Danzoku! (written for v0.58)

Danzoku, as I incorrectly named it back at the start of 2010, is a simple danmaku (bullet hell, curtain fire, "girl shooter") game I began making as a project in a Visual Basic class back in high school. With a focus on gameplay over aesthetics, it has since evolved into something that has that "oh my god why isn't this as simple as it looks and still kills me left and right on EASY mode" feeling series like Touhou or Suguri keep forcing upon me and continues to get even more so as I continue to finalize the gameplay.

So, put simply, it isn't pretty (yet) and only incorporates a single "boss fight". You are a pink block with a circle in it trying to send egg shapes bullets into the body of a bigger blue block who fires more interesting round bullets at you. If you're one of those people who need graphics out the foot to get into a game, you might be put off at the most current version (v0.57). For the rest of you who value gameplay over visual, I'm hoping it incorporates the feeling and difficulty of other such danmakus to keep you playing again and again and again.

I did remove the one handicap of other danmakus though: complete predictability. I personally hate it when someone can spend a few hours learning the repeatable details of each individual level to the point of mastery, so, while there are patterns to be realized, the game is based mostly in the realms of randomly generated enemy movement and attack choices requiring skill and quick-thinking, not a decent ability to memorize complex patterns and movements.

Unfortunately, due to the limits of Visual Basic and my own knowledge, the attack patterns I can implement are fairly basic (for instance, "Bullet Circlet" can slow down the game when all of the possible 64 bullets are on the screen; or, I don't want to figure out the math to make a spiraling attack) but are compensated by the aforementioned lack of predictability and the current implementation of "supplementary attacks" in an attempt to further complicate gameplay.

And, I should note, that it is by no means complete. Most of the gameplay ideas I wish to implement are almost in there and still require some adjusting, but it is still a completely functional game. If you have any creative suggestions, I am open to considering them and, if applicable, adding them.