HITLESS

HITLESS is a bullet hell game in which the player cannot shoot, clear bullets, or use bombs, shields or power-ups. The only available action is dodging. Every stage is cleared by surviving for 15 seconds, after which the game moves straight into the next. There is no final stage; bullet patterns become faster, denser and more complex the further the player progresses. The ship’s hitbox is a small point at its centre, so overlapping graphics do not register as hits provided the core passes through. Attack patterns are generated from a seed tied to the stage number, meaning a given stage is consistent in character while not being identical each time. Taking a hit costs one life and grants two seconds of invulnerability, and a hit at zero lives ends the run. New Game begins at Stage 1 with three lives, while Continue starts from the player’s best stage with a single life.

Scoring is based solely on the stage reached, with ties broken by survival time on the final stage. There are two score boards, Overall and the New Game Division, the latter reserved for runs started from Stage 1. Players can view the World Top 100, rankings around their own position, or friends, and seasons roll over quarterly in January, April, July and October, with all-time boards and past seasons remaining available. Five additional stat leaderboards track login streak, total play time, total app time, total stages cleared and total graze. Ranks can be shared to X with an automatically generated record card. Grazing, where a bullet passes close beside the ship, produces a particle effect and sound but adds no score; it instead feeds title conditions and the graze leaderboard. Holding Shift slows the ship’s movement.

The game includes 42 titles covering stages reached, lifetime play and playstyle, plus 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 and sweeping lasers, ricochets and converging volleys, which begin appearing in combination from Stage 15. A Gallery allows practice of any encountered gimmick without the risk of being hit. Accessibility 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. The game supports English, Japanese, Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese, XInput gamepad control during gameplay, 10 Steam Achievements, Steam Cloud saves and an original soundtrack. Visually, it uses a black and white board with a single blue triangle, and the surface flips between light and dark to indicate a cleared stage.