Danmakuman Ken! (literally Bullet Hell-man Ken!) is a Shooter-fangame of Chargeman Ken! which sometimes veers into Bullet Hell-territory.It was conceived by a single thought: "Whoever created that danmakufu scenario I saw on nicovideo where Touhou and ChargeKen crossed over did it wrong, and I will try doing it better." The person who thought that thought even went so far as to download and test some game-creating softwares. Whether the game actually will be made is unclear, and it probably won't be released due to the show's practically nonexistent English fanbase. (Word of God hereby says that there won't be any translations made by the creator into languages that she doesn't speak.)The plot varies a little depending on the difficulty. See Idiosyncratic Difficulty Levels for details. Of course, the sheer strangeness of the show leads to a park of Epileptic Trees being revealed to the public.Because of the nature of the show (where you can remove any episode and it wouldn't matter), you can beat the stages in any order you wish, apart from the last stage (and bonus stage, depending on the difficulty).There may also be Bonus Material explaining parts of the deconstruction that wouldn't make it into gameplay.
Tropes, divided into the different folders:
- Bowdlerizing: Generally averted, unless it's something filled to the brim with squick.
- Convenient Color Change: When you focus, the character's head/hitbox (see below) turns into a colour which clashes with the sprite's colours to make sure that it can be seen.
- Damn You, Muscle Memory!: While most Bullet Hell|s have the hitbox in the middle of the sprite, this game places them in the chosen character's head. Make sure you're looking at the right part of the body while going through tight passages.
- Gratuitous Japanese: The title of the game was chosen because of how it plain sounds better than the translated version. Otherwise averted.
- Hitbox Dissonance: The enemies' hitboxes are made smaller or bigger depending on the difficulty, making the largest hitboxes the same size as their main body (discounting arms and legs) and the smallest their eyes (including the human characters who have two pixels for eyes). The heroes themselves have 3x3 on Fanon, but 1-pixel hitboxes otherwise.
- Idiosyncratic Difficulty Levels: While the actual titles are worked on, it will be somewhat like this:
- Game-long Tutorial: easy. No cutscenes, leaving you just even more confused than if you were watching the actual show. The music is only arranges of the show's BGM, which works just as well as you might expect it to do.
- Canon: Normal. The parts of cutscenes that are based on the show's shown material are left. Music varies.
- Extremely Fanon: Hard. All cutscenes, most of the BGM is completely original.
- Kill It with Fire: Yuuichi's weapon. He throws a match at the enemy, who catches fire and will pass it on to anybody it touches (including the player, if you're not careful).
- Shout-Out: The HUD is designed to look a bit like those in the Touhou games, and the remixes of the show's music are done in that style as well. And, as mentioned, there will be some shoutouts to compensate for bowdlerization.
- Everybody speaks the same language: Lampshaded and invoked from time to time. For example, before starting the invasion of earth, The Demon Lord suggested that he would speak "Human Language" with his subordinates so that their undercover work would be made easier.
- Deconstruction Game, to some extent. The rest of the time is spent with cheerful lampshade hanging or parodies of what happened in the show, which could cause Mood Whiplash.
- Bittersweet Ending: Ken becomes disillusioned and paranoid about people in general, parts of the world are in ruins, and plenty of Jurals who had already replaced somebody remain on the planet. On the other hand, their lack of advanced technology leads to no additional large-scale destruction, and some even undergo a Heel–Face Turn and help humanity rebuild their home.
- Frige Horror: Mainly about the nature of the Jural invasion, which is why parts of the page are in spoilers.
- Optional Boss: A bonus stage featuring some of the series that most often make Crossovers with Ken in other fanmedia. Although the boss dialogue has been thought out, it is uncertain whether the stage will become a case of
What Could Have Been. - Sacrificed Basic Skill for Awesome Training: Downplayed with the proposed reason for Hoshi's strange speech pattern, and used as justification for his difficulty despite his status as the chronologically first boss. He thought, "Hey, the guy I'm supposed to impersonate is going to transfer to another school, they will think he's weird no matter how well I speak human", and sacrificed advanced Human Language lessons for learning how to create his brand of Bullet Hell.
