BulletMan

Nice work, the bullets-becoming-obstacles mechanic is really cool! It forces you to be more careful about how you shoot, I like it.

I liked the art and the sounds, I noticed I blocked myself off with bullets a few times. I saw some small things that could use polish like you said but overall it was fun!

Loved audio and mood. I really wish it was a bit more polished, I would have given it MUCH higher ratings if for example the music didn't cut out at the start of levels, more and more interesting graphics, etc.

I really like the premise. Bullets that don't disappear sounds like a fun thing to play with. But the execution of the concept feels like a missed opportunity:

The bullets are stuck completely where they are left, that means often the way forward is blocked off and you have to reset the level, which is really annoying for an action game of this nature. Then the way enemies take so many hits to kill means that you're inclined to spray, which leaves a bunch of bullets lying around, which blocks the way, which makes you have to reset the game...

The bullets, after they're "dead" should have been able to be pushed around via physics, and/or interact with enemies like block their path or something. That would open up a whole new avenue of interesting interaction and perhaps not necessitate restarting a level every time you missed a bunch.

Enemies' shots also becoming obstacles is also very frustrating.

And it would be good to be able to see the enemies' health so you know how many times it still needs to be hit to kill it, especially with excess bullets becoming a nuisance.

As it is now the game encourages the player to stay as far away as possible at those heads and shoot them before they move at you, which is not very interesting or satisfying!

Love the concept! Needs more design development!

interesting music and sound effects, overall enjoyable to play

All the graphics adhere to a single theme which is good. Gameplay is a bit difficult Level design games are always hard and require more effort so good job on that !!

@tuism
Thanks for the feedback, i wanted the game to be a bit "hard" but you have some valid points.

I agree that pushing around bullets would have been a better solution.
A healthbar for enemies is something i wanted to implement, but i ran out of time.

There are many things i would do better if i could restart, but im quite happy with the end product.
I will definitely plan a bit more in the next LD!

Really cool idea and concept, I can see some potential here!

I think that mechanic is brilliant, some of those monsters take way too long to kill and I guess that's the point. It's like a maze to trick you into thinking to go one way, but you don't always have to. gj

Really loved the mechanic! Really saw this as more of a puzzle game with action mechanics than a pure action game. Being able to block off enemies with bullet walls rather than kill them, limiting your shots where possible. Really good!

I think the only real criticism is consistency. Some of the enemies seemed like the took a solid 10+ seconds of constant bullet streams to kill, where others took barely any. It *does* get you to spray more than necessary, but it's never fun when games break their consistency. If it is intentional, it would probably be cool to see them at least have different colours to indicate they'll take longer, or something. You won't know exactly how much, but you can go in with a bit more intention.

Really fun game! That mechanic is an awesome take on the theme. I'd love to see it go hard on the puzzle driven solutions. Really good!

Trying to run on Linux but I get the following error when running from the command line:

Error: Could not load game path '.'.

What am I doing wrong?

The game is hard. Like the idea.

@chillen
It was not intentional, thank you for pointing it out. :)

@agwblack You need to download version for windows (BulletManWindows.zip) and to take the file BulletMan.pck from archive. Probably, @grewoss forgot to make it.

Came here to vote, found an interesting idea :D I wonder how far can you push this idea

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@alexey-akulovich Thanks for pointing that out! Will add it as soon as i can!

@sloyd
I'm currently thinking about a *post* Ludum Dare release with all the Levels and Mechanics reworked.
"Puzzle Levels" could be pretty interesting.

The levels are hard, but I don't feel like that is a bad thing. For the second level for example I used bullets to create walls to lock in the enemies so I could grab teleport core, since killing the enemies was too hard for me. I would love some more levels to ease me into the concepts, but that is something you should totally add in a post Ludum Dare version! Either way, had a lot of fun and overall a very nice result!

(Tip: flip the x-scale of the gun from 1 to -1 when aiming to the left to prevent the gun from looking upside down.)

Bullets that block movement are a good find. The game evokes pleasant emotions.

@hare-software Thanks for the Feedback!

I thought about flipping the gun, but I thought it looked funny so I keeped it like this.
If i look at it now, it feels kinda unprofessional so I agree with you, I should have flipped it. :)

I liked the bullets-become-obstacles mechanic, it's interesting. The visuals are quite nice. I got a bit fed up with the floating heads sticking to the hero and chomping them to death, though.

Nice game, very innovative mechanics, i liked the graphics a lot and is nice to have music! Great work, keep it up!

really decent game and i liked that the bullets became part of the playfield - top notch

Interesting gameplay - and really well done. I like the main aesthetic and music. Overall, you did a great entry. Bravo ++