Stop to Explode
A simple SHMUP influenced by Vampire Survivors
It may actually be more of a survivor type of game than a SHMUP.
I've created this game as my project for following the LazyDevs basic shmup tutorial.
Big shoutout to this resource, it's a great intro to Gamedev!
I've made this game as something that I would love to play on a retro handheld.
Controls
X - Shoot
O - Fireworks (Bomb, that removes all enemy bullets)
Upgrades
As it is with these types of games you'll level up a lot and you'll need these upgrades if you want to beat the later waves.
I've gone with a pretty basic upgrade path nothing crazy here - but Firerate and Damage upgrades are your best friends.
Plus! There are two 'locked' upgrades: once you max out Firerate or Damage an 'Extra Bullet' upgrade is added to the upgrade pool. This way you can have a total of 4 bullets.
If you take all upgrades then any remaining upgrade slots are replaced with '1UP' + 1 HP (not max, just 1 hp if you have one missing)
One thing to remember: once you reach max upgrade on something then it is taken out of the upgrade pool increasing the chance for all other upgrades to appear.
Gameplay
The gameplay loop is pretty simple. You go in and try not to explode. Shooting enemies down drops XP that you should collect to level up.
I've tried to make the game pretty hard BUT still completable. I'm still not sure how hard it actually is but I've managed to beat it and I'm not stellar when it comes to SHMUP/Bullet Hell games.
There are a total of 10 waves with the 10th wave being a bossfight
Credits and Info
This is actually my first ever game. All assets were created by me. It is kind of a learning project for me. I wanted to create something I enjoy and this proved a great opportunity to learn a lot about gamedev.
I hope some of you will find the game fun and it can provide a couple of minutes/hours of entertainment.
Now at V1 release I'm pretty much happy with the state of the game. Not with the codebase though. Once I learn more Pico-8 I may return to refactor and save some tokens.
Until then I'll monitor the feedback here and fix any bugs/consider any suggestions.
Changelog
V1
Tweaked difficulty
- You are now likely to get to max upgrades before the final boss
Added Boss
- Wave 10 is now a bossfight
Tweaked Typo
- Chaged typo from Wawe to Wave
V081
Tweaked upgrade selection
- It is now harder to accidentally keep pressing a button and selecting an upgrade you didn't want
Tweaked Fireworks
- You now start with the fireworks ability, but it is less powerful
- Firework upgrade now also upgrades CD + Adds extra bullets for a total of 20 bullets fired at max lvl (compared to flat 15 bullets in the original release)
Tweaked Magnet ability
- Now you start with a very small pickup range, but upgrades are more powerful. Decreased total Magnet upgrade Levels to 3 from 5 and bumped up the range. Each level increases your pickup range by 4 pixels to a maximum of 14 pixels which is a pretty big pickup range considering 128px screensize.
V08
- Initial Release
Very fun, nice and playable without feeling too easy either. I didn't know what fireworks were for a while so I avoided that upgrade.. maybe the player should start with a basic low-level firework? I didn't notice any difference with magnet level 1 which made me avoid getting it any more, though I'm betting it works better with another level or two.. maybe increase L1 power?
When the upgrade menu appears I often don't lift my finger off the button quickly enough to not choose the default option.. see if you can ignore existing button presses when the menu comes up.. I think if btn is used for fire and btnp used for the menu that may help, but I don't know if you're already doing that.
Thanks for the game, it's really fun!
@kozm0naut thanks for all the feedback. I've tried hard not to leave any typos in and I didn't notice the most glaring one :D
Anyhow now I've also added a bossfight to the game if you want to give it another spin :)
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