Making a Bullet Hell Game with only Boss Battles

I've been working on a Bullet Hell game focused on Boss Battles!
In this devlog, I discuss how I created the unique 'ghosting' movement mechanic used for dodging bullets, and I give insights on my design choices when developing the game's first boss.
Credits:
Dark Souls 2 Gameplay - • Dark Souls 2: Mytha Bo...
God of War Ragnarök Gameplay - • God of War Ragnarok - ...
My Games:
okay-cam.itch.io/
Timestamps:
0:00 - Intro
0:38 - Player Movement: Getting Inspiration
1:42 - Player Movement: Prototyping
3:13 - Player Movement: Final Polish
4:58 - Boss Design: Bullet Patterns
6:45 - Boss Design: Attack Windups
7:36 - Boss Design: Boring Player Behaviour
9:21 - Outro
Music (In order of appearance):
half.cool - SHARP EDGES • SHARP EDGES
Club Penguin Pizza Parlor Theme - • Club Penguin - Pizza P...
Pumkin’s Pantry Gameplay Theme (From my game Pumkin’s Pantry)
HOSEHEAD Menu Theme (From my game HOSEHEAD)
Insaneintherainmusic - Tactical • "Tactical" - Video Gam...
HEPHESTOS - Jubilife City Remix • Jubilife City Remix (R...
#gamedev #devlog #godot #indiegame #gamedevelopment

[@preuuu]

getting knocked off stage and ghosting back to safety looks fun

[@n3y]

those knockback bullets have a lot of potential I think, like a sans undertale gimmick boss situation

[@yalo9130]

I agree

[@SRY295]

really cool! 4:06 maybe have a hard boss that force player to use this mechanic(have to jump in and off on the map edge). something like have an attack area on full map so player need to intentionally jump off to dodge the attack.

[@okay_cam]

@@SRY295 Good idea, I'll keep that in mind!

[@jovegraham6904]

Something I would want to keep in mind is to have all bullets that can’t be ghosted through have a common visual theme, like all being the same color or shape, so the player doesn’t get confused when they try to ghost through a bullet and it hurts them. Other than that, the game looks amazing! You’ve earned yourself a subscriber!

[@okay_cam]

Yep, thats a very good point! All bullets that cannot be ghosted through will be blue, and they will all be arc-shaped (cuphead's parry system has a lot of complaints from colourblind people since it only relies on using the colour pink, so I'm planning to use both shape and colour for distinction)

[@akaithecreator7448]

4:38 That was the smartest way to ask somebody to like and subscribe I've seen

[@HeuzyGameDevYT]

Bro this all looks so good! The unique mechanics and early polish are such a good sign for how good this game will be. The art is honestly really cool too. Keep it up Cam! Your channel and games are super underrated :)

[@okay_cam]

@@HeuzyGameDevYT thanks a bunch! I'm glad you've been enjoying my content :D

[@FoxNamedLuke]

Ah, yes, a game about ghosting people. I'll be good at it.

[@y.o2739]

I smell potential.

[@soursauces]

this is SICK cam!!! 😮🎉🎉 the sprite animations, esp for the boss is super well done!! 🔥

[@xrather7735]

When i watched the video i honestly thought this was made by a guy with 200k subs, not 200 subs.You earned my subscription

[@xaxtri]

Your so underrated I thought you were some popular youtuber bc of how well the video is 👍🏻👍🏻

[@meinlogan8191]

criminally underrated

[@GameJam230]

I could imagine here being some extremely cool and specific boss features with the saving grace system at 4:20, such as forcing the player to jump off a ledge and use the ghost to land on a nearby one, but they're too far away to just go directly from one platform to another. Other things you could do to design physical geometry around the ghosting ability would be to design different types of walls that you can AND can't pass through with it. Perhaps metal fences are passable by the ghost, but solid walls are not. There could also perhaps be energy barriers that ONLY allow corporeal beings through, but not ghosts. The inclusion of walls can also lead to fun boss gimmicks like normally undodgable attacks that are blocked by walls, forcing the player to stick around them for some attacks, but wanting to get away from them for the freedom of movement Some bosses could spawn these physical barriers in the map as well as destroying parts of the floor, forcing you to use the ghosting for complex navigation, instead of purely dodging bullets all the time. It would expand on the feature in a way that could be unique for many different bosses.

[@flamollusk420]

this is so cool, i wish bullets were real

[@Bloom8182]

There are tho

[@flamollusk420]

@@Bloom8182 not anymore (i ate them)

[@Bloom8182]

@@flamollusk420 Why did you eat them if you wish they were real again?

[@flamollusk420]

@@Bloom8182 they looked tasty

[@Bloom8182]

@@flamollusk420 Well that's fair enough I suppose, I ate all the 7x7 Screwdrivers

[@totalgd]

this looks awesome

[@vibreart.mp3]

This looks really cool and unique!!! You came up with a mechanic that looks very fun, is original and is not too complicated to understand, that's a really good thing!! I was surprised when I saw how few views and subscribers you have, you're really underrated! Keep up the good work because this has a lot of potential :D

[@okay_cam]

@@vibreart.mp3 thank you so much!!

[@MeloDev-ll9yi]

Really cool idea to group bullets and apply any forces to full group.

[@christianottley8542]

Small change would suggest making the character transparent when ghosting, with rolling most gamers have been taught that its not only mobility but also evasive, but when ghosting loos like just walking it might be initally confusing for some

[@okay_cam]

@@christianottley8542 that's a good point. the player does go slightly transparent when ghosting but it's not very obvious, so I might try to make that more clear, and I'll have to add a small tutorial too

[@spacebeats3680]

this looks great! the ghosting mechanic looks very fun to use, and the animations are sick

[@carterwalsh3825]

Great vid, first time in a while I’ve watched one of these without thinking abt clicking off

[@cubee4108]

boss rush bullet hell sounds super fun

[@greenmansgamedev7186]

The bullet patterns and the animations look awesome! Honestly that's a very good start, keep it up! The ghosting looks fun and is a very original idea, but the one thing I'd say about it is that using a player silhouette is a little bit dissonant with what the ability actually does. Usually in game this sort of UI indicates that the player is gonna arrive (or snap/blink) at that location, while in your game the player flies past it. In my opinion some sort of arrow or any sort of reticule that implies movement would be better. Anyway you've earned a subscriber, I can't wait to see where this goes! Good Luck!

[@okay_cam]

@greenmansgamedev7186 Thanks for the feedback! That's a good point you've made, I'll definitely add a directional indicator

[@mrkefirek9]

gl on making ur game

[@PhantomThiefXI]

the ghosting is fun looking, but im not sure this is the game for that feature when bullet helling, i want to move away, roll or teleport or whatever with a simple press or steady movement, not have to aim my roll while shooting and moving, plus having to calculate where the momentum will drive me. this will either be frustrating on messier bosses, or youll just keep yourself from design complicated bosses because your ghosting mechanic works like this, a detriment to your game either way. as for shooting patterns, I think you should seek inspiration from touhou, those games have the prettiest bullet curtain patterns in the industry

[@okay_cam]

@@PhantomThiefXI Thanks for the insight and the feedback. I think for the most part, the player won't need to use the ghost mechanic and should rely on walking around as normal, but you're right that it's quite a complex movement which means that the boss designs need to account for this - I can't make bosses as if the dodge mechanic was just a simple roll. I also agree that the Touhou bullet hell patterns are really beautiful, but I think they wouldn't fit my game since they're more of a traditional 'bullet hell', whereas my game might be better labeled as a 'shoot em up', since there isn't as much of an overwhelming amount of bullets. I think part of the confusion is that the definition of a 'bullet hell' has slowly become more broad, I'm definitely leaning more towards the style of Enter the Gungeon or Nuclear Throne instead of Touhou. So something like my ghost ability certainly wouldn't fit a game like Touhou

[@devilbob]

@@okay_cam Also you can look up some bosses from "PUSS!". It's still a more classic bullet hell, but with some creative attacks

[@cutiemolly.]

this looks like a rlly fun game!! would 100% love to play it

[@remnai4615]

so im a liitle late but uh this looks insanely good and definitely feels like a game that i would definitely play for a WHILE (provided there is more than two bosses, which i assume there is) the bullet patterns are REALLY sick, especially the spinning bullets one. ghosting looks fun as hell to use and mess with, and i love how you gave people a way to not instantly die to arena changes or falling off the map wonder if the blue attacks are gonna be used more as actual attacks and not just arena guards, given how cool of an idea that is the arena as of now is neat, but i wonder if other arena shapes could be made. maybe a cluster of islands that could be dashed between? that little green guy looks really neat. despite the fact they're smaller than 90% of the game sprites i like the fact that they're still visually distinct from everything else one small thing is that the ghosting has a fairly large distance. i don't know if this would be possible but having a smaller variant or some way to control the distance *slightly* might be neat. unsure if that would mess with boss design tho i love boss rush games and i cannot wait to see where this goes later. has a lot of potential

[@okay_cam]

Thank you for all the feedback!! Right now in the video, I just show the 2 different phases of the same boss, and I have plans to make 2 more bosses. I'm glad you like the mechanics so far too! I really like the idea of having multiple islands to dash between, so that will 100% be in the next boss fight. And you mentioned that distance variety would be nice for ghosting - right now you can adjust the distance slightly, but you're right that the distance is still quite large. I've just decreased the minimum ghosting distance and that should hopefully allow for some more options, we'll see how that goes. Thanks again for the detailed message!

[@siinom9475]

Games looks cool and I really like the pace of you videos

[@felfar197]

ghosting looks really good and satisfying!!

[@Vota_]

looks sick dude!

[@WellThereYouGo]

Incredibly impressible devlog, underrated channel

[@Sungjinbot]

impressive video , underrated develloper tbh

[@TheNewbieMatt]

This game looks really cool. Subbing!

[@johnrobrox8324]

Big boss aoe move that forces u to time saving grace and jump off in order to not get hit by it

[@Ethereal_Cereal]

this looks awesome 😄

[@The_SSSlopper]

Due to enjoying this video, I have decided I must subscribe. Keep it up

[@buziebee1]

This looks sick! I thought that the stage being sliced up was a really creative solution to the bottom stage camping problem. I can't wait to see where this goes!

[@lemonchild175]

Think it'd be cool if theres a boss/enemy/attack that needs to be dashed into to either damage them or avoid taking damage

[@Wholes4d]

Cool video, if you’re looking for more inspiration for boss attacks you could think about different bosses having unique methods of attacking. Like a slam attack, a shockwave, or summoning minions. Maybe a boss teleports spawning attacks in its place, maybe it throws itself directly at you. I see a lot of potential here good luck man.

[@okay_cam]

@@Wholes4d Thanks for the ideas! I've actually got some minion spawning and teleport attacks right now, but I didn't have time to talk about all of it. I do like the idea of a slam attack / shockwave so I'll try use that in my next boss!

[@Gues9282]

i want this so bad you have no clue how long ive wanted to play a bullet hell game 😭

[@okay_cam]

While you wait, you can play Bullet Heaven 2 on the browser if you're looking for a more traditional bullet hell, or you can try out Bloody Hell on Steam if you want something like Enter the Gungeon! (they're both free)

[@BlueOctopusDev]

Love the video please make more you will be successful 100%

[@pedrominicz]

A boss-only bullet-hell game is a good idea. You should check out a game called Furi. Good luck with your project!

[@raddelydackelydack]

Id (maybe) suggest that after a set amount of range your bullet begins to shrink and make less damage which would make it less worth trying to stay away from an enemy, also maybe make it so that you bullet does like 2.5 dmg if shot at point blank which maybe isnt a viable strategy but itd be a nice payoff for if a boss stops shooting for a second and your already close to it

[@Bloom8182]

I thought the big red mouth boss and the one in the robe were entirely different bosses! But in the close up view of mouthy.... I REALIZED ITS ONE BIG ROBE i thought he was a hydra or something

[@okay_cam]

honestly idek what it is hahah but yeah the bigger version is the second phase, which I didn't make very clear

[@makiyet]

bro ur so underrated wth

[@bh1352]

Game looks sick

[@echo7project904]

You could use saving grace for dodging a stage wide attack.

[@Em648]

Lovely

[@Console.Log01]

Watching the ghosting mechanic has given me an idea for a movement accessory in my own game, (a terraria clone). It'll definitely be simpler though, just hold right click and point in a direction, and when you release right click you'll either be telported a certain distance in that direction, or you'll shoot forward with s in that direction. Grouping bullets also looks cool, but it also looks like it'd take a lot of work to implement. I might add it for later bosses though.

[@okay_cam]

Honestly grouping bullets together aint too bad! If you have an Area2D bullet node, you can make those bullets a child of a Node2D, and then move the Node2D instead of the bullets

[@Console.Log01]

@@okay_cam The problem with grouping bullets for me though is that I'm not using any engine, so I don't have the luxury of nodes. I think I might just create a new class that stores several bullets, a center point and movement code.

[@okay_cam]

​@@Console.Log01 Ohhh right I thought you were using Godot. Thats a bit more tricky then! I wish you the best of luck for your game

[@monkeeeeyt]

idea to make the yellow boxes/circles less lazy: make custom sprite per yellow box/circle like flickering lighting for the laser attack, or a minion being made like dry bones but with flesh

[@okay_cam]

Good ideas, thank you!

[@thecatbrat42]

this game looks cool ima sub

[@tamashiro_again]

i'm also working on a bullet hell, (gungeon is my childhood dream game)

[@wypmangames]

what software do you use for game development? i wanna make a bullet hell game myself but im not sure where to even begin here's my ideas: squares -> shoot in a basic line (vertical or horizontal) circles -> shoot diagonal, start small and bounce off walls with angle shifts and increase size every bounce (with the max amount of bounces increasing the longer you survive) stars -> shoot horizontal, vertical or diagonal for about 75% of the screen while spinning, when it reaches this 75% mark the inner pentagon explodes and it shoots out the 5 points as triangles triangles -> shoot at whatever direction they were facing when the star they were on exploded, shoot twice as fast as other projectiles i also want you to move around as a small square with WASD or arrow keys for movement edit: im up to collab or more in-depth tutorials/explanations too if you have those

[@okay_cam]

I use godot 3, it's quite a nice game engine but it's taken me some time to learn, and I'm still learning a lot at the moment. I recommend following 1 or 2 short tutorials (less than 20 min) and then making a ton of very small projects before going for anything ambitious. it'll help you learn the basics such as how to spawn a bullet, how to do basic player movement, etc. If you start doing game development, I wish you the best of luck! As for tutorials/explanations I'm probably not too interested in making that stuff in this channel, I don't feel very qualified haha

[@Auricstarlight]

Okay how do you only have 160 subscribers?????

[@nerdtime7657]

Nice

[@Whhatt]

Algorithm also great vid

[@coco13579]

wait a minute... IS THAT PISKEL? I remember I started using that app years ago and I still use it even though it's been kind of forgotten about

[@okay_cam]

@@coco13579 yea it is haha, honestly it's been a tad restrictive and I was thinking of moving to aseprite but I've gotten used to piskel and it gets the job done

[@moothankpew]

really cool video! i saw some comments asking you to make a tutorial in godot(since i think thats what u use) and it would be really awesome if you could do that!

[@okay_cam]

@@moothankpew Thanks for watching! I'm honestly a bit unsure if I want to make tutorials on this channel, but yeah a few people have suggested that now so maybe its a good idea. Let me know if there's any tutorial topic you have in mind!

[@mojojojo6535]

Cool what do u make your art on

[@okay_cam]

I use piskel, but its not the best pixel art program. it has been a bit limiting but it gets the job done and its free

[@miaxy1824]

i like the tiny enemys :(

[@okay_cam]

no tiny enemies for you >:)

[@rodrigocortez2770]

Hello, fellow human! This looks like a really cool idea. I'd love to compose some music for the project if you'll have me. If you're interested, just let me know!

[@okay_cam]

Thanks for the kind words! I'm not currently looking for a composer but I'll keep you in mind

[@rodrigocortez2770]

@@okay_cam Thx dude

[@creepad667]

Playere shooting system looks boring, I think if you improve it or completely remove it from the game so it would like try to survive as long as you can, and for one of the bosses in future it would be good if it's made of different platforms that you can only go on it by ghosting so it would be harder to dodge but I think bullet patterns should be simpler or it will feel unfair

[@Unknow_Stickman]

Overall, this is a really nice video but the speaking REALLY needs more intonation

[@okay_cam]

@@Unknow_Stickman thanks for the feedback! I'll keep that in mind for the next video

[@user-jo5pl9lx5z]

Algorithm Bait

[@okay_cam]

okay