"Garden of Coloured Lights" (hereby referred to as Garden) is an independent, free 2D shoot'em up game filled with bullets (hence why I called it bullet hell, but it's not /that/ intense - maybe on highest difficulty?).
It is a small, minimalist game. "Fly around and kill everything" sums up the gameplay. I first found it while browsing random packages for Ubuntu (but there is an installer for Windows).
Screenshots (from website)
stage 1:
stage 2:
stage 3:
At first glance, it may seem to be merely a slightly tripper Galaga. However, even on my first try at the game (which took a small amount of time to begin since I did not realize that the main menu had no sound), I was absorbed. It has a very 8/16-bitish soundtrack to it. Cunningly, its music is also derived from bullets being fired and ships being destroyed: during intense sequences, with bullets flying everywhere and enemies exploding, the music takes on a quirky beat and melody because those sound effects themselves have different pitches and voices. All of the sound effects reflect the colourful first impression you may have from the screenshots.
Indeed, the art style, though very simplistic, is easy on the eyes. At first the battles may seem hectic, but after a try or two, one quickly adapts. General rule of thumb: rhombu is death. (It's a bullet.)
Overall, the aesthetics make for a very lively and energetic game, all in spite of their minimalistic designs.
Gameplay
To play: the default controls use the arrow keys and Z, X, C to fire options (weapons) 1, 2, and 3, respectively. V is for slowing yourself down to help dodge bullets. ESC pauses the game. From there, Y or N will quit or continue the game.
After starting a new game, you get to choose 3 options to go along with your ship. All of them have different effects, funky names, and some of them you can only equip one of, but others you can equip multiple times. They will fly in a circle around you all game and your bullets fire from them (not your ship, except the very first and last options).
Notice the bars in the top left. The first 3 are recharge meters. Some options do not use it. The next 3, that may have ticks beneath them, are experience bars for the options. The ticks denote the level of the option. Getting XP and levelling your options up is as simple as killing non-bosses with them.
As usual in these kinds of games, you work with lives and suffer death on contact with a single bullet. Your lives are displayed in the upper right corner.
This game has already entertained me for hours. And yet, the farthest I have gotten is a bit past the beginning of stage 3 (out of 4), despite that I am playing on normal difficulty, the lowest possible setting. I highly recommend this game to SEN. It is simple but also loads of fun. I myself find it quite difficult, even on Normal. The game's simple mechanics as outlined below introduces a lot of strategy I don't normally find myself thinking about when I play games of this genre. I hope you will try out this game and enjoy it too.
Below are some extra details about the game:
-on Windows, there is an init file in the installation you installed Garden to. I suggest editing it such that it is in windowed mode, ie. "Windowed=1". Otherwise, the colours may become distorted if you are running Windows 7, and possibly Vista
-there are 4 stages total
-every 2000 points you earn, you get +1 life (as of v1.08, the latest that is hosted on SourceForge as of the time of writing)
-there are no powerups that drop in game
-equipping 3 of the same rapid-fire weapon reduces all of their fire rate or power
-while firing a continuous weapon, weapons that need to recharge will pause their recharge until you stop firing
-you may notice that your options glow yellow/orange. if they are ready to fire, they will glow yellow. Otherwise, they dim to orange
-your hitbox is the little white square just above the centre of the ship's graphic
-colliding with enemies does NOT result in death - however, their bullets will kill you
I challenge you
Apparently, the creator of the game beat it at the start of 2011. So the game "is beatable." I assume that means doing so is a tremendous feat.
As such, I would like to challenge the members of SEN to finish Garden by 11:59 PM -5:00 EST of January 1st, 2013. That is in approximately 4 weeks time.
I will give a mineral prize (a small one since I am poor) to people according to the rules below.
1) The first person to beat Garden on any difficulty will win 20 minerals.
2) The first person to beat Garden on Hard OR Punishment will win 30 OR 55 minerals respectively. This prize can only be given out once for a completion on either Hard OR Punishment.
-A single person can win both prizes.
-To be eligible for a prize, the participant must have one unaltered screenshot for the end of each stage (4 total), which should show either a "stage cleared" or similar box and/or an empty health bar of the dead boss. The screenshots will serve as proof of a legitimate completion of the game.
-EXTRA: proof may also be served in the form of a video of the entire run, from the main menu to the point at which the last boss is defeated. Credit roll or secret ending or such can be edited out so as not to spoil the ending. If proof is presented in this manner, a 5 mineral bonus is awarded. This bonus will only go to the first person to provide a video proof.
-"First person" is determined by the first person to post their achievement with legitimate proof in this thread (the post's date will be used).
-I am also "eligible" for this contest in the sense that if I "win" a prize, that prize is rendered null for all other contenders of that prize and will no longer be given away.
