The doujin soft game company Team Shanghai Alice is actually just one guy named “ZUN”, who specializes in “bullet hell” vertical-scrolling shooters. ZUN does all the design, ZUN does all the programming, ZUN does all the art, ZUN does all the music. The results are pretty impressive for just coming from one person, and innovative mechanics are where ZUN’s work truly shines. In Perfect Cherry Blossom, the further you are up the screen the faster your special attacks refill. The Twinkle Star Sprites-inspired Phantasmagoria of Flower View combines vertical shooting with a puzzle-gamey versus mode, where special attacks launch barrage patterns and bosses at your opponent.

His newest game, Shoot the Bullet, takes things in a completely different direction. Unlike every other vertical-scrolling shooter, you have no gun; your only weapon is a camera. “Buzzing” charges it up, and you take pictures with it to either clear the bullet hell around you, or damage the enemy. Every picture you take of the enemy is “tacked” to the game’s border, and once you take a set number the enemy is defeated. The game is still in development, so only a gameplay video exists so far, but playable demos are available for all of his other games here.

And no, before you ask, the picture-taking does not directly involve panties.

Thanks to Doujin Daily News for the link!

This entry was posted on Monday, December 5th, 2005 at 6:19 pm and is filed under video games. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.