Purgation Swordstorm

PURGATION SWORDSTORM is a single-stage bullet hell game about playing dangerously. You are BONE ACE, pilot of the B1000 BONE, an experimental fighter that SHOOTS SWORDS. Your mission is to ERADICATE GHOULS and RESCUE LOST SOULS.

This project was developed in 6 days for the TWG Discord's 3rd game jam. The prompt was “hold your ghouls close”, which inspired a slightly spooky shmup with an emphasis on point blanking and grazing.

Mechanics and Scoring 

Your fighter is equipped with a WIDE SHOT, a slow-moving FOCUS SHOT, and a HYPER MODE which grants a significant boost in power for a short time. 

Enemies destroyed at point blank range will drop Lost Souls

Grazing enemy bullets will charge your Hyper Meter 

When the Hyper Meter is full, you can activate Hyper Mode. Activating Hyper Mode will cancel all enemy bullets on screen into Lost Souls. 

During Hyper Mode, enemies will drop Lost Souls even if you destroy them outside of point-blank range, while enemies destroyed at point blank range will drop vastly more Lost Souls. Additionally, grazing bullets during Hyper Mode will grant score instead of filling the Hyper Meter. 

Hyper Mode will end if you take a hit, but all onscreen bullets will be canceled into Lost Souls. Note that this second bullet cancel does not occur if you allow Hyper Mode to end normally. If you’re chasing a high score, consider intentionally taking damage as Hyper Mode is about to run out… 

Controls 

(xbox)/[keyboard] defaults

• (d-pad or analog stick)/[arrow keys]: move ship/cursor
• (A)/[z]: fire/confirm 
• (B)/[x]: focus fire/cancel
• (X)/[c]: activate hyper mode/access rankings (from title screen)
• (select)/[space]: pause
• (start)/[esc]: open config (remap controls, screen settings, exit game)

Replays

Highlight a score on the rankings menu and press the confirm button to view a replay

Steam Deck/Linux 

This game should work on the Steam Deck, or on other Linux devices under Proton. To get it running on Steam Deck:

1. In desktop mode, download the game and extract the folder to your desired location 
2. Open steam → games → add a non-steam game to my library 
3. Navigate to the game’s folder and select the game executable 
4. Return to gaming mode and locate the game 
5. In the game’s properties, force the use of proton experimental 
6. Launch the game 

Tips & Tricks

• Enemies’ eyes and healthbars will turn from red to blue when you’re within point-blank range 
• You’re briefly invincible at the start of the stage, and after taking a hit – you can use these moments of reprieve to safely graze bullets
• Enemy bullets are less dangerous than they may appear. Only their glowing cores can hurt you (or, in the case of enemy swords, only the blade is dangerous)
• Only the glowing core of your ship is vulnerable 
• The spread shot is more powerful than the focus shot at point blank range, but only if every bullet hits
• Touching enemies won't hurt you, only their bullets will hurt you

Credits 

All art assets drawn by me using Aesprite

Some sound effects were created by me using Chiptone by SFB games, the rest are from a royalty-free sound pack by Osabisi (https://osabisi.sakura.ne.jp/m2/tm4/se_new.html)

All music by Peritune. The stage theme is Rapid3 and the boss theme is Numina. Music is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

Developed in Shooting Game Builder.  ZeroRanger, Cho Ren Sha 68k, Star of Providence, and every game by Cave were important sources of inspiration

Thanks to Taras for hosting the jam, and to everyone else in the TWG community! 

Thanks to the Shmupjunkies and STG Development Discords for the vast collection of shmup dev resources 

Thanks to Shigatake and Desmaku for valiantly creating Shooting Game Builder tutorials