A game I'm making: The Corrupted Council

[dragonsamurai77]

Magic... is something that is inside all of us. Some may be able to call upon its powers more than others, but there is no one who cannot use it at all. The Council, however, wishes to change that. Under their rule, magic is heavily restricted. I wish to change that, but my powers alone are not enough to oppose the entire council. That is why I built something that can. Wish me luck.

A Touhou-inspired danmaku shooter. Pilot your mecha-dragon and defeat the Council's forces.

This current demo has 2 levels, but the final game will have:
-5 levels
-Hard mode
-A bonus boss for each difficulty
-A very hard-to-find secret
-Multiple control schemes
-Sound Test

Controls:
Mouse: Navigate menus
Arrows: Move
Hold Z: Fire
X: Bomb
P: Pause

Note: It is currently impossible to Game Over; this is so that everyone can get through it.

Made with GameMaker Lite 8.1.

Download

Screenshots:

Spoiler

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[Dumbledore lives]

Well I played it through and I'll preface my comments with a few things: first I haven't played many bullet hell games before, pretty much only Jamestown, second I am currently studying game design at Digipen so have some experience in this kind of stuff.

I like the game, I think that overall it is quite difficult but given the genre it is obviously what you are going for. I like the enemy designs and how each has its own color clearly showing what kind of pattern you can expect. The bosses as well have a few unique attacks which is nice and the player character's sprite is pretty awesome. There are a few little things that I would suggest changing though.

The second levels background should be changed to something with more contrast, as the yellow bullets barely show up making the boss especially difficult. I would suggest upping the difficulty on the first stage of the boss as well, as dodging the rings of green bullets was quite easy especially compared to the later stages. For both bosses the text at the bottom reading boss is kind of obstructive and adds nothing that the player doesn't already know. I'm sure you plan to implement this but health bars or visual damage indicators are key for any game like this, with player feedback very important.

Another thing which I found kind of confusing were the bombs. Their actual effect is interesting and useful, the giant laser beam that destroys bullets but I believe the actual name is a bit of a misnomer, as I was expecting them to destroy all bullets on screen. Naming it to super laser charges or something would help, or maybe something more fantasy but I think it definitely needs either a name or function change.

The homing style also seems to be better than the other two as it means it doesn't really matter where the player is on screen they will always be damaging the enemy. This means dodging can take complete precedence. Just a few other minor things, using escape to start the game is really weird, something else like space would be better, the dialogue boxes are quite obtrusive and break up flow so I'd say ditch them, maybe put some text up on screen but to have to click or push enter through them is annoying, and at the end of the mini-bosses and bosses you might want to clear the screen of bullets, as I noticed especially in the second level it was kind of an annoyance.

Overall though it is a fun game and looks like a great start. Also if you want a sample of a game I made this semester you can find it here.

[Anecronwashere]

The 2nd boss is way to hard
Seriously I must have lost 6-7 lives just pumping bombs and using homing bullets on him.
Compared to the first boss which went down in like 10 seconds it's a massive jump


And some of his shots aren't actually dodgeable, red and blue lines for instance
Or the blue fill the screen stuff needs bombs just to not take damage

[dragonsamurai77]

Well I played it through and I'll preface my comments with a few things: first I haven't played many bullet hell games before, pretty much only Jamestown, second I am currently studying game design at Digipen so have some experience in this kind of stuff.

I like the game, I think that overall it is quite difficult but given the genre it is obviously what you are going for. I like the enemy designs and how each has its own color clearly showing what kind of pattern you can expect. The bosses as well have a few unique attacks which is nice and the player character's sprite is pretty awesome. There are a few little things that I would suggest changing though.

The second levels background should be changed to something with more contrast, as the yellow bullets barely show up making the boss especially difficult. I would suggest upping the difficulty on the first stage of the boss as well, as dodging the rings of green bullets was quite easy especially compared to the later stages. For both bosses the text at the bottom reading boss is kind of obstructive and adds nothing that the player doesn't already know. I'm sure you plan to implement this but health bars or visual damage indicators are key for any game like this, with player feedback very important.

Another thing which I found kind of confusing were the bombs. Their actual effect is interesting and useful, the giant laser beam that destroys bullets but I believe the actual name is a bit of a misnomer, as I was expecting them to destroy all bullets on screen. Naming it to super laser charges or something would help, or maybe something more fantasy but I think it definitely needs either a name or function change.

The homing style also seems to be better than the other two as it means it doesn't really matter where the player is on screen they will always be damaging the enemy. This means dodging can take complete precedence. Just a few other minor things, using escape to start the game is really weird, something else like space would be better, the dialogue boxes are quite obtrusive and break up flow so I'd say ditch them, maybe put some text up on screen but to have to click or push enter through them is annoying, and at the end of the mini-bosses and bosses you might want to clear the screen of bullets, as I noticed especially in the second level it was kind of an annoyance.

Overall though it is a fun game and looks like a great start. Also if you want a sample of a game I made this semester you can find it here.

Background: Agreed, but I need to find a color that still looks desert-y.

Second boss: Shouldn't be too hard to add a bit to that attack.

Text boxes: I eventually plan to replace it with voice acting, but if the files are too big, I'll come up with a better way to display the dialogue instead.

Bombs: Naming convention.

Game information/using ESC: Programming limitation; I'm using the built-in game limitation screen. Wouldn't be too hard to make my own, though.

Homing bullets: I've been struggling with balance, but I still don't have a solution besides eliminating the option entirely, which I don't want to do.

Thank you so much for the feedback!

The 2nd boss is way to hard
Seriously I must have lost 6-7 lives just pumping bombs and using homing bullets on him.
Compared to the first boss which went down in like 10 seconds it's a massive jump


And some of his shots aren't actually dodgeable, red and blue lines for instance
Or the blue fill the screen stuff needs bombs just to not take damage

I have played through the game many times, everything can be dodged, it just requires more precision that most people are used to. Also, the "first boss" is actually a miniboss, the "second" is the first actual boss.