Today I released AZALEA today , and I wanted to talk about the process of actually designing, polishing, and releasing the game.

The inspiration from this game came from another bullet hell game called Magic Vigilante. The game really presents itself in a small package and it inspired me to take on something similar, but smaller.

My primary goal with making this game was to make a short but polished experience. Now that the game is actually out, I feel like I did an okay job of reaching these goals. I dont think the game is perfect, and still has a lot of flaws, but those can be stepping stones for correction in the future.

In terms of game design I am fairly happy with the game, I did exactly what I set out to do, which was to make a super short but polished experience that would be approachable for those who havent played many, or any bullet hells. I feel like this game has a lot of space for more interesting and creative design decisions, and I want to keep that in mind for future games.

Polishing the game was difficult, and I dont feel like its all the way there just yet. I decided to put the game out regardless as it was feature complete and I find myself getting caught up in the details too much, and felt it would be more healthy to just let the game out into the world and see how it does. I dont really have an audience, so most of the reaction Ill get from this game is from my close friends, so I will likely spend a lot of time reflecting on the ways I went about making this game and see what I can do in the future to make the polishing process ( and the game as a whole ) better.

Actually releasing the game was really fun, it was exciting to bring all of the finished parts together and have them create this finished, cohesive project. I decided to try something new with this game, and made it a web only release, with no way of downloading it to ones machine. I do have a few issues with this method of release, mostly regarding archiving my work , but I decided to continue with this method for this game, and maybe future games.

 Looking past the fact the game is only a few minutes long, I am really happy with how it turned out.