Heavy Bullets is a randomized FPS dungeon crawler game developed by Terri Vellmann, not a company but one person. Using a very arcade looking graphics style this game pits you against monster and machine as you make your way through randomly generated dungeons to reset the mainframe at the end. Can this simplistic game make its way into our top 10 indie games though?
Story
Currently there is very little story in Heavy bullets, you are tasked with reaching the mainframe and resetting it to restore order to the machines of the world and be rewarded for your hard work, which is shown to you in the beginning in the status of the level.
The game randomly generates differing numbers of levels which you can explore and clear, with each level increasing in difficulty and variance of enemy types. The levels follow a one entry one exit structure with you having to figure out how to get from one end to the other in a maze like environment with bushes, turrets, monsters and vending machines.
Gameplay
The gameplay in Heavy Bullets is simple, find the exit to the maze in one piece whilst using your gun to shoot animal and machine foes alike. You carry a six shooter and have very limited ammo throughout the game, with bullets dropping from enemies and containers to refill your stockpile. You also pick up money from defeated enemies which is used to purchase more ammo, health and upgrades.
This game has a lot of roguelike features, from losing everything on death and having to start from scratch but with the ability to bank your money at certain vending machines for later use or in new games. You can buy items like Life insurance and Will’s to allow your next game character to inherit some of the money and items you had before which can provide a better start in the next game with 10 bombs and 50 coins in your pocket from the get-go, though that amount can change depending on how much life insurance you bought and the amount of bombs and coins you had on you before you died.
The game is very fast paced, with floaty walking and fast darting enemies that make a beeline straight for you. At the beginning they can be overwhelmingly fast but you adapt to their speed within a few tries and it becomes easier to work around their agility. Enemy types include the regular chompy monsters, suicide bombing enemies that look like marshmallows, snakes in the bushes, turrets that fire at you and more.
Besides your gun you can use bombs that detonate within 3 seconds and kill enemies and destroy grass within a small area, megabombs that have a cluster bomb affect to them, potions and even high heels. At the beginning you can only carry one special item at a time but this can be upgraded by holding a backpack or increasing your Carry rank to hold more of the same item. There are also magnets that make the bullets and coins fly towards you to allow quicker acquisition of them.
Overall Thoughts and Feelings
For a first playthrough, Heavy Bullets can be very confusing and hard as there is little to no help or guide to tell you what to do or teach you the mechanics but this is lessened the more you play and learn. The game almost forces you to play it slow as in the later levels every corner hides a danger from sight like a plethora of turrets aimed at you or snakes hiding in the bushes to take that one last hit on you to end your life.
The game lacks any music but does have sound effects to let you know when there are bullets or coins bouncing around on the floor or if a turret or creature is around a corner as you can hear them move and breath but this is sometimes not enough. I had quite a few jump scares when a monster snuck up on me from behind or I stepped on a snake and they attacked me from out of nowhere.
As it stands Heavy Bullets feels more like a prototype then a game as it requires a lot of polish, music and mechanics to bring it to the standard other games are at in this genre. The game at its core is fun and addicting but besides that there isn’t much to pull me back to play it, more weapons, more story and possibly a scoreboard would give this game more playability.
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