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.
X - Shoot
O - Fireworks (Bomb, that removes all enemy bullets)
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.
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
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.
Tweaked difficulty
Added Boss
Tweaked Typo
Tweaked upgrade selection
Tweaked Fireworks
Tweaked Magnet ability