Bloody Hell Design Process

Iteration 1

At the start of 2022, I started thinking about creating the first game I would release on Steam. I was looking for a genre that would be enjoyable to play without requiring too many complicated systems. After looking around, I ended up picking the Bullet Hell genre. The main loop was very simple and within 3 days I finished a playable prototype, at the time named Endless Cycle. The game featured a fully procedural map, that would regenerate each time the player died. Surprisingly, even with the lack of progression in the game beyond simple weapon upgrades, the game as actually quite fun the play.

Pros:

• the game was fun to play

• the shop system gave players an immediate incentive to go fight enemies; they wanted to collect currency to try out the best weapons

Cons:

• the procedural world was not interesting to explore; even though every part of the level was technically different, it all felt the same to play

• new items did not provide significant enough gameplay variety to keep the game interesting for longer periods of time

After this iteration it became clear to me creating and releasing a full Bullet Hell game would be possible, but I would need to create a lot more content to keep the gameplay interesting. An infinite procedural world sadly does not mean infinite enjoyable content.

Iteration 2

For the next iteration, I teamed up with 4 other students from the HKU. To fix the boring world from the previous iteration, we decided we would not procedurally generate the map, but rather design the levels by hand. This gave us the opportunity to make the levels connect in interesting ways and make the levels more memorable.

Pros:

• interesting visual style

• more variety and polish for the enemies made the combat very satisfying

Cons:

• even though players would unlock abilities throughout the game, players felt like there was a lack of progression

• levels in the world all looked alike, making it hard for players to differentiate and remember them

The biggest failure of this iteration was the level design. We tried making a Metroidvania style map, by having the player unlock different parts of the world by obtaining movement abilities. A good Metroidvania game makes the player feel like they are an explorer discovering a strange unknown world. As we later learned, a key part of this feeling is getting to choose which way to go, and finding all kinds of different secrets, which was not possible in the version of the game.

Iteration 3 (current)

While making design decisions for the third iteration of Bloody Hell, we always made sure to base our ideas on two key concepts: Exploration and Satisfying Combat. We chose these concepts because they create a nice contrast between intense action and more slow paced gameplay, which can be nice for longer playing sessions.

Exploration

A big part of Metroidvania games is discovering a world with a non-linear progression system. We also want to motivate players to explore by themselves without telling them where to go, because we think this makes for a more authentic experience when you get to decide for yourself what part of the world you want to discover next.

In order to keep players curious, we reward those who go out of the way of the obvious path. We do this by hiding secret rooms and passages everywhere around the world. In these secret places players can find currency, upgrades, shops or shortcuts. Apart from better items, secrets can also lead to NPC's who can tell the player something about the world.

It turned out balancing the amount of secrets was quite difficult, because we could never guarantee a player would find them. In order to improve their chances, we decided to often have multiple entrances to a secret room. Not only does this increase the likelihood for a player to find it, it also gives us the opportunity to show players in which ways secret places are hidden. If someone enters a secret by breaking open a wall with a crack in it, and leaves it by coming out of some bushes, they are now aware of two different ways they can find secrets from that point on.

We found that these secret places are key in creating an engaging world to discover. It is very important for players to feel like they found something others might have missed, so they truly feel like explorers.

Satisfying Combat

A satisfying combat system has many different aspects. Of course it should feel good to shoot your weapon, but apart from the way the game feels, players should also be challenged mechanically and strategically. Having just the right amount of challenge is crucial in a combat system that feels rewarding and satisfying.

Mechanical challenge in Bloody Hell comes from the Bullet Hell aspect of the game. Bullet Hell gameplay is all about dodging bullets. This is usually done in 2 different ways: moving around bullets or dodge-rolling over them. In order to have the most varied gameplay possible, the player should always be having to switch up their dodging technique. We can achieve this by either having bullet patterns that are very spread out, which are too unpredictable to dodge-roll through, or having patterns that come in short waves that can not be avoided by only running.

Strategy is important in Bloody Hell during two different parts of the game: at resting points between fights, and during moment-to-moment combat gameplay.

In between fights, players have the option to switch to different upgrades. If the player knows what types of enemies are coming up, they are able to equip upgrades that are useful specifically for those enemies. For example, if those upcoming enemies are most effective at long range, the player can use the Triple Shot upgrade to deal more damage at close range. Or if the player feels like they first need stronger items to continue, they can choose to equip an upgrade that increases the amount of currency they receive.

During fights, players need to think about what they should be doing. They can either use their regular shot for consistent damage, charge up their secondary attack for a massive AoE hit, use their grappling hook to fly towards an enemy, or focus on dodging the incoming attacks.

Our goal with all these mechanics is that the player feels like they are making meaningful choices while playing, and create the feeling of satisfaction when they finally beat a difficult boss because of their own skills and strategies.