Bullet Hell Simulator

Keeping your composure under stressful conditions is a skill that needs to be mastered, since not many are able to do it from the get-go. Even if the danger is not real, reacting quickly in such situations is quite the challenge and it proved to be a successful gameplay mechanic in video games over the years, especially back when not a lot was possible in the graphics department.

Bullet Hell Simulator is not exactly a revolutionary idea, nor is it something that will live on in the hall of fame for years to come. In essence, all you have to do is move the cursor around in order to avoid being touched by the bullets that fly around the screen. Granted, they don’t look very much like bullets and there’s no game over to fear, so the challenge is not very serious to begin with.

There are no explanations for the events unfolding in front of your eyes either, only what appears to be a tentacled alien endlessly producing some sort of blue balls. The patterns in which the bullets come out changes over time as well, although the sequence is quite short and it repeats itself very often. Even so, there are no safe places on the screen to hide, so you are bound to be touched a couple of times.

For whatever reason, there is an overlay displaying some information regarding the number of current bullets, as well as the rotation speed and the distance steps for both the X and the Y axis. Unfortunately, that’s the extent of the feedback you receive, since there’s nothing about how many times you’ve been hit, or how long you’ve been doing it.

From a technical point of view, everything is as basic as it gets, with nothing to catch your eye in the visual department, or any other department for that matter. The bullets are fuzzy and weird-looking, the object in the middle is unrecognizable, and there is nothing else to look at beside the black screen in between. Granted, the black turns into red whenever a bullet gets you, but that’s hardly a special effect worthy of mention.

All things being equal, Bullet Hell Simulator does not manage to keep you invested in the action for more than a couple of minutes, regardless of how bored or open to new experiences you might be. Hence, although the idea is somewhat interesting, the execution is lazy and way too basic.