Bullet hell fanatics Cave have announced that Deathsmiles, a late 2007 title, will be their next omni-shooter ported to PC. It’s a side-scroller rather than the more standard vertically-orientated blast’em, and seems to involve controlling one of five floating, laser-spewing women as they’re attacked by all your least favourite photoshops. Including that cow, some cubes and an old man’s head. The true enemies of freedom.
It’s one of the first cave games that came west, with an Xbox 360 version released in 2009 (small reminder: that was now nearly seven years ago and we’ll all be dead soon) and phones also feeling the bullet love a few years later. It’s got everything you’d expect on top of the usual stream of lasers – bombs, stage selection, difficulty levels and so on.
The specifics are that each character has a familiar with them that alters their bullet patterns. Meanwhile destroyed enemies release special bullets that are meant to be absorbed to increase score. Due to the horizontal nature, enemies approach from both sides of the screen as you fly along, meaning even more laser beams and cows to dodge.
An extra screenshot and some more info over on the official site. It should land, presumably on Steam, some time in the next few months. There was a sequel, which also got a console port, so we might get that if the first version does alright.
Thanks, PCG.