really cool! 4:06 maybe have a hard boss that force player to use this mechanic(have to jump in and off on the map edge). something like have an attack area on full map so player need to intentionally jump off to dodge the attack.
Bro this all looks so good! The unique mechanics and early polish are such a good sign for how good this game will be. The art is honestly really cool too. Keep it up Cam! Your channel and games are super underrated :)
Something I would want to keep in mind is to have all bullets that can’t be ghosted through have a common visual theme, like all being the same color or shape, so the player doesn’t get confused when they try to ghost through a bullet and it hurts them. Other than that, the game looks amazing! You’ve earned yourself a subscriber!
Yep, thats a very good point! All bullets that cannot be ghosted through will be blue, and they will all be arc-shaped (cuphead's parry system has a lot of complaints from colourblind people since it only relies on using the colour pink, so I'm planning to use both shape and colour for distinction)
This is just great, I love the bullet patterns and the knockback bullets idea. I had a concept for a similar game in terms of gameplay (which I will never actually finish), and this is incredibly inspiring. Can't wait to see your progress with this!
Thank you so much! Definitely give your concept a go, and if you're worried about never finishing I recommend keeping the scope as small as possible and at least trying out your idea to see if it's fun. Best of luck if you give your game idea a go!
The bullet patterns and the animations look awesome! Honestly that's a very good start, keep it up! The ghosting looks fun and is a very original idea, but the one thing I'd say about it is that using a player silhouette is a little bit dissonant with what the ability actually does. Usually in game this sort of UI indicates that the player is gonna arrive (or snap/blink) at that location, while in your game the player flies past it. In my opinion some sort of arrow or any sort of reticule that implies movement would be better. Anyway you've earned a subscriber, I can't wait to see where this goes! Good Luck!
I could imagine here being some extremely cool and specific boss features with the saving grace system at 4:20, such as forcing the player to jump off a ledge and use the ghost to land on a nearby one, but they're too far away to just go directly from one platform to another. Other things you could do to design physical geometry around the ghosting ability would be to design different types of walls that you can AND can't pass through with it. Perhaps metal fences are passable by the ghost, but solid walls are not. There could also perhaps be energy barriers that ONLY allow corporeal beings through, but not ghosts. The inclusion of walls can also lead to fun boss gimmicks like normally undodgable attacks that are blocked by walls, forcing the player to stick around them for some attacks, but wanting to get away from them for the freedom of movement Some bosses could spawn these physical barriers in the map as well as destroying parts of the floor, forcing you to use the ghosting for complex navigation, instead of purely dodging bullets all the time. It would expand on the feature in a way that could be unique for many different bosses.
This looks sick! I thought that the stage being sliced up was a really creative solution to the bottom stage camping problem. I can't wait to see where this goes!
This looks really cool and unique!!! You came up with a mechanic that looks very fun, is original and is not too complicated to understand, that's a really good thing!! I was surprised when I saw how few views and subscribers you have, you're really underrated! Keep up the good work because this has a lot of potential :D
Cool video, if you’re looking for more inspiration for boss attacks you could think about different bosses having unique methods of attacking. Like a slam attack, a shockwave, or summoning minions. Maybe a boss teleports spawning attacks in its place, maybe it throws itself directly at you. I see a lot of potential here good luck man.
@@Wholes4d Thanks for the ideas! I've actually got some minion spawning and teleport attacks right now, but I didn't have time to talk about all of it. I do like the idea of a slam attack / shockwave so I'll try use that in my next boss!
Holy shit this is the exact kind of game I wanted to implement! I got stuck at implementing a bullet/attack framework, and this gave me a lot of ideas and looks super cool!
yeaa im not gonna lie i dont think i did the attacks & bullets very well, and i spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to manage the different attacks and stuff Glad to hear it gave u a bunch of ideas though! def try give those ideas a go if u want, but dont be discouraged if it takes a bunch of tries, ive had to go through quite a few bad shmups before committing to this one
@@okay_cam I really want to get back into game development and try to implement the boss framework again, but my life is way too busy nowadays and I just wont be able to get around to it at least until I finish my degree
Id (maybe) suggest that after a set amount of range your bullet begins to shrink and make less damage which would make it less worth trying to stay away from an enemy, also maybe make it so that you bullet does like 2.5 dmg if shot at point blank which maybe isnt a viable strategy but itd be a nice payoff for if a boss stops shooting for a second and your already close to it
so im a liitle late but uh this looks insanely good and definitely feels like a game that i would definitely play for a WHILE (provided there is more than two bosses, which i assume there is) the bullet patterns are REALLY sick, especially the spinning bullets one. ghosting looks fun as hell to use and mess with, and i love how you gave people a way to not instantly die to arena changes or falling off the map wonder if the blue attacks are gonna be used more as actual attacks and not just arena guards, given how cool of an idea that is the arena as of now is neat, but i wonder if other arena shapes could be made. maybe a cluster of islands that could be dashed between? that little green guy looks really neat. despite the fact they're smaller than 90% of the game sprites i like the fact that they're still visually distinct from everything else one small thing is that the ghosting has a fairly large distance. i don't know if this would be possible but having a smaller variant or some way to control the distance *slightly* might be neat. unsure if that would mess with boss design tho i love boss rush games and i cannot wait to see where this goes later. has a lot of potential
Thank you for all the feedback!! Right now in the video, I just show the 2 different phases of the same boss, and I have plans to make 2 more bosses. I'm glad you like the mechanics so far too! I really like the idea of having multiple islands to dash between, so that will 100% be in the next boss fight. And you mentioned that distance variety would be nice for ghosting - right now you can adjust the distance slightly, but you're right that the distance is still quite large. I've just decreased the minimum ghosting distance and that should hopefully allow for some more options, we'll see how that goes. Thanks again for the detailed message!
Small change would suggest making the character transparent when ghosting, with rolling most gamers have been taught that its not only mobility but also evasive, but when ghosting loos like just walking it might be initally confusing for some
@@christianottley8542 that's a good point. the player does go slightly transparent when ghosting but it's not very obvious, so I might try to make that more clear, and I'll have to add a small tutorial too
I done some bullet hell research on multiple shmup, (vertical and some emphasis on enter the gungeon) got some good suggestions that is up to you to apply or not! I do suggest implementing a more stable camera system, Enter the gungeon's camera system(where it follows between mouse and player) has a certain flaw. *you must be a good aim to be a good dodge.* It's a really hidden flaw- and often it can punish new players into doubting their skill, not for a good reason. *the player should be able to be a good dodge, WITHOUT being a good aim* (bad aiming should only punish on missing the enemy, not the mispredicting of bullets. unless they are sniper ahh hyper focusing lol) it should be fine for your game, as it focuses on a single arena! Another tip, is if you are making a dodge roll like mechanic, *GO ALL THE WAY WITH IT!* Currently judging the patterns in the video, even a veteran player can dodge the bullets without using the teleportation mechanic provided. Enter the gungeon has another issue, *The dodge roll was added as a workaround to dodge impossible walls.* note* a work around. its very obvious in the stages, The bullets in the game have so much rng involved, that its actually just better to not dodge roll. Only when some enemies spawn a dense walls of bullets that force you to take cover, or dodge roll and get hit right after. So make your teleportation mechanic actually feel like an intended mechanic to be used in the game. Try implementing a system that encourages the player for passing through bullets with the teleportation(scoring, increasing a certain gauge for a power, increases recovery time for next teleportation...) so many different benefits you can apply to this gimmick. (yes, enter the gungeon does have certain items that encourage you to dodge roll over bullets, BUT ITS ALL ON RNG TO GET THE ITEM IN THE FIRST PLACE) Last tip is identifying all possible strategy types that is even possible in your design, (streaming, micrododging, macrododging are the obvious ones.) use those possible types as guidelines of how you want your player to dodge a pattern. (prioritize dodge strategy > actual bullet pattern,) this will make your patterns feel more polished, and it will be more rewarding for the player when they can identify on how to dodge!
Be free to correct me if I am wrong, "The dodge roll was added as a workaround to dodge impossible walls", my only support it as it is very prominent in the random spawn design, so it was added as a required mechanic for the boss to balance the design. the source of were I got that line is a random yt vid sooo
Thanks for the suggestions! I'm not sure if I understand your suggestion of needing to be 'a good aim to be a good dodge', but i think youre right that my camera system might be a bit messed up sometimes where you might not see a bullet coming. Regarding the dodge roll, Dave Crooks (designer for enter the gungeon) said that the dodge roll was meant to "give the player a way of dealing with the massive amount of bullets, that wasn't just weaving through them." I heard they were inspired by Ikaruga. I think you're right that its often better to not dodge roll in enter the gungeon, and thats kinda the approach that I took with my game too. I defiinitely agree that my dodge system is something I should lean into more though; im not planning to encourage dodging over bullets with score or power but I like the idea of adding more attacks that encourage its use! so this is something I'm working towards with my next boss fight. I also really like your idea of 'prioritize dodge strategy > actual bullet pattern', it might be a little late for me to apply this idea in my 2nd boss but ill def keep it in mind, so ty for suggesting it!
@@okay_cam I'm super glad it helped! Yww ^^ (You don't have to reply to this, but: i'd like to expand on "Teleporting over bullets for X bonus", as it was more of my opinion at the time, then a valid tip that would be applicable! So a better term for it is: *Giving each bullet a value to the player,* (Also applied with *Risk and reward*.) This alone makes many bullet hells feel great, it's like dodging in ice cold rain VS dodging the shower in a sauna. Actual Night and day. Giving bullets value is what made a game like Ikaruga a satisfying and influential quality, even over time.)
I really like this game right now, I think it does need some more polish though, I think adding more animation for the player and particle effects to Mimic muzzle flash would make the player really pop while being in the middle of the screen. And maybe adding some NPC enemies to fight during 1 or 2 boss fights could really raise the stakes.
Mayby ad a damage dropp of for hitting the boss from farther away so that beeing at a riskier distance and learning the boss patterns become more rewording
really cool video! i saw some comments asking you to make a tutorial in godot(since i think thats what u use) and it would be really awesome if you could do that!
@@moothankpew Thanks for watching! I'm honestly a bit unsure if I want to make tutorials on this channel, but yeah a few people have suggested that now so maybe its a good idea. Let me know if there's any tutorial topic you have in mind!
Watching the ghosting mechanic has given me an idea for a movement accessory in my own game, (a terraria clone). It'll definitely be simpler though, just hold right click and point in a direction, and when you release right click you'll either be telported a certain distance in that direction, or you'll shoot forward with s in that direction. Grouping bullets also looks cool, but it also looks like it'd take a lot of work to implement. I might add it for later bosses though.
Honestly grouping bullets together aint too bad! If you have an Area2D bullet node, you can make those bullets a child of a Node2D, and then move the Node2D instead of the bullets
@@okay_cam The problem with grouping bullets for me though is that I'm not using any engine, so I don't have the luxury of nodes. I think I might just create a new class that stores several bullets, a center point and movement code.
oh hey I'm also making a bullet hell boss rush type game :0 I'd recommend looking into some more traditional bullet hells like Mushihimesama that have tiny player/bullet hitboxes which allows for some crazy precise patterns, and a focus toggle that slows your movement for even more precise manoeuvring. Looking really good so far! 😎
I thought the big red mouth boss and the one in the robe were entirely different bosses! But in the close up view of mouthy.... I REALIZED ITS ONE BIG ROBE i thought he was a hydra or something
idea to make the yellow boxes/circles less lazy: make custom sprite per yellow box/circle like flickering lighting for the laser attack, or a minion being made like dry bones but with flesh
@@coco13579 yea it is haha, honestly it's been a tad restrictive and I was thinking of moving to aseprite but I've gotten used to piskel and it gets the job done
I might be a bit old school but I really enjoy bullet hell shooters without dash/dodge an i-frames. Sure I love games like cuphead but there is something special about how the oldies did it. But the problem is that older style bullet hells need a very fine tuned bullet system because there always need to be somewhere to squeeze between bullets. Still. The game looks really fun.
Can you add a sword that you can parry with a do more dmg with a risk of getting hit of being close the sword will pull your character forward and let you parry still
The game looks so smooth to play. Also I don't think you really care about this, but the arena is very empty, so I suggest that to stay in the circle shape add some sort of ritual to the arena in which the boss appears. So this could be like this: the hero travels to destroy all the demons in the world who are created from these great rituals. Well it's just an idea, you have your own thoughts on the "lore" of the game (I think)
Thats a fair take. I think I'm leaning further away from traditional bullet hell like touhou and more towards enter the gungeon - the ghosting movement mechanic definitely wouldnt fit a game like touhou. For the most part you shouldnt need to ghost unless youre in a dire situation or if you quickly want to move somehwere else
While you wait, you can play Bullet Heaven 2 on the browser if you're looking for a more traditional bullet hell, or you can try out Bloody Hell on Steam if you want something like Enter the Gungeon! (they're both free)
How do you apply velocity to the bullet groups if node2D doesn't have a velocity variable? Working on bullets patterns myself an not exactly sure how to work the grouping part. Thanks
I think in godot 4, the kinematic bodies already have a velocity variable, but I use godot version 3.5.3 where you have to manually make the velocity variable yourself for everything. For my bullet groups, I'm just changing the position of the node2D by a certain amount every frame. In the node2D script, I have a Vector2 velocity variable which stores the direction and distance that the node2D would move every second. Every frame in the _physics_process() function, i add to the node2D's position like this: position += velocity * delta and that moves the whole bullet group! hopefully that helps, let me know if you need anything clarified, and im happy to chat more about it on discord, my username is okay_cam
@@okay_cam Okay yeah cool, I didn't actually know what the velocity variable was. Probably should have looked into it waay sooner. Thanks a ton though I'll start messing with it ASAP and probably add you on Discord. I run into issues pretty much all the time so it would be nice to have someone who knows what they're doing. Thanks a ton.
the ghosting is fun looking, but im not sure this is the game for that feature when bullet helling, i want to move away, roll or teleport or whatever with a simple press or steady movement, not have to aim my roll while shooting and moving, plus having to calculate where the momentum will drive me. this will either be frustrating on messier bosses, or youll just keep yourself from design complicated bosses because your ghosting mechanic works like this, a detriment to your game either way. as for shooting patterns, I think you should seek inspiration from touhou, those games have the prettiest bullet curtain patterns in the industry
@@PhantomThiefXI Thanks for the insight and the feedback. I think for the most part, the player won't need to use the ghost mechanic and should rely on walking around as normal, but you're right that it's quite a complex movement which means that the boss designs need to account for this - I can't make bosses as if the dodge mechanic was just a simple roll. I also agree that the Touhou bullet hell patterns are really beautiful, but I think they wouldn't fit my game since they're more of a traditional 'bullet hell', whereas my game might be better labeled as a 'shoot em up', since there isn't as much of an overwhelming amount of bullets. I think part of the confusion is that the definition of a 'bullet hell' has slowly become more broad, I'm definitely leaning more towards the style of Enter the Gungeon or Nuclear Throne instead of Touhou. So something like my ghost ability certainly wouldn't fit a game like Touhou
thank you for the kind words! I use godot v3.5.3 to make games, but I had some prior experience in python, and previously made games in Scratch when i was younger. for learning game design, I try to pay attention to what works really well in other games. For getting into gamedev, I think its best to follow very short tutorials to get used to how things work, and made very small simple games (like flappy bird, pong, or a basic platformer) to learn basic concepts. hopefully that helps!
what software do you use for game development? i wanna make a bullet hell game myself but im not sure where to even begin here's my ideas: squares -> shoot in a basic line (vertical or horizontal) circles -> shoot diagonal, start small and bounce off walls with angle shifts and increase size every bounce (with the max amount of bounces increasing the longer you survive) stars -> shoot horizontal, vertical or diagonal for about 75% of the screen while spinning, when it reaches this 75% mark the inner pentagon explodes and it shoots out the 5 points as triangles triangles -> shoot at whatever direction they were facing when the star they were on exploded, shoot twice as fast as other projectiles i also want you to move around as a small square with WASD or arrow keys for movement edit: im up to collab or more in-depth tutorials/explanations too if you have those
I use godot 3, it's quite a nice game engine but it's taken me some time to learn, and I'm still learning a lot at the moment. I recommend following 1 or 2 short tutorials (less than 20 min) and then making a ton of very small projects before going for anything ambitious. it'll help you learn the basics such as how to spawn a bullet, how to do basic player movement, etc. If you start doing game development, I wish you the best of luck! As for tutorials/explanations I'm probably not too interested in making that stuff in this channel, I don't feel very qualified haha
Could you tell me how you optimized your bullets for performance? I am also makeing a bullet hell game and im having some real issues with the frame drop of having lots of bullets. Sweet game!
Good question! In all honesty, I haven't really been focusing on optimization all that much! I'm trying to avoid premature optimization - I never have that many bullets on screen at once compared to something like a traditional bullet hell game (like touhou). This helps me to focus more attention on making interesting features and developing the game. I started making this game knowing that I wouldn't have an extremely high number of bullets. However, for you, if you're making a more traditional bullet hell game in godot and the high frequency of bullets is causing performance issues, I'd recommend this video: th-cam.com/video/_z7Z7PrTD_M/w-d-xo.html For me, I wouldn't want to waste my time using every single optimization here, but I try to use some of the basic ones such as using Area2d & not using unnecessary collision layers / monitoring. Hopefully that helps!
Playere shooting system looks boring, I think if you improve it or completely remove it from the game so it would like try to survive as long as you can, and for one of the bosses in future it would be good if it's made of different platforms that you can only go on it by ghosting so it would be harder to dodge but I think bullet patterns should be simpler or it will feel unfair
Hello, fellow human! This looks like a really cool idea. I'd love to compose some music for the project if you'll have me. If you're interested, just let me know!
@@Kyleology you have a point, and I'm not really sure what other word would fit best. I don't think it's a shmup. I don't want to use a general word like action, shooter. I think its a broad definition and words change over time - if enter the gungeon or nuclear throne can be described as a bullet hell, then I think its fair to describe this as one too
getting knocked off stage and ghosting back to safety looks fun
safety huh?
those knockback bullets have a lot of potential I think, like a sans undertale gimmick boss situation
I agree
really cool! 4:06 maybe have a hard boss that force player to use this mechanic(have to jump in and off on the map edge). something like have an attack area on full map so player need to intentionally jump off to dodge the attack.
@@SRY295 Good idea, I'll keep that in mind!
Bro this all looks so good! The unique mechanics and early polish are such a good sign for how good this game will be. The art is honestly really cool too. Keep it up Cam! Your channel and games are super underrated :)
@@HeuzyGameDevYT thanks a bunch! I'm glad you've been enjoying my content :D
the fact that you can move while "ghosting" so damn sick and unique
Something I would want to keep in mind is to have all bullets that can’t be ghosted through have a common visual theme, like all being the same color or shape, so the player doesn’t get confused when they try to ghost through a bullet and it hurts them. Other than that, the game looks amazing! You’ve earned yourself a subscriber!
Yep, thats a very good point! All bullets that cannot be ghosted through will be blue, and they will all be arc-shaped (cuphead's parry system has a lot of complaints from colourblind people since it only relies on using the colour pink, so I'm planning to use both shape and colour for distinction)
When i watched the video i honestly thought this was made by a guy with 200k subs, not 200 subs.You earned my subscription
please make another devlog on making this game
@@iLikeBrgrzz another one is in the works! It just takes me a very long time cause I'm swamped with uni work haha
this looks great! the ghosting mechanic looks very fun to use, and the animations are sick
4:25 ghosting off the edge and back it really cool!!
This is just great, I love the bullet patterns and the knockback bullets idea. I had a concept for a similar game in terms of gameplay (which I will never actually finish), and this is incredibly inspiring. Can't wait to see your progress with this!
Thank you so much! Definitely give your concept a go, and if you're worried about never finishing I recommend keeping the scope as small as possible and at least trying out your idea to see if it's fun. Best of luck if you give your game idea a go!
4:38 That was the smartest way to ask somebody to like and subscribe I've seen
Tbh. Your videos are great. And the game concept and gameplay is great.
Great vid, first time in a while I’ve watched one of these without thinking abt clicking off
This games mechanics are similiar to “just shapes and beats”. Like the ghost dash and the indicator things.
Games looks cool and I really like the pace of you videos
This is insane. Keep going man you have lots of potential for the future
Incredibly impressible devlog, underrated channel
I loved the double helix pattern, was super cool.
this is SICK cam!!! 😮🎉🎉 the sprite animations, esp for the boss is super well done!! 🔥
I smell potential.
this looks awesome
The bullet patterns and the animations look awesome! Honestly that's a very good start, keep it up! The ghosting looks fun and is a very original idea, but the one thing I'd say about it is that using a player silhouette is a little bit dissonant with what the ability actually does. Usually in game this sort of UI indicates that the player is gonna arrive (or snap/blink) at that location, while in your game the player flies past it. In my opinion some sort of arrow or any sort of reticule that implies movement would be better.
Anyway you've earned a subscriber, I can't wait to see where this goes!
Good Luck!
@greenmansgamedev7186 Thanks for the feedback! That's a good point you've made, I'll definitely add a directional indicator
I could imagine here being some extremely cool and specific boss features with the saving grace system at 4:20, such as forcing the player to jump off a ledge and use the ghost to land on a nearby one, but they're too far away to just go directly from one platform to another.
Other things you could do to design physical geometry around the ghosting ability would be to design different types of walls that you can AND can't pass through with it. Perhaps metal fences are passable by the ghost, but solid walls are not. There could also perhaps be energy barriers that ONLY allow corporeal beings through, but not ghosts. The inclusion of walls can also lead to fun boss gimmicks like normally undodgable attacks that are blocked by walls, forcing the player to stick around them for some attacks, but wanting to get away from them for the freedom of movement
Some bosses could spawn these physical barriers in the map as well as destroying parts of the floor, forcing you to use the ghosting for complex navigation, instead of purely dodging bullets all the time. It would expand on the feature in a way that could be unique for many different bosses.
Nice one chicken man, the design decisions are really cool, I am also making a bullet hell right now
@@LuizMoraes-xb7qj thank you, good luck with your bullet hell!
looks sick dude!
this is so cool, i wish bullets were real
There are tho
@@Bloom8182 not anymore (i ate them)
@@flamollusk420 Why did you eat them if you wish they were real again?
@@Bloom8182 they looked tasty
@@flamollusk420 Well that's fair enough I suppose, I ate all the 7x7 Screwdrivers
impressive video , underrated develloper tbh
this looks like a rlly fun game!! would 100% love to play it
gl on making ur game
This looks sick! I thought that the stage being sliced up was a really creative solution to the bottom stage camping problem. I can't wait to see where this goes!
One game that does the bullet hell boss rush gameplay really well is The Void Rains Upon Her Heart, could be used as inspiration or ideas
oo okay, ill take a look
criminally underrated
ghosting looks really good and satisfying!!
Really cool idea to group bullets and apply any forces to full group.
Big boss aoe move that forces u to time saving grace and jump off in order to not get hit by it
This looks really cool and unique!!! You came up with a mechanic that looks very fun, is original and is not too complicated to understand, that's a really good thing!!
I was surprised when I saw how few views and subscribers you have, you're really underrated!
Keep up the good work because this has a lot of potential :D
@@vibreart.mp3 thank you so much!!
Cool video, if you’re looking for more inspiration for boss attacks you could think about different bosses having unique methods of attacking. Like a slam attack, a shockwave, or summoning minions. Maybe a boss teleports spawning attacks in its place, maybe it throws itself directly at you. I see a lot of potential here good luck man.
@@Wholes4d Thanks for the ideas! I've actually got some minion spawning and teleport attacks right now, but I didn't have time to talk about all of it. I do like the idea of a slam attack / shockwave so I'll try use that in my next boss!
This looks really fun!
Holy shit this is the exact kind of game I wanted to implement! I got stuck at implementing a bullet/attack framework, and this gave me a lot of ideas and looks super cool!
yeaa im not gonna lie i dont think i did the attacks & bullets very well, and i spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to manage the different attacks and stuff
Glad to hear it gave u a bunch of ideas though! def try give those ideas a go if u want, but dont be discouraged if it takes a bunch of tries, ive had to go through quite a few bad shmups before committing to this one
@@okay_cam I really want to get back into game development and try to implement the boss framework again, but my life is way too busy nowadays and I just wont be able to get around to it at least until I finish my degree
Id (maybe) suggest that after a set amount of range your bullet begins to shrink and make less damage which would make it less worth trying to stay away from an enemy, also maybe make it so that you bullet does like 2.5 dmg if shot at point blank which maybe isnt a viable strategy but itd be a nice payoff for if a boss stops shooting for a second and your already close to it
This game looks really cool. Subbing!
Ah, yes, a game about ghosting people. I'll be good at it.
so im a liitle late but uh
this looks insanely good and definitely feels like a game that i would definitely play for a WHILE (provided there is more than two bosses, which i assume there is)
the bullet patterns are REALLY sick, especially the spinning bullets one.
ghosting looks fun as hell to use and mess with, and i love how you gave people a way to not instantly die to arena changes or falling off the map
wonder if the blue attacks are gonna be used more as actual attacks and not just arena guards, given how cool of an idea that is
the arena as of now is neat, but i wonder if other arena shapes could be made. maybe a cluster of islands that could be dashed between?
that little green guy looks really neat. despite the fact they're smaller than 90% of the game sprites i like the fact that they're still visually distinct from everything else
one small thing is that the ghosting has a fairly large distance. i don't know if this would be possible but having a smaller variant or some way to control the distance *slightly* might be neat. unsure if that would mess with boss design tho
i love boss rush games and i cannot wait to see where this goes later. has a lot of potential
Thank you for all the feedback!! Right now in the video, I just show the 2 different phases of the same boss, and I have plans to make 2 more bosses. I'm glad you like the mechanics so far too! I really like the idea of having multiple islands to dash between, so that will 100% be in the next boss fight. And you mentioned that distance variety would be nice for ghosting - right now you can adjust the distance slightly, but you're right that the distance is still quite large. I've just decreased the minimum ghosting distance and that should hopefully allow for some more options, we'll see how that goes. Thanks again for the detailed message!
Small change would suggest making the character transparent when ghosting, with rolling most gamers have been taught that its not only mobility but also evasive, but when ghosting loos like just walking it might be initally confusing for some
@@christianottley8542 that's a good point. the player does go slightly transparent when ghosting but it's not very obvious, so I might try to make that more clear, and I'll have to add a small tutorial too
I done some bullet hell research on multiple shmup, (vertical and some emphasis on enter the gungeon) got some good suggestions that is up to you to apply or not!
I do suggest implementing a more stable camera system, Enter the gungeon's camera system(where it follows between mouse and player) has a certain flaw.
*you must be a good aim to be a good dodge.*
It's a really hidden flaw- and often it can punish new players into doubting their skill, not for a good reason.
*the player should be able to be a good dodge, WITHOUT being a good aim*
(bad aiming should only punish on missing the enemy, not the mispredicting of bullets. unless they are sniper ahh hyper focusing lol)
it should be fine for your game, as it focuses on a single arena!
Another tip, is if you are making a dodge roll like mechanic, *GO ALL THE WAY WITH IT!*
Currently judging the patterns in the video, even a veteran player can dodge the bullets without using the teleportation mechanic provided.
Enter the gungeon has another issue, *The dodge roll was added as a workaround to dodge impossible walls.* note* a work around. its very obvious in the stages,
The bullets in the game have so much rng involved, that its actually just better to not dodge roll. Only when some enemies spawn a dense walls of bullets that force you to take cover, or dodge roll and get hit right after.
So make your teleportation mechanic actually feel like an intended mechanic to be used in the game.
Try implementing a system that encourages the player for passing through bullets with the teleportation(scoring, increasing a certain gauge for a power, increases recovery time for next teleportation...) so many different benefits you can apply to this gimmick.
(yes, enter the gungeon does have certain items that encourage you to dodge roll over bullets, BUT ITS ALL ON RNG TO GET THE ITEM IN THE FIRST PLACE)
Last tip is identifying all possible strategy types that is even possible in your design, (streaming, micrododging, macrododging are the obvious ones.) use those possible types as guidelines of how you want your player to dodge a pattern.
(prioritize dodge strategy > actual bullet pattern,) this will make your patterns feel more polished, and it will be more rewarding for the player when they can identify on how to dodge!
Be free to correct me if I am wrong, "The dodge roll was added as a workaround to dodge impossible walls", my only support it as it is very prominent in the random spawn design, so it was added as a required mechanic for the boss to balance the design. the source of were I got that line is a random yt vid sooo
Thanks for the suggestions!
I'm not sure if I understand your suggestion of needing to be 'a good aim to be a good dodge', but i think youre right that my camera system might be a bit messed up sometimes where you might not see a bullet coming.
Regarding the dodge roll, Dave Crooks (designer for enter the gungeon) said that the dodge roll was meant to "give the player a way of dealing with the massive amount of bullets, that wasn't just weaving through them." I heard they were inspired by Ikaruga. I think you're right that its often better to not dodge roll in enter the gungeon, and thats kinda the approach that I took with my game too. I defiinitely agree that my dodge system is something I should lean into more though; im not planning to encourage dodging over bullets with score or power but I like the idea of adding more attacks that encourage its use! so this is something I'm working towards with my next boss fight.
I also really like your idea of 'prioritize dodge strategy > actual bullet pattern', it might be a little late for me to apply this idea in my 2nd boss but ill def keep it in mind, so ty for suggesting it!
@@okay_cam I'm super glad it helped! Yww ^^
(You don't have to reply to this, but: i'd like to expand on "Teleporting over bullets for X bonus", as it was more of my opinion at the time, then a valid tip that would be applicable! So a better term for it is:
*Giving each bullet a value to the player,*
(Also applied with *Risk and reward*.)
This alone makes many bullet hells feel great, it's like dodging in ice cold rain VS dodging the shower in a sauna. Actual Night and day. Giving bullets value is what made a game like Ikaruga a satisfying and influential quality, even over time.)
recently found a well designed game that uses an invincibility mechanic th-cam.com/video/agAUdpaSoIA/w-d-xo.html
Welcome back, Fraxy
I really like this game right now, I think it does need some more polish though, I think adding more animation for the player and particle effects to Mimic muzzle flash would make the player really pop while being in the middle of the screen. And maybe adding some NPC enemies to fight during 1 or 2 boss fights could really raise the stakes.
@@erikdulac6245 Good point, there is definitely a lot of room for polish! I'll keep that in mind
Mayby ad a damage dropp of for hitting the boss from farther away so that beeing at a riskier distance and learning the boss patterns become more rewording
really cool video! i saw some comments asking you to make a tutorial in godot(since i think thats what u use) and it would be really awesome if you could do that!
@@moothankpew Thanks for watching! I'm honestly a bit unsure if I want to make tutorials on this channel, but yeah a few people have suggested that now so maybe its a good idea. Let me know if there's any tutorial topic you have in mind!
Due to enjoying this video, I have decided I must subscribe. Keep it up
maybe make the yellow indicators summoning circles
Watching the ghosting mechanic has given me an idea for a movement accessory in my own game, (a terraria clone). It'll definitely be simpler though, just hold right click and point in a direction, and when you release right click you'll either be telported a certain distance in that direction, or you'll shoot forward with s in that direction.
Grouping bullets also looks cool, but it also looks like it'd take a lot of work to implement. I might add it for later bosses though.
Honestly grouping bullets together aint too bad! If you have an Area2D bullet node, you can make those bullets a child of a Node2D, and then move the Node2D instead of the bullets
@@okay_cam The problem with grouping bullets for me though is that I'm not using any engine, so I don't have the luxury of nodes. I think I might just create a new class that stores several bullets, a center point and movement code.
@@Console.Log01 Ohhh right I thought you were using Godot. Thats a bit more tricky then! I wish you the best of luck for your game
Think it'd be cool if theres a boss/enemy/attack that needs to be dashed into to either damage them or avoid taking damage
Dude. This is fucking awesome
oh hey I'm also making a bullet hell boss rush type game :0 I'd recommend looking into some more traditional bullet hells like Mushihimesama that have tiny player/bullet hitboxes which allows for some crazy precise patterns, and a focus toggle that slows your movement for even more precise manoeuvring. Looking really good so far! 😎
this looks awesome 😄
I thought the big red mouth boss and the one in the robe were entirely different bosses!
But in the close up view of mouthy.... I REALIZED ITS ONE BIG ROBE i thought he was a hydra or something
honestly idek what it is hahah
but yeah the bigger version is the second phase, which I didn't make very clear
boss rush bullet hell sounds super fun
idea to make the yellow boxes/circles less lazy: make custom sprite per yellow box/circle like flickering lighting for the laser attack, or a minion being made like dry bones but with flesh
Good ideas, thank you!
wait a minute... IS THAT PISKEL? I remember I started using that app years ago and I still use it even though it's been kind of forgotten about
@@coco13579 yea it is haha, honestly it's been a tad restrictive and I was thinking of moving to aseprite but I've gotten used to piskel and it gets the job done
bro ur so underrated wth
You could use saving grace for dodging a stage wide attack.
Love the video please make more you will be successful 100%
Game looks sick
I might be a bit old school but I really enjoy bullet hell shooters without dash/dodge an i-frames. Sure I love games like cuphead but there is something special about how the oldies did it. But the problem is that older style bullet hells need a very fine tuned bullet system because there always need to be somewhere to squeeze between bullets.
Still. The game looks really fun.
@@bocarlsson3rd That's completely fair! I never really got into the more traditional bullet hells but I definitely understand the appeal
Can you add a sword that you can parry with a do more dmg with a risk of getting hit of being close the sword will pull your character forward and let you parry still
The game looks so smooth to play. Also I don't think you really care about this, but the arena is very empty, so I suggest that to stay in the circle shape add some sort of ritual to the arena in which the boss appears. So this could be like this: the hero travels to destroy all the demons in the world who are created from these great rituals.
Well it's just an idea, you have your own thoughts on the "lore" of the game (I think)
you don't want inertia like in ghosting on a bullet hell, because you need very precise movement for dodging bullets
Thats a fair take. I think I'm leaning further away from traditional bullet hell like touhou and more towards enter the gungeon - the ghosting movement mechanic definitely wouldnt fit a game like touhou. For the most part you shouldnt need to ghost unless youre in a dire situation or if you quickly want to move somehwere else
I love this and i also love the use of godot
i want this so bad you have no clue how long ive wanted to play a bullet hell game 😭
While you wait, you can play Bullet Heaven 2 on the browser if you're looking for a more traditional bullet hell, or you can try out Bloody Hell on Steam if you want something like Enter the Gungeon! (they're both free)
this game looks cool ima sub
best video EVVVVVVVER
where can i play a demo? looks great
i probably wont release a demo, but the finished game will hopefully be free to play in the browser
there is a good game called Furi that does the similar aspect, its one of my favorites, i cant wait to see how this goes!
I should probably look into Furi more, lots of people have been mentioning it haha
I looked at the title and was like "so basically, you made touhou?"
How do you apply velocity to the bullet groups if node2D doesn't have a velocity variable? Working on bullets patterns myself an not exactly sure how to work the grouping part. Thanks
I think in godot 4, the kinematic bodies already have a velocity variable, but I use godot version 3.5.3 where you have to manually make the velocity variable yourself for everything.
For my bullet groups, I'm just changing the position of the node2D by a certain amount every frame.
In the node2D script, I have a Vector2 velocity variable which stores the direction and distance that the node2D would move every second. Every frame in the _physics_process() function, i add to the node2D's position like this:
position += velocity * delta
and that moves the whole bullet group! hopefully that helps, let me know if you need anything clarified, and im happy to chat more about it on discord, my username is okay_cam
@@okay_cam Okay yeah cool, I didn't actually know what the velocity variable was. Probably should have looked into it waay sooner.
Thanks a ton though I'll start messing with it ASAP and probably add you on Discord. I run into issues pretty much all the time so it would be nice to have someone who knows what they're doing. Thanks a ton.
the ghosting is fun looking, but im not sure this is the game for that feature
when bullet helling, i want to move away, roll or teleport or whatever with a simple press or steady movement, not have to aim my roll while shooting and moving, plus having to calculate where the momentum will drive me. this will either be frustrating on messier bosses, or youll just keep yourself from design complicated bosses because your ghosting mechanic works like this, a detriment to your game either way.
as for shooting patterns, I think you should seek inspiration from touhou, those games have the prettiest bullet curtain patterns in the industry
@@PhantomThiefXI Thanks for the insight and the feedback. I think for the most part, the player won't need to use the ghost mechanic and should rely on walking around as normal, but you're right that it's quite a complex movement which means that the boss designs need to account for this - I can't make bosses as if the dodge mechanic was just a simple roll.
I also agree that the Touhou bullet hell patterns are really beautiful, but I think they wouldn't fit my game since they're more of a traditional 'bullet hell', whereas my game might be better labeled as a 'shoot em up', since there isn't as much of an overwhelming amount of bullets.
I think part of the confusion is that the definition of a 'bullet hell' has slowly become more broad, I'm definitely leaning more towards the style of Enter the Gungeon or Nuclear Throne instead of Touhou. So something like my ghost ability certainly wouldn't fit a game like Touhou
@@okay_cam Also you can look up some bosses from "PUSS!". It's still a more classic bullet hell, but with some creative attacks
Okay how do you only have 160 subscribers?????
i'm also working on a bullet hell, (gungeon is my childhood dream game)
Lovely
what is the game
this game looks really cool so far, also, i was wondering what engine you use to make your games, also how to learn game design
thank you for the kind words!
I use godot v3.5.3 to make games, but I had some prior experience in python, and previously made games in Scratch when i was younger.
for learning game design, I try to pay attention to what works really well in other games.
For getting into gamedev, I think its best to follow very short tutorials to get used to how things work, and made very small simple games (like flappy bird, pong, or a basic platformer) to learn basic concepts. hopefully that helps!
Thank you so much! I've been trying to get into game development and this really helps alot ☺️
what software do you use for game development? i wanna make a bullet hell game myself but im not sure where to even begin
here's my ideas:
squares -> shoot in a basic line (vertical or horizontal)
circles -> shoot diagonal, start small and bounce off walls with angle shifts and increase size every bounce (with the max amount of bounces increasing the longer you survive)
stars -> shoot horizontal, vertical or diagonal for about 75% of the screen while spinning, when it reaches this 75% mark the inner pentagon explodes and it shoots out the 5 points as triangles
triangles -> shoot at whatever direction they were facing when the star they were on exploded, shoot twice as fast as other projectiles
i also want you to move around as a small square with WASD or arrow keys for movement
edit: im up to collab or more in-depth tutorials/explanations too if you have those
I use godot 3, it's quite a nice game engine but it's taken me some time to learn, and I'm still learning a lot at the moment.
I recommend following 1 or 2 short tutorials (less than 20 min) and then making a ton of very small projects before going for anything ambitious.
it'll help you learn the basics such as how to spawn a bullet, how to do basic player movement, etc. If you start doing game development, I wish you the best of luck! As for tutorials/explanations I'm probably not too interested in making that stuff in this channel, I don't feel very qualified haha
Nice
Could you tell me how you optimized your bullets for performance? I am also makeing a bullet hell game and im having some real issues with the frame drop of having lots of bullets. Sweet game!
Good question! In all honesty, I haven't really been focusing on optimization all that much! I'm trying to avoid premature optimization - I never have that many bullets on screen at once compared to something like a traditional bullet hell game (like touhou). This helps me to focus more attention on making interesting features and developing the game. I started making this game knowing that I wouldn't have an extremely high number of bullets. However, for you, if you're making a more traditional bullet hell game in godot and the high frequency of bullets is causing performance issues, I'd recommend this video: th-cam.com/video/_z7Z7PrTD_M/w-d-xo.html
For me, I wouldn't want to waste my time using every single optimization here, but I try to use some of the basic ones such as using Area2d & not using unnecessary collision layers / monitoring. Hopefully that helps!
hey lmk if you need a 2d pixel artist for this.
Cool what do u make your art on
I use piskel, but its not the best pixel art program. it has been a bit limiting but it gets the job done and its free
i like the tiny enemys :(
no tiny enemies for you >:)
Algorithm also great vid
Play Star of Providence, It might give you some inspiration
Playere shooting system looks boring, I think if you improve it or completely remove it from the game so it would like try to survive as long as you can, and for one of the bosses in future it would be good if it's made of different platforms that you can only go on it by ghosting so it would be harder to dodge but I think bullet patterns should be simpler or it will feel unfair
Hello, fellow human! This looks like a really cool idea. I'd love to compose some music for the project if you'll have me. If you're interested, just let me know!
Thanks for the kind words! I'm not currently looking for a composer but I'll keep you in mind
@@okay_cam Thx dude
Overall, this is a really nice video but the speaking REALLY needs more intonation
@@Unknow_Stickman thanks for the feedback! I'll keep that in mind for the next video
Not a bullet hell.
@@Kyleology you have a point, and I'm not really sure what other word would fit best. I don't think it's a shmup. I don't want to use a general word like action, shooter. I think its a broad definition and words change over time - if enter the gungeon or nuclear throne can be described as a bullet hell, then I think its fair to describe this as one too
Mario
Algorithm Bait
okay