Harpy! Siren!

Harpy! Siren! was an unfinished bullet hell shooter developed by Emma Essex in 2011. Despite only half of the game being completed, it was released for free to its own webpage, which is now defunct. Nearly all graphical assets in the game are taken from other game series.
==Description==
my foray back into game development after not really messing with it for a while. ultimately, this project sat around for about a year with no progress on it after doing three stages really quickly, so i decided to call it quits and release it with the stages that were complete and/or acceptably good (1, 2, 5, and the true final boss). there was a second final boss planned along with a couple other neat things, but concepts either got canned or were never realized in the first place. i feel like it stands as a pretty neat thing as it is, though. the included text file contains information on score and gameplay mechanics. for some reason, the score font doesn't load properly. a mystery that will live on, i'm sure.
there's a second build of the game available here called the "DEV" build - this comes with a text file including instructions on activating developer features, and this build also contains a couple of goodies cut from the public "final" version: stage 3, and the true true final boss, which reveals a bit more of the concept and vision i had in mind with this project if it were to be completed.
==Plot==
Harpy! Siren! follows a harpy that can transform at will into a siren, named HS-001. Because the game was unfinished, not much can be gathered about the story arc the game would have taken. the opening stage has HS-001 following an "enemy supply train" back to the enemies headquarters. Stage 2 continues the pursuit, while stage 5 takes place within said headquarters. 
==Gameplay==
Playing as HS-001, the player is equipped with two weapons. The main weapon is a spreadshot of feathers; the sub weapon is the SIREN mode. While holding X (or whatever is assigned to the function), the "HARPY" bar on the HUD will change to "SIREN". In this mode, movement is slowed and HS-001 fires an extremely powerful laser. While firing, the "SIREN" bar will deplete. When it reaches zero, the player cannot continue to use the laser. To recharge, they must return from SIREN mode to HARPY mode by releasing the key associated with it. Once the bar has charged (even slightly), SIREN mode can be entered again, and the laser can be used. SIREN mode also allows the player to see HS-001's hitbox while moving, allowing for tight maneuvering.
When enemies are destroyed, they drop gems. The closer HS-001 is to an enemy while destroying them, the higher value gems they will drop. Each gem color is associated with a counter in the upper right of the HUD, and will dictate how many points are received for every shot landed on an enemy. Green gems are worth thousands, blue are hundreds, pink are tens, and red are ones. As an example, if the player has 7 green, 3 blue, 6 pink, and 2 red gems, they will receive 7362 points for each shot landed. If they drop a gem of any color, its respective counter will return to zero.
Boss scoring is handled differently. For each boss encounter, there is a faint timer in the background. Every landed hit will award the current value of the counter, so it is in the player's best interest to destroy a boss as quickly as possible.
There are hidden bonuses in each level, and the third (5th, actually, as stages 3 and 4 were not complete) has enemy mechanics which are fairly different from the rest of the game and may be jarring at first. These were going to be eased into, but the project was not completed.
To access the true final boss, the game must be completed without using any continues.
==Trivia==
*The title screen and options menu music is sampled from the album In Vivo, with other songs by Renard appearing throughout the game. 
*The player sprites of the harpy and siren are both taken from the Castlevania games. 
==External links==
*itch.io page
== Navigation ==
Category:Games
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