Vita Magicae by Anuke
A bullet hell with 3 bosses and some RPG elements.

| Source Code | https://github.com/Anuken/LudumDare42 |
| HTML5 (web) | https://anuke.itch.io/vita-magicae |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/vita-magicae |
Ratings
| Overall | 179th | 3.813⭐ | 50🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 230th | 3.635⭐ | 50🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 1016th | 2.74⭐ | 50🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 1039th | 2.823⭐ | 50🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 87th | 4.344⭐ | 50🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 683th | 2.423⭐ | 41🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 84th | 3.915⭐ | 49🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 8🗳️ | 2🗨️ |
This game is hella fun!)
Music with BOSS fight that like a EPIC feeling!
Good entry anyway!
So I think it can be one of the best entries on this LD after you increase powerup or make some bosses health a little bit less.
I didn't get how it was connected to the theme, though... Did I miss something?
I'd like to push a couple of ideas; they're not "must haves", and whether to have them or not is more of a design choice, but I rather enjoy more bullet hell games if they're present than not;
- The character's movement is fast, which is good for moving out of the way of approaching enemies, but makes it unnecessarily hard to find the right spots between bullets. Some games have a "focus" button that allows you to... simply move slower. It feels much better to weave between bullets when you have such an option, in my opinion.
- When one gets hit... It makes one loose focus, and you need time to regain your bearings. Some bullet hell games have a generous "post-hit invincibility" duration for that reason. As long as it's not exploitable (when you can just tank the enemies attacks), I feel this makes the game "fairer" in a way.
Still, it's amazing the work that has been done here; the art, the boss design, the overall layout, the sprites when they speak, etc. Well done!
But there is a reason why bulett hells are played on a vertical screen with a tiny spaceship : it's so you can concentrate on dodging (aiming with a mouse and a moving camera is a bad idea) and so you can easily tell where the hitbox of your ship is (usually the cockpit). Here I have to aim enemies that are outside of the screen, while dodging bullet hells and I can't say where the hitbox of anything is.
Good job on the pattern though, they all look very nice, you should try to make an actual danmaku out of this! :)
Edit : I finally finished the game and there is definitely a lot of work that went into the game (I let the girl chip the last phase of the boss away though). I still stand with my previous comments, but I just wanted to applaud the level of polish.
The only thing I wish for from this game would be to be able to use a gamepad. I'm terrible at watching both where the character is and where my mouse cursor is and wish I could just push a joystick to fire in that direction.
**.** The boss health bar got in the way sometimes.
**.** Would be nice if the camera zoomed out when u got further away from the boss or a locked camera for boss areas.
**.** Would have liked to see a custom cursor ( my cursor is small and round so was hard to see)
Really nice game had fun love the art also <3
I beat the game but I must admit that for the last boss on lost almost all my HP so I hide behind a pillar and let my friend finish the work. I don't know if it was a possible outcome but I felt like I was cheating haha.
Great work!