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Indie shmup Bullet Candy Perfect on sale for as low as $1 photo

Ah, the old "pay as much as you think it's worth" business model. In theory, a giant middle-finger to the greedy corporations who feel justified charging exorbitant amounts of money in the name of tradition and cynicism. In reality, a giant social experiment in which artists get to find out just how cheap and selfish their fans really are.

Bullet Candy Perfect is a slightly sexier version of -- wait for it -- Bullet Candy, a game old enough for me to comfortably refer to as an "indie classic" but recent enough that I'd feel more comfortable prefacing the entire phrase with the word "modern." It feels somewhat like Ikaruga by way of Jeff Minter; bullet hell in a psychadelic, oft-overwhelming environment.

Either way, the enhanced version is now on sale for a bare minimum contribution of one dollar. If you end up liking it, you can (and should) pay more.

It didn't really do much for me, to be honest -- the powerup system is wildly imbalanced, to the point where if you die once on a difficult level and can't get access to one of the randomly dropped triple-shot powerups, you literally cannot complete said level without dying and respawning at least a dozen times. Still, I definitely got my dollar's worth.








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8 comments | showing # 1 to 8
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Chris Carter's Avatar - Comment posted on 10/04/2009 09:03
Chris Carter
I'll be honest here, I only really like Eastern bullet hell shmups, because Western titles tend to be too easy, or unimaginative.
Jonathan Holmes's Avatar - Comment posted on 10/04/2009 09:18
Jonathan Holmes
RACIST!
charliesgames's Avatar - Comment posted on 10/04/2009 09:42
charliesgames
Hi, thanks for mentioning my game :)
Just for the sake of fairness though, the powerups aren't spawned entirely at random ;)

Thanks again
Cheers
Charlie
Narishma's Avatar - Comment posted on 10/04/2009 09:45
Narishma
You should check Space Phallus by the same guy. Looks more fun to me than this shmup. http://www.charliesgames.com/wordpress/?page_id=65
protomark's Avatar - Comment posted on 10/04/2009 13:49
protomark
powerups? that's a weird understanding of ikaruga you have, there. i would have said gradius, based on the description of the game. Those games have the same problem (challenge) - die once and lose all your powerups and you might as well call it quits.

anyhow, this looks kind of cool.
charliesgames's Avatar - Comment posted on 10/04/2009 14:26
charliesgames
Actually, the main mechanic in the game is that you can commit suicide when you're in a tricky spot, which preserves your power-ups and score multipliers - meaning that you can get through the game without dying so to speak, i guess the reviewer missed this bit?
Anyway, this is where the perfect bit in the name comes from - getting through the game fully tooled up and with your score multiplier maxed out i.e. the perfect run!

Cheers
Charlie
haunted1013's Avatar - Comment posted on 10/04/2009 21:08
haunted1013
+1 for native Mac version. Sold.
Kasreyn's Avatar - Comment posted on 10/05/2009 14:01
Kasreyn
+1 sold because of this article. I like it. It's not that overwhelming just fun? #8 leaderboard on my second attempt. there are some good scores above to beat though!

Charlie is right about the suicide mechanic. Only problem is using it :)
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