VOIDFACE
is a shoot-em-up developed by abho. It's composed of three campaigns, each having nine bosses within three sets of three. In each set, you are to defeat the three bosses in order without getting hit by any of their attacks.
In December 2022, a demo for a new adventure edition was released here.
VOIDFACE provides examples of:
- Antagonist Title: "voidface" is the Final Boss of the Classic campaign.
- Arbitrary Weapon Range: Your bullets do more damage close up, and they instantly dissipate once they travel far enough.
- Attack Drone: "worm" in its first phase and "jellyfish" are accompanied by independent, indestructible units shaped like smaller and simpler versions of the respective boss.
- Boomerang Comeback: "voidmouth"'s suction causes all of its bullets to go back into what fired them.
- Boss Game: The main enemies are large, mighty ones that you fight one at a time. The campaigns and bosses within each set are as follows:
- IntroSet 1 Set 2 Set 3
- ClassicSet 1 Set 2 Set 3
- ChaosSet 1 Set 2 Set 3
- Cognizant Limbs: "monster"'s orbs and "killbox"'s cannons act as weaponized, individually vulnerable appendages.
- Collision Damage: Red-colored enemies and "voidmouth"'s center hurt you if you touch them.
- Counter-Attack: Downplayed with "mech"'s side guns, which fire constantly, but only aim at you when the respective gun is being shot.
- Dark Reprise: "Eyes of the VOID" recycles leitmotifs of "Robots of the VOID" into a soundtrack that's climactic instead of jaunty.
- Deadly Disc:
- Once its main body is vulnerable, "mech" summons two lines of sawblades that slowly move towards the center of the arena.
- In its second phase, "worm" can fire large sawblades all around it.
- Dodge the Bullet: Whenever it fires directly at you, "spectre" will sidestep all bullets you fire at it.
- Dual Boss: "jellyfish" consists of two large enemies circling through the arena.
- Easy-Mode Mockery: While the Easy difficulty makes attacks slightly easier to dodge and allows you to survive one hit, run times in that difficulty are not recorded.
- Embedded Precursor: The Classic campaign from the beta versions is present in the full game. In all but name, it's treated as a normal part of such.
- Energy Weapon: A good number of bosses use laser beams as certain attacks.
- Flunky Boss:
- "evil" is shielded by four tentacled eyes that orbit it.
- "UFO" sometimes summons small saucers that steadily float towards you.
- "demon" is initially shielded by two small tombstone-shaped units that fire all around them.
- "voidface" is periodically accompanied by large eyes that slowly move downwards and fire fast diamonds at you.
- "spider" spawns eggs that shoot at you and hatch into smaller spiders if left alone too long.
- "torment" is occasionally accompanied by a sizable minion that slightly homes towards you and accelerates with your motion.
- Homage: VOIDFACE takes immense inspiration from Chippy. Each stage pits you against a multitude of different phases, you don't have many Hit Points to start with, you can use a sneak mechanic to move slower and steadier, your bullets have an Arbitrary Weapon Range, swirling and suction are used similarly to two of Chippy's Crossfire minibosses, and VOIDFACE's bosses are given simple names, like Chippy's bosses' beta and internal names.
- Homing Projectile:
- The fragmentation bomb fired by "sentinel" and "mech" slowly moves towards you while intact.
- "demon" can spawn a winged orb that homes in to your relative direction.
- King Mook: "worm", "jellyfish", and "spider" are larger and more complex versions of their respective Attack Drones (hatched flunkies for the latter).
- Last Ditch Move: Each minion of "evil" expels a burst of bullets upon death.
- Lead the Target:
- Many attacks' aiming is influenced by your movement direction as well as your position.
- Minions of "torment" slightly accelerate in the direcion of your movement.
- Mercy Rewarded: If you avoid attacking "slime", it will become your ally in the fight against the next two bosses.
- One-Hit-Point Wonder: In Normal mode, you go down if you take a single hit.
- Our Archons Are Different: "archon" is a vaguely boombox-like construct whose spinning lines of orbs are its main method of attack.
- Our Demons Are Different: "demon"'s wings are demonic in design, but its cross symbol and white color make it look somewhat angelic.
- Protagonist Title: The Player Character you control in this game is known as Voidface.
- Recursive Ammo: "voidmouth" can shoot projectiles that spawn little squares around them.
- Rush Boss: "spider" becomes one if you team up with "slime". Your ally shortens the fight by attacking alongside you, but its addition triggers bullet rain from above and below.
- Segmented Serpent: "worm" and its worm projectiles are elongated with many segments. The former's segments are to be destroyed from back to front.
- Sequential Boss:
- "demon" waits until both its minions are destroyed to rise to the top of the arena and attack you itself.
- "worm"'s attacks despawn once only its head segment remains, and it then moves to the center of the arena to use new attacks against you.
- Once its cannons are destroyed, "killbox" attacks by moving fast bullets towards it and launching stepping orbs.
- Upon the apparent destruction of "eyes", a giant eyeball and an open-eye shape appear for its second phase.
- Shielded Core Boss: Many bosses have their main bodies protected by certain outer parts. As for "worm", each body segment must be destroyed back to front.
- Stationary Boss: "stereo", "sentinel", "machine", "robot", "demon", "mech", "worm" in its second phase, "gravestone", "voidface", "archon", "voidmouth", and "torment" don't move around the arena during combat.
- Stationary Enemy: "demon"'s small constructs don't move at all, and "spider"'s eggs remain still until they either hatch or are destroyed.
- Swirly Energy Thingy: "satellite" moves its bullets in circles around it.
- Tactical Suicide Boss: "spectre" will dodge all of your bullets when firing directly at you, but it will sometimes remain still and vulnerable at the center of the arena to fire all around it.
- Tractor Beam: "UFO" can create a beam to suck you onto bullets right below it.
- Unrealistic Black Hole: "voidmouth" sucks you and its bullets towards it at the center of the arena.
- Weaponized Offspring: "spider" creates eggs than can spawn smaller spiders.
