BroodStar

BroodStar
BroodStar is an arcade roguelite shmup with a heavy emphasis on run variation and randomly generated aspects.

The randomly generated aspects include: standard enemies, midbosses, bosses, events, upgrades and which stages appear during a run.

A run of the game consists of 6 stages that are divided into 2 parts. Each stage has its own unique theme, bosses and enemies.

What is generated in these stages is governed by a seed system, the player can input a seed prior to starting a run to control the randomized elements. Due to the currently often changing nature of the game, what a specific seed will generate is heavily dependent on the game's version.

The player can also spend Research Points to gain persistent upgrades between runs. Research points are gained with every four acquired Module during a run.

Controls
Button Names listed are Xbox controller specific, but the game supports Keyboard, Mouse and other controllers as well.


 * A: Fires your Main Weapon and SubWeapon if you have one.
 * X: Causes your Ship to dodge in the direction you're currently holding. Your Ship is invincible during the dodge.
 * Y: Uses your Active Item Module if you have one.
 * RB: Focus

These inputs can be remapped to any key.

Characters / Ships / Styles
There is only a single Ship type in BroodStar but its properties and the style of gameplay can vary greatly between runs, due to the game's Module system.

Weapons

 * Standard: The starting weapon type with no special properties.


 * EMP: Replaces the Standard weapon with a blue projectile shooting one. Its projectile also causes extra damage in a small aoe.


 * Lazer: Replaces the Standard weapon with a screen length lazer shooting one.


 * Plasma: Replaces the Standard weapon with a green projectile shooting one. This weapon has greatly increased damage but lower firerate. Its projectiles also move in a vertical sine wave pattern.


 * Arc: Replaces the Standard weapon with a purple projectile shooting one. Its projectile doesn't have any special properties, but it has a large hitbox.


 * Flamethrower: Replaces the Standard weapon with a flame projectile shooting one. This weapon uses Fuel as ammo and cannot fire without the sufficient amount. Its projectile pierces enemies and applies a Burning debuff on them.


 * Sword: Replaces the Standard weapon with a special short range Sword. The sword appears out of the Ship's thrusters when firing and causes the Ship to spin around, striking every enemy and blocking projectiles in a small radius.

SubWeapons
SubWeapons are additional weapons that can be obtained through Modules. They are fired alongside your Main Weapon, but they do not inherit any weapon modifiers. Most SubWeapons also have a second upgrade level, that causes them to fire two projectiles instead of one.


 * Missile: A standard missile launcher.


 * Homing Missile: A missile launcher that shoots homing missiles.


 * Bomb: Shoots slow moving explosive bombs.


 * Mine: Shoots slow moving explosive bombs that home in on nearby enemies.


 * EMP Bomb: Shoots slow moving EMP bombs that cover a large area.


 * Shield: A defensive SubWeapon that blocks a single projectile or enemy collision when it's active.

Modules
Modules are the upgrades to your ship in BroodStar and they can bestow a wide variety of effects. Modules can be gained from events, shops and as drops from bosses. In most cases when the player finds a module not inside the shop, they have the option of scrapping it, which destroys the module but grants the player 60% of the module's value in coins.

As of v1.1.2 there are currently 170 distinct Modules in the game.

The main Module categories are:
 * Weapon: Changes your Ship's Main Weapons.


 * SubWeapon: Changes your Ship's SubWeapons.


 * Bullet Modifier: Modifies how the projectiles fired by your Main Weapon behave. The modifier can cause your projectiles to move differently, alter their basic properties such as damage, apply effects on enemies, spawn additional projectiles and more.


 * Pattern Modifier: Changes your Main Weapon's shot pattern.


 * Drone: These Modules can either grant your Ship a Drone - a companion that can assist the player in various ways, or they can enhance your existing drones.


 * Passive: These Modules grant different passive effects that activate or apply under certain circumstances.


 * Active: These are activatable items that the player can use on demand. Most of them can be used as many times as the player wants, but they usually have a moderately long cooldown or other requirements.

Items

 * Coins: Coins are the currency of the game and can drop from every enemy. Bosses, Midbosses and some events are guaranteed to give coins to the player. The player can use these coins to purchase Modules from shops and from events. Some Modules can also utilize the player's coins.


 * Shield Pickups: Restores some of the Ship's shields when picked up.


 * Fuel Pickups: Restores some of the Ship's fuel when picked up.


 * Souls: These pickups are specific to the Reaper Module and will not appear unless it's installed. When picked up they grant a small damage boost. After 20 is picked up the second effect of Reaper Module will also activate, causing the player to become invincible for a short duration.

Research
The Research system in BroodStar allows the player to slowly increase their starting power level, making subsequent runs and higher difficulties more manageable. The Research grid can be accessed in the New Game menu point between runs. This grid contains at least a hundred minor nodes and a couple dozen major nodes.

Research points are gained whenever the player installs 4 modules. Scrapping modules will not yield any research points.

Minor nodes only cost a single research point and their only requirement is that a neighbouring node is already active. These nodes usually grant a small passive stat upgrade. Major nodes may cost anywhere from 5-20 points and they have an additional requirement where every neighbouring node has to be active. These nodes grant similar effects to what a Passive Module would grant, but these specific effects can only be gained through research.

Rank
There is currently no ranking system in the game. It might be added in the future.

Events and Stage Modifiers
Events are randomly placed encounters that shake up the gameplay of a stage. They can vary from simple midbosses to objective defense and enemy ambushes. Surviving an event and/or completing its objective will usually reward the player with extra coins or modules.

Stage Modifiers can be thought of as special events that can change several aspects of a given stage.


 * Infested Stages: Infested Stages are harder versions of their normal counterpart usually with a special variation of one of the stage's bosses. Infested Stages will usually also reward the player with more modules.


 * Stage Replacers: There are special stages that can appear instead of the standard ones. Currently there are 2 special stages in the game, ??? stage replacing the Asteroid Field and Station - Chase replacing any of the Station levels.


 * Special Bosses: Special Bosses have a small chance of appearing instead of the stage's standard bosses.

Scoring
Scoring in BroodStar is very simple compared to other similar games. Each point of damage dealt to an enemy is added to your overall Score. Picking up coins also increases your overall Score based on their value. Finally, Scrapping Modules will also grant you Score proportionate to their value.

There is also Score Multiplier that increases by 0.1x for each 10 enemy killed, up to a maximum of 3x. This multiplier will also lower by 0.2x upon taking damage, down to a minimum of 1x. Dying will also completely reset it to 1x.

There is a time based score bonus for killing bosses as fast as possible. The maximum possible score gain from this bonus is 20000.

In addition Shield Pickups collected while at max Shields (health) and Fuel Pickups collected while at max Fuel will also yield a bonus of 100 to score.

Story
A mining outpost was suddenly attacked on a remote planet by unknown creatures. A single fighter is dispatched to investigate and report on what happened.