Horizontal SHMUP Engine

This game will probably never be revisited, but...

I like what I see here! Fun graphics, including awesome smileys:



And birds and a Mario background! I'm sure all of these graphics were intended as placeholders, but they make for a silly little SHMUP romp.

The level itself is very easy; by my third playthrough, I was able to beat it without dying once. And I suck at these sorts of games. Again, it's just a demo, so balancing was not really a priority.

The boss had a nice firing pattern (as all good SHMUP games must have) and was fairly easy to take down once I got the rhythm and pattern figured out.



There's nothing to do after that boss, though. You just keep going on and on into space, your ship making no sound effects...it's kind of creepy, when you think about it.

There are plenty of Gradius/Life Force-esque powerups to be had here. My favorite one is the red wave beam thing. That thing was awesome. I was takin' down birds left and right and trying to keep as many awesome smileys alive as possible because they're, quite frankly, awesome. The level is perfectly winnable with any of the powerups, but it's fun to switch things up every now and then. It DID take me a second to realize that "space" was my firing trigger. I'm so used to the ASDF configuration for action games (it's sort of a personal preference of mine).

The music track is silly and fits the demo well.

Technically speaking, everything seems in order here. The collision/hit boxes are perfect, the controls are seamless, and the level scrolls at a respectable rate without forcing me to dodge things Matrix-style.

Overall: good job! I hope this turned into something along the way.