The ruthless warlord known as the Iron Jackal has stolen the Warp Core - an artifact with the power to twist space and time itself. With the galaxy hanging in the balance, only one reckless pilot dares to hunt him down… Benji!
\nJoin Benji, Maggie the strategist, and Torx the engineer as you blast across starfields, dive through unstable war zones, and chase the Jackal into the heart of cosmic distortion. The further you pursue him, the more reality itself unravels—stars ripple, space bends, and time breaks apart.
\nUpgrade your ship, take down swarms of enemies, and gamble with Benji’s nine lives as you carve your fate among the cosmos. Every bargain could make you stronger… or push you closer to doom.
\nWill you bring the Iron Jackal to justice and reclaim the Warp Core - or lose everything in the void?
\nThe hunt is on. The galaxy won’t wait.
\nThis is my 2nd js13k entry. I wanted to focus more on the visuals and music this time and I quickly hit the 13k limit - so some music, dialog, items, and exchanges had to be cut. I enjoyed creating the artwork and soundtrack the most. The theme is based on games from the Snes era like Starfox, Super Aleste and Super R-Type.
\nI hope you enjoy playing it!
\n","source":"hseager/super-benji","stars":1,"post":"https://hseager.github.io/blog/game-dev/js13k/2025/09/19/super-benji-post-mortem.html","comments":[{"at":410335534,"author":"Alexander Petrov","login":"baturinsky","gh":632779,"twitter":"baturinsky","text":"Upgrades system looks promising, but a game is too slow paced, and a bit too claustrophobic for my taste.\nI’d recommend starting from the formula of the topclassic shmups - and then your upgrade system would add extra depth to it.
\n","games":["All you have to do is Dream"]},{"at":410342966,"author":"Rémi Vansteelandt","login":"remvst","gh":3472387,"url":"http://www.remvst.com/","text":"Really solid entry! I’m always happy to find a good little shoot ’em up, but this one also adds various upgrades, a story, and really nice UI/graphics overall. And you control your ship with your mouse, really nice to see you didn’t fall into the trap of forcing people to use their keyboard.
\nI do wish I could see how much health I have on the HUD, otherwise I don’t know when to prioritize health/regen over firepower.
\nI got to level 12 and so far this is one of my favorite entries. Too bad it doesn’t follow the theme beyond the character visuals (when there is dialog).
\n","games":["CLAWSTRIKE"]},{"typ":1,"at":410382945,"re":410342966,"author":"Harvey Seager","login":"hseager","gh":27302661,"text":"Thanks for playing and for your feedback!
\nThe colour of glow around the player indicates their life on a scale of green > blue > red. I understand that this is unconventional but I wanted to try and fit it into the games visuals without the usual HUD elements. Hopefully this helps your next play through ;)
\n"},{"at":410345642,"author":"Rob Louie","login":"roblouie","gh":5448110,"url":"roblouie.com","twitter":"rob_louie","text":"Made it to level 17, really great game, very good graphics and nice music. Had fun with the upgrade system, and replayed quite a few times to get the level 17 run.
\nMy only complaints are that the hurtbox on your ship is too big. Traditionally space shooters and bullet hell type games use like a single pixel in the center of the ship, so you can have fun dodging bullets. In a game like this with shields and health and upgrades, that maybe isn’t necessary, but the hurtbox seemed bigger than the ship, and I couldn’t really dodge bullets. I think some more sound effects would have helped the feel too.
\nStill, minor complaints really in the scheme of things, and this is a super impressive game thats fun for repeat playthroughs.
\n","games":["Whiskers Witch Adventure"]},{"typ":1,"at":410383403,"re":410345642,"author":"Harvey Seager","login":"hseager","gh":27302661,"text":"Thanks so much for feedback!\nDefinitely valid criticism about the hitbox and I’m kind of annoyed I missed that. I think it’s one of those things that I got so used to playing it myself I didn’t notice it, but now when playing it really stands out.
\n"},{"at":410353010,"author":"F肯尼","login":"kennyfully881230","gh":208875314,"text":"This game is really fun and the upgrade system is really solid! Thank you very much for making this game!
\n","games":["Heimao"]},{"at":410377068,"author":"stimhub","login":"stimhub","gh":111187790,"text":"Auto-scrolling shooter with upgrades after each wave. A slightly strange mix of easy (you don’t really need to move if you get strong upgrades) and hard (the ship hitbox is huge). A neat package and nicely couched in a spacefaring story.
\n","games":["Swing A Cat"]},{"at":410377287,"author":"Javi Agenjo","login":"jagenjo","gh":393515,"url":"http://tamats.com","twitter":"tamat","text":"Engaging.
\nI felt the ships were too big, maybe making them smaller would improve dodging.
\nAlso I understand that you want the ship to go slow so you can improve its speed later in game, but then when you start the game it feels very boring. It is better to start normal and end up overpowerful.
\nAnyway, good entry
\n","games":["Pacific Black Cats"]},{"at":410388159,"author":"Cliff Earl","login":"Antix-Development","gh":17822130,"text":"Hey! That’s almost the exact same spaceship I got when using AI to generate my poster!
\nSo lovely graphics, the nebulous backgrounds are really great.
\nI found the mouse control not nice and would have preferred keyboard.
\nBesides that, this was a solid effort. Keep this up :)
\n","games":["Black Cat - Nine Lives, No Mercy"]},{"at":410397975,"author":"Andrew Higson-Smith","login":"ElementalSystems","gh":4255763,"url":"www.elementalsystems.co.za","text":"Pretty graphics, fantastic audio - nice work.
\n","games":["Wake the Cat"]},{"at":410424654,"author":"Andy Sommerville","login":"aksommerville","gh":1869768,"url":"http://aksommerville.com","text":"Nice one! I love the SNES-style cover pic too.
\nI wasn’t crazy about using the mouse to move, or the auto-firing.. Felt like it would have been more engaging to use the keyboard for everything.
\n","games":["Nine Lives"]},{"at":410443716,"author":"one grumpy dude","login":"megagrump","gh":31128870,"text":"This is one of two games so far in this competition that I’ve come back to play again because I had fun playing it. I wish there was some kind of status display to see my stats, and I have no idea what “Evasion” actually does, and it seems kind of impossible to dodge bullets in later levels. Otherwise a solid game.
\n","games":["They took my cat"]},{"typ":1,"at":410469836,"re":410443716,"author":"Harvey Seager","login":"hseager","gh":27302661,"text":"Thanks for playing! A screen for stats was something I wanted to add if I had more space.
\nEvasion means you avoid taking damage from hits (I had to cap it at 66% because you could actually become invincible!). I could have explained this better somewhere. Thanks for the feedback
\n"},{"at":410485447,"author":"xem","login":"xem","gh":1225909,"text":"Impressive graphics and sound. Sadly I get stuck at the zone cleared screen (on Chrome). How to get past it?
\n","games":["I got up on the wrong foot"]},{"typ":1,"at":410548812,"re":410485447,"author":"Harvey Seager","login":"hseager","gh":27302661,"text":"Ah that’s a shame, I haven’t seen that issue before. It should be possible to click/touch on an upgrade option which should then start the next zone. I’ve tested on chrome, FF and Safari across a few devices, perhaps you could try another browser/device?
\nThanks for the feedback
\n"},{"at":410618362,"author":"John Edvard","login":"johnedvard","gh":656024,"url":"https://reitgames.com","twitter":"ReitGames","text":"Love the game cover! Be careful so Nintendo doesn’t come after you though, haha.
\nThe game is a classic, and the rogue-lite aspects of it makes it more interesting. The controls were easy to use with a mouse, and the ship responded nicely to where I wanted to go, but I felt it could move faster to avoid more bullets (maybe I didn’t pick the right upgrades.) The sound and music fit well together, though I wished the music and gameplay had some more variation to keep me hooked longer (after finishing the last boss.) But then again, we only have 13k, at this is a solid entry for the space.
\n","games":["Triska the Ninja Cat"]},{"at":410664855,"author":"benslominski","login":"benslominski","gh":24567463,"text":"Awesome work. Real retro vibes….
\n"},{"at":410728955,"author":"Mezriss","login":"Mezriss","gh":615453,"text":"Neat! I like the autofire, many SHMUPs don’t implement it for some reason. Player’s ship feels extremely large and sluggish, but it isn’t as bad after picking some upgrades.
\nWhat really surprised me is the lack of UI. You can kind of live without seeing current bonuses on upgrade screen, but there isn’t even HP display - how am I supposed to know if I need that epic 80 hp heal? The music was fine, but it was way too repetitive, which caused me to stop playing the extra stages.
\n","games":["Onamazu"]},{"typ":1,"at":410770187,"re":410728955,"author":"Harvey Seager","login":"hseager","gh":27302661,"text":"Thanks for the feedback! The colour of the glow around the players ship indicates their health. It’s unconventional but I wanted to go for minimal hud and integrate it with the overall theme.\nI had to remove some extra music parts to save space. Thanks for playing
\n"},{"at":410756456,"author":"Christoph Schansky","login":"DerBenniBanni","gh":5499976,"text":"Somehow, the short music loop does not get boring. Cool graphics style, i like that the bullets have an high contrast.
\nUpgrades are great, even if there are often weapon downgrades, but that ist something even Deluxe Galaga had… :-)
\nVery good game, perfekt in mobile.
\n","games":["Miami Mice"]},{"at":410870328,"author":"Ryan Tyler","login":"tyler6699","gh":50468,"url":"https://carelesslabs.co.uk","text":"Easy to play, quite addictive! Looks good and I enjoyed picking the upgrades!
\n","games":["Yarn Run"]},{"typ":2,"at":411105011,"author":"Christer Kaitila","login":"McFunkypants","gh":2111957,"url":"http://www.mcfunkypants.com","text":"The graphics are awesome. I really like the nice gradient on the missing intro text, and the glows and cool sprites are impressive. The gameplay was solid, too, with nice simple gameplay mixed with roguelike / survivor inspired upgrade choices along the way. Love all the cool weapons, and enjoyed have little npc dialogs to spice up the game with some story. It didn’t use the “theme” effectively, but who cares, the game is awesome! I wish the music loop was 10x longer, even if it was mostly the same with just a touch of variety to keep your ears interested. I also wish the player hitbox was about 50% the size, so it was more forgiving, to allow slight overlap with bullets of a few pixels near the wings etc. And if there were awesome gun shooting and beefier explosion sounds, the game would suddenly become even cooler! Overall this is a very solid entry and we are all so glad you joined js13k! Great work.
\n"},{"at":411364710,"author":"Jasper Renow-Clarke","login":"picosonic","gh":26137750,"twitter":"femtosonic","text":"Really fun game
\nThe controls were easy to work out, but the ship moved quite slowly
\nThe music (although repetitive) was really good, as were the sound effects
\nThe graphics are impressive, especially the glowing effect, it felt like it was almost 3D
\nUpgrades were good, although sometimes it was hard to pick between them
\nI didn’t really get the black cat theme on this one
\n","games":["Mochi and the midnight escape"]},{"typ":2,"at":411941523,"author":"Björn Ritzl","login":"britzl","gh":1300688,"url":"www.defold.com","twitter":"bjornritzl","text":"Nice looking graphics for the player ship and enemies! The bullets stand out as a bit simplistic in comparison. The music isn’t really fitting with the visual theme but still has a nice ring to it and could work well in a top down racing game or similar. I really like the idea of trading lives for upgrades and the whole upgrade system is well thought out.
\nI would like to have keyboard controls in the game. And the enemy attack patterns could be less random and more like what you expect from a shoot’em up game. The game is also a bit slow (not low fps, but movement of the player and enemies).
\n"}],"results":{"theme":{"rank":156,"min":1,"score":2.16,"max":4.24},"innovation":{"rank":142,"min":1.2,"score":2.24,"max":4.03},"gameplay":{"rank":50,"min":1.18,"score":3.2,"max":4.37},"graphics":{"rank":41,"min":1.6,"score":3.72,"max":4.56},"audio":{"rank":33,"min":1.75,"score":3.44,"max":4.22},"controls":{"rank":57,"min":1.6,"score":3.4,"max":4.45},"primary":{"rank":67,"min":8.68,"score":18.16,"max":24.89},"label":"Overall"}}