Bullet Hell

What it's like to play

Bullet Hell is a vertical shooter written in p5.js, rendered into a 600-pixel-wide canvas beside a 260-pixel sidebar that lists the controls. Six stages, two of them closing with a boss, all loaded from local files with no network calls.

Arrows or WASD move the ship at 4 pixels per frame, with diagonals normalised so sideways travel is not faster than straight lines. Z or B fires on an 8-frame cooldown. X or N slows the whole simulation to 40 percent for two seconds, then needs ten seconds to recharge. C or M spends a bomb to wipe every enemy bullet and grants a short invulnerability window. You start with 7 hit points, a 6-pixel hitbox and 2 bombs, and each new stage hands back one more.

Every stage spawns 80 enemies, one every 20 to 100 frames, drawn from a pool that grows from basic drones and splitters to bombers, shotgun turrets and ricochet shots. Kills drop items roughly 30 percent of the time: health, bombs, score multipliers, dual fire and triple fire. A boss arrives after the last spawn, waits two seconds, then opens up.

The weaknesses are real. The playfield is narrow, so patterns fill it fast, and nothing here works without a keyboard. There is no save and no level select, death restarts the stage with your score rolled back to the checkpoint, and the jump from stage three to stage four is steep.

Verdict: Still, the slowdown key gives you a defensive option most shooters lack, and six stages is a generous free package.

Controls

Arrow keys or WASD move, Z or B fires, X or N slows time, C or M drops a bomb, P pauses.