Project: Bulletstorm

Bulletstorm: a 2D space-shooter game

Under Mrs Harifa Begum | School CS project | Vidya Mandir Mylapore

I designed a space shooter game with 2D motion controls, spiralling enemies, multiple game mechanics, sound effects and attack animations using turboC3 and graphics.h. This was a really big and cool project, and I worked on it with all my might during my high school days. However, it runs only on a very particular version of TurboC3, and needs a lot of patching. High school me was inexperienced after all. Someday, I will surely revive this project in my free time. In the mean time, please look at the in-game snapshots from my game below!

My custom loading screen. Multicoloured circles and “lightning bolt” objects spawn randomly, and it looks cool overall. It doesn’t do any loading and was purely for show :)

This here, is the demo mode. Here, you can learn the controls and what each of the meters in the bottom of the screen mean. You use arrow keys to move the ship, and use the mouse to aim. You use the z key to shoot and the x and c keys to fire your special attacks.

The skull on the right indicates how much you’ve charged up your super meter. As you damage more enemies, it fills itself up. Right now, it’s filled to the maximum, and you can use your ultimate more using c. Using x would deplete 1/3rd of the charge and fire your special attack.

The triangle on the right is usually surrounded with a meter showing how much ammo you have. You cannot fire unless it’s sufficiently charged up. It charges up constantly though, so you can still fire when it’s empty, but at a significantly lowered rate than the maximum fire rate.

The Blue meter on the left is the fuel bar. You can only move around for as long as you have fuel. Once you run out, you’ll come to a standstill and become a sitting duck. In order to recharge, you need to strategically stop moving around. Else, the enemy ships will get to you!

Lastly, there is your health bar! Self explanatory. In the real game mode, there will also be a survival time bar and a score bar.

The game features waves of spiralling enemies who you have to defeat with highly customizable spaceships. You can choose between rapid-fire, piercing and bouncing bullets. You can pick your own special attack by deciding what pattern your bullets follow. You can customize your spaceship’s exterior to trade between speed, defence and fuel.

There are sound effects for every time you shoot. there are animations for every time you hit. The game is rich with effects for the standards of turboC3-based games!

The in-game menus

Example player profiles