Bullets first impresions

To continue our real-time game saga this week, we decided to finally try Bullet♥︎, which has been sitting on our shelf for some time now. 😁

Bullet♥︎ simulates a 'shoot ‘em up' style video game mixed with a bit of Tetris (although you have single tokens only, no polyominoes). The players simultaneously pull out tokens from their bag, which are bullets you have to avoid. Their color tells you which column they go in on your player board and their number says how much you move them downwards. You have to clear these bullets because if any reaches the bottom, you get hit. A few hits and you are out of the game. The player who manages to outlive the others is the winner. 🏆

To clear bullets, you use your cards which show certain patterns. To help with moving the bullet tokens into these patterns you have abilities, that you can use by spending action points.

Each round you have to empty your bag completely, by placing all of the bullets. You are free to use your abilities and pattern cards throughout the round. For all of this you normally get 3 minutes, but the timer is optional. Bullets you have cleared during your turn get sent to your left neighbor’s bag. Then additional new bullets get added to everyone’s bag according to the intensity level that ramps up after every round. 🔥

There are multiple characters you can play as, each of them with a unique passive effect and their own pattern cards and abilities. There are also multiple game modes to choose from: free-for-all, solo score attack, team based versus and a co-op boss fight mode.

Bullet♥︎ is an action- and content packed game with satisfying spatial-puzzle gameplay mixed with some last-man-standing type brawling. There is also a 'push-your-luck' element; sometimes you might want to pull some more bullets to get a better clear, but it could cost you lives. 😸