I took possibly the most literal response to "helpful but harmful" and have made a 2D shooter where shooting also reduces your health. The enemies are designed to keep you on your toes and you must decide moment to moment whether to shoot and make yourself vulnerable, or to evade, letting your health recharge but putting yourself at risk of being overwhelmed.

This was my first completed game and it was great to dabble into sound and art which are new territories for me.

There are a few too many waves of slimes but after that the game picks up.

-2D Arena Shooter
-3 Enemy Types and 9 Enemy Variations
-15 Waves of chaos

Controls:
Left Control - Dash
Movement - WASD
Shoot - Left Click
R - Restart Current Wave (due to bug)

The sound effects were created in SFXR (developed by DrPetter)

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  • Jupiter Hadley
    Lv. 13

    Tricky game! I included it in my compilation video series of all of the GM48 games, if you’d like to take a look. :) https://youtu.be/3epPRcwgayM

  • Fachewachewa
    Patron

    Solid game, few nitpicks :

    • don't make us press enter when the controls are WASD + mouse
    • use shift rather than ctrl, especially for a dash
  • Problematicar
    Lv. 37

    Basic idea, i feel like you implemented it pretty well though.

    Universe T
    Submitted

    Universe T

  • Veralos
    Lv. 38

    The core mechanic is a good use of the theme and it's implemented well. I like how the health regenerates so that you can't ever stuck without "ammo". The movement and shooting feels nice and I really enjoyed when I got the triple shot. The dash feels a bit underutilised though.

    The visuals are pretty simple but also very solid. The walking animation is nice, the shooting is cool and the round transition is neat. I also appreciate the health flashing and beeping when you get low. Speaking of which, the audio works well.

    The main issues I have are with the enemy design. The way the slimes split is cool but they get old quickly especially considering how easy it is to avoid them. The bugs help to mix things up but I don't like how their puddles stay forever (especially considering they drop health in them). They also have a similar following pattern to the slimes so they don't vary things as much as they could. There could be other enemies later on but if there were I didn't get to them.

    • abso1ution
      Lv. 7
      abso1ution Developer of Blood Gunner

      6yrs ago

      Thanks for your feedback, I couldn't have agreed more regarding the slimes having played it myself through many times now. In hindsight I would cut back the slime levels and probably use less of the larger slimes.

      I disagree regarding the puddles, they are by no means perfectly executed but it adds some depth to the game and as you get more experienced you can stack the puddles in one area.

      There was another enemy type that throws projectiles, unfortunately I introduced it too far in the game and most people didn't get to that point due to difficulty or not enjoying the earlier game.

  • Kwis
    Lv. 67

    For a first complete game that's rather nice! I found it a bit too difficult at first until I realized you get health by not shooting (a bit unrealistic, but handy)

    I like that some slime enemies would split in several others!

    Like in many swarm type of games, it suffers from the "can't breathe" issue, where the player is chased 24/7 and has no room nor time to breathe and recollect his thoughts since he's always so busy fleeing.

    • abso1ution
      Lv. 7
      abso1ution Developer of Blood Gunner

      6yrs ago

      That's an interesting point about the "cant breathe" issue, I'll keep that in mind if I make something similar in the future, thanks for your feedback.

  • gary butler
    Lv. 6

    Nice work. I had a lot of fun. First time sound and graphics are good enough for me, because of the smooth controls and fun game play. As a side note though most of the text in the game was way off the right side of my screen, idk if it was my screen resolution or what. Since the text didn't seem that important it didn't bother me.

    • abso1ution
      Lv. 7
      abso1ution Developer of Blood Gunner

      6yrs ago

      Thanks for your feedback, I had some real issues with that font being offset but it appeared "fixed" on my screen. I'll have to look into that issue for the future.

  • Fin_Nolimit
    Lv. 6

    I played this game way too long!! hahah.. You had me! After the first 8 waves I thought it was too easy. I loved the fact that my health went up fast and I was faster than the bad guys but then I hit wave 9 and it all changed. I think I made it to wave 11 and just could not beat it. Nice game and great job completing the jam!!!

    Trials
    Submitted

    Trials

  • AceOfSpad3s
    Lv. 3

    You did a good work with the game engine, unfortunately the game becomes very difficult after the wave 7, maybe too much, the problem are the poison puddles that don't disappears.

    • abso1ution
      Lv. 7
      abso1ution Developer of Blood Gunner

      6yrs ago

      Thanks for the feedback, I appreciate it. I left myself very little play testing time and I agree in hindsight I would tweak the later difficulty and reduce the number of slime waves.

      Thanks again.