For Someone by L-sien

made by L-sien for Ludum Dare 56 (JAM)

UPDATE (10/9/24): Added HTML Support and mobile support. View here: https://l-cpp.itch.io/for-someone

Genre: Bullet Hell/Narrative

I met someone recently, and they were going through a rough time, so I decided to make this for their birthday, which happened to coincide with the end of the jam.

Some of the levels are a bit rushed design-wise since I had to fit them in during the last few hours to complete the script. I'm hoping to make an update in post cleaning up the design, maybe tying it more in with the narrative, and adding in some extra modes/options.

If you want a challenge, try to collect the maximum essence without getting hit. I don't even know if it is possible since I didn't have time to balance properly.

Press Escape at any time to close the application.

WebGL version is not working properly, so I just have the windows build for now.

This was a lot of fun to work on. I want to do more of this.

Link	https://drive.google.com/file/d/18aMKiCZTrnubenUg1wTwsd5xA7P2ISK7/view?usp=drive_link
Original URL	https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/56/for-someone

Ratings

Given

5🗳️

2🗨️

Feedback

HardyTryer

08. Oct 2024 · 15:43 UTC

I really liked the idea of mixing a non-narrative genre like bullethell with narrative.

Chocolat-Endive

08. Oct 2024 · 20:52 UTC

To me, playing felt a little like when you're watching a movie, and at a nostalgic moment, a narrator's voice starts reading a letter full of emotions in the background. The symmetrical shapes created by the bullet hell animations add a nice hypnotizing effect to the game. Overall it works well and that's a good idea.

On the gameplay, it would have been extremely difficult, had there been a possibility to die (I think I finished with 47 hits or something like that). Emphasizing on the narration by not having retries was a good choice.

I would love to see more around this idea, with level design reflecting tension or illustrating the narration.

Miku

12. Oct 2024 · 02:51 UTC

I'm thankful that you made it so that you couldn't die in the experience, because I'm not normally good at bullet hell games. The atmosphere of the game's presentation felt really melancholic and the story felt very profound. I hope that it got the intended message across to the person that you were writing it for. There's a lot more things that could be done from here on out with this concept since you have a lot of basics here that could be expanded!

smilewood

12. Oct 2024 · 02:55 UTC

This game has to be the lowest-energy bullet hell game I have ever played. For all that it defied a lot of the conversion of the genre I did it very well and felt like it fit together perfectly. The chill background music let me just zone into the gameplay and the story elements mixed in were touching. I think that not having sound effects for the shot sounds from me or the enemy did a lot to keep the mood of the game in the place that I think you wanted it. I am not the hugest fan of playing bullet hell games, but the no-stakes nature of getting hit in this one (other then a score at the end, which I accidentally hit ‘x’ too fast to read) was perfect for me to just fall in and enjoy the vibes. Overall very well done, great game!

oliver_day

12. Oct 2024 · 02:58 UTC

I really liked the contrast between the frantic shooting and the philosophical dialog. The dogging was pretty fun even though I would have liked a more obvious sign that I has been hit. A small bug was that the dots disappeared just before going through the wall.

Got 206 hits and collected 173 essence.