A great Touhou game, man there is nothing that can put a smile on your face quite like attempting the seemingly impossible task of dodging hundreds of little circles... Great game, Great art, awesome backgrounds, great variation, keep up the good work.
Reviews for "DN8"
DN8 is strange.
DN8 is so strange. A spider (or asian) can play this in a flawless manner but forget about it. Playing this game makes you develop an uncontrollable passion for Bullet Hell shooter games. At first, it may seem piece of cake, but get to the last 3 levels. You'll see the meaning of the game. Involving blowing the h311 out of DN8 is such a hard objective. You need nerves of steel to terminate this game's revealed (and "Shhhh, it's a secret") achievements. In general, it's a 10/10. If it was rating in parts, I would do: Addictingness: 10/10, Hardness: 2193/10 (WTF?) etc. Creepy, but the backgrounds here are AWESOMECAKE EPIC FAIC. All I have to say, and again, 10 outta 10.
Squize responds:
Thank you so much mate.
I think quite a few people played the first couple of levels, where to be honest there isn't a great deal of fun to be had as I try and get people used to the feeling of the game, and left it thinking it was just some sprites flying around and not much else.
I think by about half way through it starts getting rewarding, and hopefully by the end players are left with a sense of accomplishment for beating it.
Solomon has come to judge your game!
Alright, in all seriousness, and speaking as a completely unbiased critic, the gameplay is your standard bullethell. Simple graphics on the baddies add a retro feel and keep them from dragging down the processor so that crazy amounts of junk can be flying in every which direction. The visuals are nice, but not jaw dropping - and I wouldn't want the graphics too high as the speed of things would slow my toaster of a computer down to a crawl... but we don't come to bullet hell shooters for the graphics do we?
No, the meat of the game, the raw, satisfying nougat center of the insanity is always the game play. You can't go wrong with the basic formula, there's enemies flying around in patterns, shooting bullets in patterns, and your job is to shoot them all before being turned into metallic Swiss cheese. The rub is that you have to dodge just right, learn your hit box, and still supply enough bullet of your own to take them down. In essence, you have all the elements of a fun, addictive danmaku. Here's the rub, though.
The game... well... is too easy. You don't make it so that people have to learn the hit box, you announce it with a red dot. The side pods block bullets, giving you a sense of cover, something I don't want in my bullet hell. The best part is that deep awesome feeling you get for dancing between bullets like a Gunkata master and then putting on your shaddes and walking away from the explosion as you blow up the final boss (usually after much blood, sweat, and tears). I didn't have that feeling. I was just like... meh.
Another thing, you took one of the basic mechanics of a good bullet hell, narrow dodging, and made it kind of a challenge. You encourage flying close to the bullets just to give you some extra lives instead of saying "Hey, here's the bullets. Dodge or die." There was plenty of space for me to dodge, making the sense of cramped, narrow dodging seem like an optional thing. The only parts I felt the danger was the boss battles.
Oh yes, your bosses. I was actually quite happy with them. The patterns were call backs to a lot of great mid-bosses I laid to rest in Touhou and Gradius... there were only a few things wrong, I feel. First off, they all felt like midbosses. I didn't get a feeling I was fighting any major baddies. Sure, they took a few hits, but the patterns were easy to learn and dodge. The ones that shot lines of bullets were a little interesting since they ndid one-hit kills if you messed up, but if you dodged just right, you got an EXTRA life from the graze meter maxing out. I ended the game with 30 lives just from those guys alone. I loved the boss rush at the end - which was a sweet call back on your part - but I really was hoping for a big bad boss at the end.
All in all, fun. I sat through till the end, but it felt short, and was way to easy to be up in the ranks of greatness with Touhou and the like. I give it a 4/5 despite all my criticisms. It's not a BAD game, it could just be better.
I look forward to your future submissions.
Squize responds:
Cheers mate, great review.
The game was always meant to be a "Casual" bullet hell, hence using the mouse for control. I wanted people who would never usually play one to have fun without having to learn a million bullet patterns and getting everything pixel perfect.
Proper bullet hell shooters are really niche, and we wanted to avoid that, we want people to complete our games. If someone gives this a go and likes it then moves on to proper bullet hell, then from my point of view that's perfect.
DN8
DN8 is a very simple and good game. The beginning starts out slow like usual games but grows and increases difficulty more into the game.
It isn't great though.
There aren't any real problems but I just seem to loose interest while playing.
The upgrades are okay but really don't change the whole gameplay it's pretty much the same thing.
But don't get me wrong here I still like the game,Just doesn't grab my attention.
Squize responds:
Thanks for the review mate.
It's my game and I'd rate it a 7/8 too, its just meant to be a fun throwaway thing, if people get 15-20mins of fun out of it then I think its done its job, its nothing more than that.
Hmm, you can tell I don't work in marketing :)
Excellent!
This game isn't called bullet hell for nothing. Love the pace. A game worth playing.
Squize responds:
Cheers mate, glad you liked it ( I thought this game would be lost in NG limbo by now ).