Game idea: reverse bullet hell
I have come to realize that I have more ideas for programs than I'll ever have time to write. (This means they're not actually all that significant, on average - see all that's been said on ‘ideas vs. execution’.) But maybe I have the time to scribble a blog post about them, and that's stuff to blog about, if nothing else.
So, a video game idea I had today: reverse bullet-hell shooter.
A regular bullet-hell shooter is a game where you move in a 2D space dodging an immense number of mostly dumb instant-death projectiles launched in mostly predefined patterns, and trying to shoot back with dinkier, but better aimed, weapons. Instead, here you design the bullet pattern so as to trap and kill AI enemies doing the dodging.
The roles seem a bit similar to tower defense, but the space of strategies would be considerably more, ah, bumpy, since you're not doing a little bit of damage at a time and how it plays out depends strongly on the AI's choices.
That's probably the downfall of this idea: either the outcome is basically butterfly effect random due to enemy AI decisions and you mostly lose, or there are trivial ways to design undodgeable bullet patterns and you mostly win. I don't immediately see how to make the space of inputs and outcomes “smooth” enough.