LittleBear
says: The second mouse gets the cheese.
31.12.08
Commander Video?
Weird viral marketing thing… but, there’s a brief view of an abstract shooter playing at 00:35s. Ponder this while counting down to the new year. More clues I guess.
27.12.08
scrape
scrape is Worstplayer‘s contribution to the Shmup-Dev Rapid Prototype Session 7: Bullet Grazing competition. I definitely had the most fun with this entry.
The game is simple, but with a lot of destruction. And missiles. Graze bullets to build up an arsenal of missiles, trigger them be re-pressing ‘Z‘. It runs very smoothly, and the missile effects are very satisfying. I don’t think it does anything really new with grazing (which is fine, none of the entries really did) but it does provide the best concentration of fun in a 2-week game.
See also: Laseroid.
Aphid
Aphid is UArchitect‘s bullet grazing game for the latest rapid prototype session at Shmup-Dev. I really liked this entry, shows good promise.
Grazing in Aphid gains your ship an option, with further grazing increasing its power. A fully-powered option can be exploded as a smart bomb. Simple and effective. I think, however, that the glow effects used blind the player a bit, especially when grazing. The game also falls a bit into the “grazing fuel” trap. You need to supply bullets for the player to use, and the boss battle at the end misses with this.
grazier
grazier is Owen Butler‘s stylish bullet grazing entry, playable through Java WebStart here. You graze bullets to gain “rainbow attacks”, which when triggered turn everything into flowers. The game is more of a technical prototype I think, using Java and LWJGL. The results are a very good start. The game is very smooth, and has some good looking effects.
From Shmup-Dev Rapid Prototype Session 7: Bullet Grazing.
Buzz Kill
Buzz Kill is kdmiller3‘s take on an arena shooter and bullet grazing. It’s the 6th game Ken has contributed to the rapid prototyping sessions, and I’m a big fan of his game engine and the games he’s been making.
Buzz Kill is loud, fast, and the difficulty ramps up quickly. I think it’s this difficulty curve where the game ends up falling a bit short. You graze for power-ups, but you’re soon spending all your energy just trying to stay alive that bullet grazing has been completely forgotten. Still, while the games are short they’re a lot of fun.
See also: Dreadnought Crisis, Assault Wing, Rocket Bomb, Laser Maze, Galaga has a Posse.
From Shmup-Dev Rapid Prototype Session 7: Bullet Grazing.
