Comments on: Game 02: Stargrazing

By: Sam

Sam — Fri, 06 May 2011 07:48:25 +0000

heh, yeah, I don’t know what it is, maybe that it’s like Ikaruga but without memorizing and neverending. something just resonates with me though! I could play it for hours nonstop I think.

One issue if you tried to remake it though–slowdown. I was confused by all these old comments about the bullets going too fast and then I went back to Level 1 and yeah, those are some pretty fast bullets. The game is completely different between Level 1 and Level 7 even, and it wouldn’t be the same at the higher levels if you fixed all the slowdown–some of the things you have to do you really have to process one frame at a time to have any chance. I think only someone raised on NES could truly love it!

If anybody is completely insane, I posted as my website a link to some pictures of random levels from 15-36.

By: Nathan McCoy

Nathan McCoy — Thu, 05 May 2011 20:30:57 +0000

Wow. I am blown away by your skill at the game, and the discoveries you’ve made. The fact that you’ve got that much gameplay value out of one of my first games is mind-boggling. I’ll definitely give this game a second look, when considering my Android-port project. =)

By: Sam

Sam — Thu, 05 May 2011 17:33:18 +0000

Okay Level 36 now and I quit. I think Level 37, maybe 38, will be the point when it is impossible to dodge anything except for a burst/spread shot, because all other shots last longer than it takes for the boss to cross the entire screen, so you can start dodging on one side but it will still smash you on the other side. On 36 if you start on one side, you can just barely do it. Anyway, the only way to win is how I described in my last comment, and you get the right ship 1/9 times–only the first shot matters, the boss will be dead after your first attack.

I think I have played this game longer than any other person, maybe longer than all other people put together.

By: Sam

Sam — Thu, 05 May 2011 17:02:14 +0000

okay now I’m at Level 31. you can beat basically any boss if it fires a yellow spread shot from the inner set of two turrets. it’s the first thing that is fired, so just fly right up the middle absorbing. you will absorb a crazy number of bullets while veering right a little for some reason, but as long as you hold up+absorb you won’t die. then release it. the screen will fill with yellow laser. as long as you can avoid the shots from the middle and outer turrets for a few seconds the boss is pretty much dead.

By: Sam

Sam — Thu, 05 May 2011 08:54:19 +0000

I made it to Level 26 on Boss Rush! I started to keep a folder of ridiculous bullet hell pictures from Stargrazing but after Level 20 or so pretty much every life qualifies. This is seriously one of the top 5 internet games ever.

I know you’re probably not planning on fixing this year-old game based on gameplay at Level 26, but stuff gets really weird. Only 1 in 10 bosses is even worth trying to fight. Starting around 23 or so, if the middle turret is anything except a single burst (any color!), it lasts longer than it takes for the boss to traverse the screen, so you automatically die. It’s pretty much impossible to absorb any large bullets (exception: if you get spread yellow from the first pair of turrets, you can sometimes absorb it by flying right up the center… red is too random). Spread blue from the outermost turrets is impossible to avoid. The weirdest thing is how only the center of the bullets will actually do damage–it’s strange to absorb enough yellow to create a stream of yellow bullets bigger than the entire screen (this happens all the time after Level 20) and have some of it miss the boss because you weren’t lined up perfectly.

Anyway I have spent way too much time playing this game.

By: Nathan McCoy

Nathan McCoy — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 01:11:35 +0000

Fixed again. Not sure what happened there.

By: Brandon

Brandon — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 01:08:20 +0000

The link is broken again ;o

By: nmccoy

nmccoy — Wed, 19 May 2010 22:53:29 +0000

Fixed, thanks.

By: Stefan Monov

Stefan Monov — Wed, 19 May 2010 22:29:01 +0000

The link is broken!
(btw, I love your games, especially wavespark)

By: Chase

Chase — Sun, 09 May 2010 02:38:19 +0000

I am a bullet hell gamer, and this has an interesting mechanic to it, but the bullets move to quickly (at least on my PC..?) to have any hope of dodging the faster ones, unfortunately they don’t aim until they fire so preemptive dodging is difficult.

The capture is interesting, but as soon as you absorb a different bullet type (usually accidentally), the power returns to the first level, which is a little annoying.

But I must say I really like the capture mechanism. I made something a bit like this a long time ago, but it wasn’t a compete game, and it made use of a shield instead which reflected the bullets off its surface while active, well except for the fast shield breakers rounds, etc.