just found it less playable when I used it)
The gameplay was pretty solid, but as you must already know, more content would've been great.
The Bullet Time ability didn't really feel right to me either. I'm also accustomed to much smaller hitboxes in my SHMUPS :P.
Good job on your first Ludum Dare project!