My name is Sergio and I've been a game developer for almost 6 years now. This year, I spent a long time playing danmaku games to understand what I like about them and what I dislike and after many months experimenting, I finally came up with a concept that is the perfect bullet hell for me, and should be fun to core and casual players.
Phoenix Force is the Fantasy Shooter game with 500 000+ downloads that focuses only in boss battles that last around 30-60 seconds. Each battle has 1 to 4 bosses that have dynamic attack patterns that aim directly at the player.
I actually got the PC version of this in a bundle not too long ago: not too bad, though definitely aimed at more of a casual audience (I was able to finish all 100 levels, and I'm pretty bad, heh). A few things I'd suggest to improve it, if you're up for that sort of thing:
- More variety in the boss designs might be nice: while their attacks and appearances are different, they're all around the same size and move in the same pattern. One of the hallmarks of shmupdom is the "screen-filling boss", so a few of those might break things up, as well as some smaller, more agile ones, or any departure from the "hovers at the top and shoots stuff" template.
- Some of the phoenixes (supposedly there are 6, but I only saw 5?) lag behind the mouse when you move; I understand this was meant to give them some variation in the "speed" rating, but I ended up using the ones that followed my motions better, as the others simply felt sloppy, especially for a fairly bullet-heavy game that demands some precision. On a related note, I used the "Gaia" bird almost exclusively after I unlocked him, simply because you barely have to aim with him, which made things loads easier.
- Also, as far as I could tell each Phoenix's special attack (with one exception) simply activates automatically after a set amount of time, which limits their usefulness (especially the fire bird, whose power shot is totally wasted if it activates when you're dodging off to the side). Giving the player more control of these would make them more useful.
- The game's not super-complicated, but I still wish it explained a bit more; the lack of story I can put up with (though others might dock you a point for it, especially since there's no ending), but I still have no idea what the "diamond" levels are for (just to grind for experience/levels? I can't imagine too many have finished all 1000 of them). I also received the message "beat your friend's scores" after finishing level 100, but I don't see a score display anywhere - if a scoring system exists I'd be interested in how exactly it works.
- On a laptop screen enemy bullets were generally not too hard to keep track of, but I don't know if the same would apply on a mobile device; you might want to give some of them brighter colors and/or some means of flashing or otherwise making them easier to see, or at least give players the option to tinker with it.
Congrats on the game having managed to find some success, hopefully what I said makes some sense.
BulletMagnet wrote:I actually got the PC version of this in a bundle not too long ago: not too bad, though definitely aimed at more of a casual audience (I was able to finish all 100 levels, and I'm pretty bad, heh). A few things I'd suggest to improve it, if you're up for that sort of thing:
- More variety in the boss designs might be nice: while their attacks and appearances are different, they're all around the same size and move in the same pattern. One of the hallmarks of shmupdom is the "screen-filling boss", so a few of those might break things up, as well as some smaller, more agile ones, or any departure from the "hovers at the top and shoots stuff" template.
- Some of the phoenixes (supposedly there are 6, but I only saw 5?) lag behind the mouse when you move; I understand this was meant to give them some variation in the "speed" rating, but I ended up using the ones that followed my motions better, as the others simply felt sloppy, especially for a fairly bullet-heavy game that demands some precision. On a related note, I used the "Gaia" bird almost exclusively after I unlocked him, simply because you barely have to aim with him, which made things loads easier.
- Also, as far as I could tell each Phoenix's special attack (with one exception) simply activates automatically after a set amount of time, which limits their usefulness (especially the fire bird, whose power shot is totally wasted if it activates when you're dodging off to the side). Giving the player more control of these would make them more useful.
- The game's not super-complicated, but I still wish it explained a bit more; the lack of story I can put up with (though others might dock you a point for it, especially since there's no ending), but I still have no idea what the "diamond" levels are for (just to grind for experience/levels? I can't imagine too many have finished all 1000 of them). I also received the message "beat your friend's scores" after finishing level 100, but I don't see a score display anywhere - if a scoring system exists I'd be interested in how exactly it works.
- On a laptop screen enemy bullets were generally not too hard to keep track of, but I don't know if the same would apply on a mobile device; you might want to give some of them brighter colors and/or some means of flashing or otherwise making them easier to see, or at least give players the option to tinker with it.
Congrats on the game having managed to find some success, hopefully what I said makes some sense.
I wanted you to play the mobile version, where most of your feedbacks are well answered, where you can connect to Facebook and compare scores, the 6th phoenix is available, the additional challenges make sense and Gaia and Tupã are better designed.
Well, I don't have either a smartphone or any social media account, so I suppose that's as far as I go for now, heh. Good to hear that at least some of the stuff I mentioned was addressed on mobile, though.
UPDATE: Thanks for getting the game in a bundle, I'll make sure you'll get the Steam Key and the final version of the game with no rough edges.
If I can get enough votes, I'll adjust the game based on most of you feedback that fits the PC version perfectly. Right now the PC version is very rough.
Bullet Party - Shoot the party crashers [1-4 players][Download]
