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This is a top-down bullet hell arena shooter. It is a remake of the original Bullet Candy using a 3D engine, but originally it was meant to become an unlockable in the game Irukandji. In the end the developer found it to be good enough to stand on its own and released it separately. The game can be controlled using a gamepad or with the combination of a mouse and a keyboard. Players direct a space ship that can be moved around and can fire in any direction, regardless of the movement. The game consists of a series of enclosed, single-screen arenas where the successive waves of enemies and attack patterns become gradually more difficult. Next to a basic laser with an unlimited amount of bullets, the ship can pick up yellow power pods. These lead to new weaponry and higher scores. When half of the pods in a single level are collected, the laser is upgraded to a stronger version. When all of them are collected, a smart bomb is unleashed and it destroys all enemies at once. While playing, and especially when destroying enemies, four types of bonus items appear. Red ones provide extra lives, yellow one yield more points, blue ones provide triple shots, and green ones make the ship invincible for a short while. Players are encouraged to survive as long as possible with a single life. Not only because all weapon upgrades are otherwise lost, but also because this resets the score multiplier at the bottom of the screen. In dangerous situations the player can opt to commit suicide instead of being shot, as that preserves the upgrades and multiplier. Committing suicide however costs two lives. During attack waves the screen is generally crowded with many different enemies, bullets and bonuses, all in different shapes and colours. All objects need to be evaded successfully to survive and some enemies have complex attack patterns. When dying the ship immediately respawns and the gameplay is continued, without having to replay the entire wave. The game includes a high score list and keeps track of the overall progress. There is a basic tutorial and three difficulty levels. High difficulty levels do not only toughen up the game, they also provide multipliers that are two and three times as large, making them the modes where the highest amount of points can be scored. |
