Super Dash is a bullet-hell game currently in development. I’ll be writing about it in more posts from now on.

My background and the idea

I started developing games in college around 2014. After prototyping dozens of terrible games and learning Unity along the way, I decided it was time to publish a game. Like most beginners my choices of genres were not humble, going from MMOs to Metroidvanias. I went with the latter, and without knowing how to draw a stick figure even less animate it, I started working on the game.

Four months later I had an awful walking animation and a buggy combo system. Running some calculations, I realized that at that pace I’d finish the game 10 years after my life expectancy.

I reluctantly gave up on the game but still wanted to publish a game that was fun and engaging, I just had to do it within a set of restrictions:

• Simple graphics that even I could draw and animate.

• A straightforward narrative that wouldn’t consume too much development time.

• A simple mechanic.

• And most importantly, a scope that was achievable before I was gone

With all these requirements in mind, I began brainstorming and eventually designed the dash mechanic that would be used in a bullet-hell type of game.

Prototyping

I was pretty happy with the dash system implemented. The screen shake, particles exploding and the one-hit kill were satisfying and showed potential. However at that point the game had no game loop defined.

Inspired by old arcade games, the first version had enemies moving down the screen and the player ship destroying them. It felt like a “dodge to survive” type of game so I added a shield at the bottom that should be protected - the player needed to destroy all enemies before they hit the shield.

While dash action remained fun, the idea of protecting the shield didn’t enhance the mechanic. Having to destroy all enemies was frustrating and exhausting, the difficulty wasn’t scaling well.

One of my friends, Marcusz, had the same feeling and suggested I look into a small indie game no one knew at the time (it sold millions): Vampire Survivors. After playing for ten hours non-stop, I remembered why I bought the game and understood how mine could be better.

With enemies coming from all directions and no need to protect a shield the game became more fun and added new possibilities of cool mechanics. Enemies didn’t have to be destroyed right away and many more could be added to the screen at a single time.

This defined how the game would be played but the game loop was still undefined.

Roguelite like

It always felt right to have an Arcade Mode with infinite waves and bosses along the way. However the “main mode” was a harder decision to make.

I really like roguelite games, they encourage you to perfect the game mechanics while giving small advantages for each new run. However they’re only interesting when the gameplay is emergent enough to create unique runs. All other game elements would have to support that.

To enhance this experience:

• Power-ups are triggered automatically but can get complex. Having multiple levels for them allows the player to learn in steps before using a super overpowered one. There are 12 unique power-ups, each with 4 levels, which are distinct from one another and create different strategic possibilities.

• Enemy Types have interesting chemistry between them. We can have waves with types A and B, and later a wave with A and C, creating different gameplay scenarios.

• The option to choose which boss to fight was added, providing players with more control over their experience.

• Burdens for waves were added for interesting challenges during a run.

Design Pillars

• Fast paced

• Rewarding to aggressive players

• Simple commands (2 buttons)

• Simple verbs

• Overpowered and satisfying power ups

• Easy to play

• Replayable

Those pillars became super important when developing the game. Every decision was based on them. For example, all power-ups are triggered by destroying a certain amount of enemies in sequence; this rewards aggressiveness and doesn’t require any new button to activate them.

By following the pillars the game became more concise on its theme, allowing me to extract more from the simple mechanic. Some bosses use that to create new challenges with twists in the original mechanic.

Next Steps

• The game is currently in development but will be released later this year, but for now if you’re interested the Steam page is online: Page on Steam.

• A demo will also be available in a few weeks.

• I'll keep writing and diving deeper in the game design for the sake of docummentation