Two years ago, I was in a first-year game development class at my school. Being a first-year course and all, we really only worked with Game Maker as far as engines were concerned, though I did learn a lot from the discussions over game theory and what-not. I'm currently in the third-year level of the course, working with the Unreal Development Kit on the lab computers. Heck, I even made a couple of levels for it. If you have UDK and you're interested in seeing what I've done, drop me a PM or something and I'll be happy to oblige.
Back on topic, in this previously-mentioned class we used a textbook called The Game Maker's Apprentice by Jacob Habgood and Mark Overmars. The book taught you how to Game Maker through several "example" games spanning a variety of genres, from the breakout-esque "Super Rainbow Reef" to the puzzle-based "Koalabr8" to the top-down shooter "1942". At the end of the year the class culminated in a team project where students grouped up and made something entirely custom, which I'll admit was really cool. It was nice seeing people branch away from the examples and make things like zombie invasion games and platformers, where the engines had to be made pretty much from scratch.
Being the little weirdo I am, I wasn't content with simply following the example games from the book. No, everything I touched I had to put a unique spin to it. I decided that it would be cool if I took the previously-mentioned "1942" and turned it into an almost-there bullet hell game. It's not a "true" bullet hell because there are no bombs, you don't die in one hit, and the like, but it still has lots of cannon fodder enemies and plenty of projectiles. It's also not a "true" bullet hell because it's not impossibly hard; rather, the game might bore veterans of the series but it's good for a first-time player of the genre.
The game only contains a single stage with a boss at the end, and you only have one life to rack up as many points as you can. Forever Bullet Hell comes in single-player and two-player flavours so if you have somebody you want to make enemies with, you can go play with them if you like. Now, remember that I made this quite a while ago as part of an in-book tutorial. The sprites and music are all shamelessly stolen and the HUD still reads "1942" on it. Mind you, I made this at a time when I played Touhou religiously, spammed 1337 text, and thought fan fiction was cool, so don't walk in with particularly high standards. However, it's my favorite project from the class and I think you'll all like playing it, so I'm sharing it here.
The other reason I'm digging this spectacular mess of a game from its grave is because I thought of eventually reviving it. Among the list of changes would be a lives system, mid-stage checkpoints, two new weapons, and a bomb system. There will also be three playable characters as opposed to one standard player type, and I'll personally be doing a lot of the sprite work so the whole thing doesn't look so bad. I tried reviving the game about a year ago, but that didn't turn out too well so I held off for a bit until I could figure out what the lemons I'm doing.
If you're still here you can go pick up your copy of Forever Bullet Hell right after the jump.