Ballet of Steel
News:
- Thank you all for the kind words on the game and we've heard you voices. We we currently working on remaking this game to a fully fledged roguelike game. Expanding this little prototype with more content, polish and quality of life fixes. More details on that soon.
- Our musician has uploaded the soundtrack to bandcamp, go check them out! https://lapspider45.bandcamp.com/album/ballet-of-steel
Overview:
Play as a ballet dancer with incredible reflex, who can see bullets coming and swiftly swat them back, using the enemies weapons against them. With an unknown motive, she dives deep into the ruins of what was once a bustling metropolis, to find answers...
This is an atmospheric turn-based bullet hell game prototype inspired by games such as Enter The Chronosphere, Ultrakill, Radio the Universe and TWWWR. Fight your way through 9 floors full of mechanical foes in a dying world.
The current build of the game is considered to be a prototype of the core mechanics we wanted to make for our take on mixing the bullet dodging action from bullet hell games and the strategy thinking from turned based rougelikes. This was made as a submission for the Bullet Hell Game Jam 5. We will be continuing to expand this concept into a full fledged game in the future (not very soon tho).
Controls:
| Move | Left click on highlighted tiles |
| Throw knife | Right click on enemy |
| Skip turn | Spacebar / Shift / Left click on middle tile |
| Restart game (WARNING) | R |
| Exit game | Alt+F4, ESC |
How to Play:
- Defeat all the enemies in the room in order to progress.
- On your turn, move into bullets to parry them. On the enemy turn, bullets that move into you will hurt you.
- You will lose 1 health from taking damage during a turn. If you lose all your health then it's game over. Keep in mind that there is no way to recover health in the game.
- Your hitbox is slightly smaller than the tile you are standing on.
- Parry enough bullets, and you will gain a knife. It is a powerful weapon that can be thrown using right click to inflict heavy damage and stagger. It also clears all bullets in its path. Knowing when to use your knives is key to mastering the game.
Current Know Issues
- If you press Alt+TAB or change to a different browser tab, the music will permanently stop as punishment for your lack of focus. The reasons for which are detailed here.
Credits:
Iced_Lemon - Programming, Game Design
Lapspider45 - Music Composition, Sound Design
Zahran - Sprite Art, Graphic Design
KingW - Illustration
sorasu - Sound Design
Get the Soundtrack here:
https://lapspider45.bandcamp.com/album/ballet-of-steel
Download
Install instructions
Unzip before running
Comments
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I thought the title said "Balls of steel"
This is a wonderful game!! I adore the movement, the combat system and the character are so unique! The only issue I take with it is the text - it's rather small, and quite crowded. It makes it difficult to scan through, since it's so wordy. I had to go into the game page controls to figure out how to throw knives!
But the game itself? Stunning and so incredibly satisfying to play!
This game is great so far. The only thing I would change is the music. It can play pretty inconsistently at times. Also, bosses would be a fantastic addition.
Super fun game and really interesting take on bullet hells. I really like the visual style as well, the palette is very pleasing and the animations are sooo smooth.
Really nice game, thank you for making it! Looking forward to your future development on it :)
Beat first try with 13 health. Pretty good game
great, but ez. wanna harder version
that's one way of solving zeno's paradox
great game!!!
too ez
is great tho
Great game, but it's quite easy right now. Maybe you could implement bullets that can't be parried?
Very interesting gameplay. Impressive pixel art. Very well executed. One issue I noticed is that sometimes I don't know if a bullet is gonna hit me or not, maybe try add some UI indicators to tell the direction and the distance a bullet can travel?
Reminds me of Celeste. Everyone's dead.
pretty good
Art
An overall really fun game and interresting mechanics :)
fun
BALLet OF STEEL is definitely good, ngl
Despite the wordy tutorial, the game has a great mechanic. I just felt it could be a little bit more “intense”. The first rounds are for teaching you about the mechanics, yes, but they aren’t really challenging.
Nice little prototype! Tutorial was a bit wordy, I got the point pretty quickly so it wasn't necessary. But not a big deal. Would be cool to see a fully fledged game out of this.
Just finished a hitless run! Yippie!
This game is very fun :]
i think i won
im kneeling Infront of a grave or something but i cant do anything
is this a loss or a win?
I got through on my first run with only 1 health remaining lol. Very fun!
Balls of steel
In a case, of deflecting three bullets at the same time, turn just froze, i had no cells to move, enemy stuck, beside that, this is a cool game!
I didn't play it on full screen until I realise that I should have... on my second playthrough. Yet even without the instructions or advise I still got to understand the mechanics pretty easily and advanced till the last level. Love the soundtracks.
Great variety of enemies.
Deflecting bullets is also a really fun thing.
But sometimes you need to wait for a while till they shoot
Great variety of enemy times to keep the concept fresh.
I love it, so much fun to predict, and the sound track is very good (kinda nostalgic too)
в этой игре прекрасно все, надеюсь выйдет в стиме
que jogo foda, ansioso pelo projeto final <3
For a prototype it's very good, I like the mechanics so far. I wish I could see which projectiles I can deflect by hovering the tiles. Maybe also add a small circle to indicate how big your hit box is like Touhou games or Rabbit and Steel. I also had to mess around with the buttons to figure out how you can throw knives too. Hope to see more progress on the game
Interesting game. The text wasn't displaying for me for some reason. One thing I recommend changing is making it clear what bullets you'd parry while you move. It sucks to be hit by a bullet you thought you were parrying. Also, I'd make it so passing bullets also lets you parry them, instead of just having to end on that tile.
"Knowing when to use your knives is key to mastering the game." I didn't even know I had knives and still won on my first try.
Absolutely excellent game. Loved it.
its very good
you got me a coupIe of times! very good
Very very good! I might buy a full game of this.
i finished 9 levels
Not gonna lie, not web games fan, but this one was so cool, I finished all 9 levels!
The intro is a bit wordy and would be awesome to have a bigger screen/window/canvas but overall this game is fun indeed!