Well, that was February and this is a second round-up of Game Maker shooty-ness. For some bizarre reason, the denizens of the Yoyo Games website still seem unable to install joystick support into their games despite it being an incredibly simple matter – come on guys, it’s not rocket science and even those mouse-aimed shooters work better with a control pad for motion rather than W, A, S and D!
Modnar Ssob by QOG
As the name might suggest (spell the words backwards if it hasn’t already) this is a game of randomly-generated boss battles “starring” enemies built out of glowing blocks. Okay, doesn’t sound particularly enticing but the execution is pretty neat and, whilst I could have lived without the inertia on the player’s ship making bullet dodging more difficult than it needs to be, it’s worth a few plays.
Project: Raiden by monkeyman
Another one which does exactly what it says on the tin, Project: Raiden is monkeyman’s tribute to the Raiden series; this homage is well done and whilst it isn’t perfect as clones go, this is a decent bit of no holds barred blasting in its own right as well.
Sapharica by cakeowns1
Sapharica is an attractive bullet hell shooter; the player gets three ships to choose from (each with its own weaponry and a female pilot who is clearly stated as being over eighteen before the loli haters get upset) and then everything wants them dead and will throw hundreds of bullets around until that happens. The only qualm I have is that there are no difficulty settings (it’s set to “oh crap”) and some of the bullet patterns are seriously difficult, so the dodging involved shouldn’t be attempted at home unless by a trained professional.
PinkBurst by YellowAfterlife
Oh lovely, another arena shooter with primitive graphics… you don’t see many of those around! Oddly though, despite the pseudo 3D movement and the grid reminiscent of Geometry Wars, the slower pace here is more in keeping with the zombie killing arena shooters doing the rounds; death is inevitable after time simply because the game will just keep throwing more and more enemies into the mix until the player’s gun is overwhelmed. Still, it’s fun once things start getting a little busy even if there’s no variation between enemies.
ROFL Copter by zephhyre
Okay, if I’m being totally honest this is pretty much “filler” because the February releases were mostly blandness with very little to write home about, but as ideas go I quite liked this attempt at turning the “fly the helicopter through the caverns” one button game into a two button shoot ‘em up – but be warned, the difficulty will almost certainly drive players mental.
And since there’s “traditionally” a look at three less successful designs… here are three less successful designs.
2054 by DaBronstar
Oh dear… extremely uninventive stuff and essentially just the 1945 tutorial beefed up a little. The only positive is that whilst the graphics are lacklustre they’re not the ones provided for 1945. The movement pattern of the final boss is hideously erratic but, apart from that and the bullets that track the player for a while, it’s too easy and over too quickly.
Battlestar Galactica by richard_a_hamilton
One of the things that put me off Game Maker for quite a while was Viper Patrol, a Battlestar Galactica game developed with an older version of GM and “based on” the original series. This one might as well be Viper Patrol 2 because once more it merely has the Battlestar Galactica theme stapled over a bare bones shoot ‘em up that does absolutely no justice to the genre or subject matter.
Sepy by nickman100
Goody, another shoot ‘em up where the author presumably thought that things like variety or challenge were optional! The graphics are just “meh” (and presumably just whatever was found for use), there isn’t any sound at all, the enemy patterns repeat after a couple of seconds whilst randomly lobbing bullets down the screen and the only redeeming feature (and I’m stretching things somewhat by describing it as “redeeming”) is that the player’s two lives go into battle side by side.
