HITLESS

HITLESS is a bullet-dodging game in which the player cannot shoot, clear bullets, use bombs or shields, or collect power-ups. The only available action is movement. Each stage is cleared by surviving for 15 seconds, after which the next stage begins immediately. There is no final stage, and the bullet patterns become faster, denser and more intricate as the player progresses. The ship’s hitbox is a small point at its centre, so overlapping graphics do not count as a hit unless the core is touched. A hit costs one life and is followed by 2 seconds of invulnerability. A hit taken at zero lives ends the run. New Game starts at Stage 1 with 3 lives, while Continue starts at the player’s best stage with 1 life.

Score is the stage reached, with ties decided by survival time on the final stage. There are two boards, Overall and the New Game Division, which can be viewed as World Top 100, Around You, or Friends. Boards reset quarterly in January, April, July and October, while all-time boards remain and past seasons can be browsed. Five further leaderboards track login streak, total play time, total app time, total stages cleared and total graze. Graze occurs when a bullet passes close to the ship. It triggers a particle burst and a tone but adds nothing to the score. It counts towards title conditions and its own leaderboard. Ranks can be shared to X using an automatically generated record card image.

The game contains 42 titles covering stages reached, lifetime play and playstyle, including hidden titles whose conditions are not shown. An equipped title appears beside the player’s name on leaderboards and the results screen. There are 20 attack gimmicks, including aimed shots, rings, spirals, telegraphed lasers, ricochets and converging volleys, and from Stage 15 they arrive two or three at a time. A Gallery allows any previously encountered gimmick to be watched and practised without risk of being hit. Options include independent toggles for screen shake, surface flash and slow motion or hitstop, rebindable keys, separate BGM and SE volume, and windowed or borderless fullscreen modes. The game supports English, Japanese, Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese, and gameplay and the pause menu work with an XInput gamepad. It also includes 10 Steam Achievements, Steam Cloud save sync and an original soundtrack. The visuals use a black and white board with a single blue triangle, and the surface switches between light and dark on each cleared stage.