It's 9:33AM and already this day has left me dazed and confused.
The first time I started up "Bang!" or as it prefers to be called, "Exclamation Point: The Game," I experienced the most miserable crash in my entire career as a gamer. It brought me to some grey screen with a pulldown menu where I could select from 1pt to 6pt thickness on some kind of line. As I desperately fumbled with my keyboard, trying to regain control of my laptop, the music from Astrobunny started playing! I was convinced this was part of the glitch, so I restarted my computer and tried again.
Once I got Bang! to behave itself, I was treated to a beautiful menu screen. And by beautiful I mean holy hot damn, it's pretty. Couple that with the very pleasant and calming background track and...wait...this sounds familiar...oh no.
Much to my dismay, it actually wasn't a glitch that caused the music I so ardently praised in my Astrobunny review to be played. That's actually the menu music.
I felt quite betrayed having discovered this. Bang! was created the year before Astrobunny was, and the two games had different sound designers. I don't know what kind of plagiaristic game the folks at Digipen are playing, but I don't like it. It gives me a weird feeling that anything I praise or critique in these reviews might be rendered moot because the project I'm commenting on might just be a carbon copy of another one on this list.
Oh well, beyond that, Bang! is a very fun bullet hell shooter. The thing that bothers me most about it is that there's nothing new to it. It's just a bullet hell shooter. A rather minimalist one at that. The best you'll get in terms of power-ups, which are usually the trademark of bullet hells, is the ability to fire 4 shots at once instead of 1 in a perfect straight line. Not very impressive.
Unlike those in Aether, the projectiles in Bang! can actually harm you, giving a very tangible sense of threat when the screen fills up with enemy fire. Killing an enemy will immediately wipe all his bullets from the screen, which may seem like broken gameplay, but trust me, it's only there to keep the game fair in the later levels, and is a very necessary mechanic.
Graphically, the real game isn't as pretty as its menus, but is still pleasing to look at. I genuinely can't tell if the characters are 3D models or 2D sprites, but either way they are definitely the hardest things to look at in this game. They're just so minimalistic when compared to the backgrounds or power-up sparks.
There's not much else to say about this game. Try it out. It's worth your time.
Until next time, stay explosive.
Links
whoosh pow kabloosh: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=18590
It's not plagiarism. DigiPen students have access to the same sound library purchased by DigiPen, so it's very common to have multiple student games to have the same sound effects and soundtracks.
ReplyDelete-- The programmer/artist from Astrobunny :)
Oh I gotcha. I was confused because the games had different sound directors and all. Looking over this, I probably shouldn't have used such a strong word as "plagiaristic." I really am a big fan of your game and I didn't mean to suggest anything. My physics teacher likes Astrobunny too, by the way.
ReplyDeleteNah, it's okay. I just wanted to clear things out. The confusion might be partly due to us not including "DigiPen Sound Library" in our credits screen.
ReplyDeleteAnd hey, thanks for showing more people our game :)