White Butterfly

By: Derek Yu

On: January 30th, 2009

White Butterfly is a new shoot ‘em up from Linley Henzell, who’s probably best known for the roguelike Crawl, but has also created a number of interesting shmups (e.g. Garden of Colored Lights). WB features 3 stages, 4 playable ships (plus one unlockable), and a unique power-up mechanic: each ship is armed with three different shots which can be leveled up individually, but are only upgraded when each shot has reached the next level. Thus, the game encourages the player to use each weapon equally.

WB is unforgiving, and reaching the end of even the first stage should prove a challenge for most players. Thankfully, beating a stage allows you to replay from the beginning of the next one, with each of your weapons powered at the lowest power level that you beat the stage with. Extra ships are awarded at every 2000 points. Good luck!

TIGdb: Entry for White Butterfly

Posted in Freeware, Shoot-em-ups, Windows | Tags: LinleyHenzell

jph wacheski

I just lov Henzell’s games,. the flat shaded detailed designs of the ships the mellow mood masking the complex difficulty of the gameplay,. all amazing,. great stuff.
sinoth

I love this game so hard. The third stage makes me want to dropkick babies, though. In a good way.
Zmann

This game is tits.
ngajoe

To reiterate post #3:
Udderly fantastic.
thearmyofnone

Amazingly fun! Good difficulty, had to play through twice to get through the first stage (Rare for most indie sh’mups.) I’m a big fan of the Hand of Xom, really fun mechanic. Much love for this game!
Anonymous

It has the same graphics as Excellent Bifurcation?
Zmann

@Anon: Similar style. Garden of Colored lights looks mostly the same, too. Linley likes the pastel color scheme and flat shading. Also uses neat palette switching effects.
Gurrah

Linley’s schmups are fantastic, but I do hate the fact that I suck at all of them. Still, keep up the great work, everytime you release something new I smile!
sinoth

OK I feel like an idiot but how do I restart a stage after beating it? All I see is the ship selection screen, then it takes me to stage 1 with zero powerups.
sinoth

HAHA ok, the reason I couldn’t figure out how to replay a stage is cause I had never beat stage 1! I was assuming each boss was a stage. Ooooh man time to keep playing.
Stargoat

Awesome game, weapon-leveling system reminds me of Radiant Silvergun.
Nels

This is well made. I suck at it so far, but it makes me want to get better.
BeamSplashX

It looks better than Excellent Bifurcation because you only die half as hard, so you actually pay attention to graphic quality instead of the death factor.
grabladon

i just dumped an hour and a half into this and the garden of cullerd lites. i don’t know what kept me away from shmups for so long… i forgot how much i love them! especially fun ones like this!

note- still can’t beat the first level.
Quanrian

I’m a huge SHMUP fan and I love the crazy stuff I see from some Indy Devs. Even when they’re almost vanilla, each one seems to find a way to draw you in with subtle features. This one is actually nothing too outlandish and most of is appealing to me is how damn hard it is to properly use your ship.

Normally in a SHMUP I’m not really thinking that much, just jamming away at the fire button. In this I actual found myself forced to utilize the different features of each ship. It’s actually nice to see this, because I actually felt like I was getting better, not because I memorized patterns (which is so many SHMUPS that it’s not even funny), but because I was genuinely better with how I flew and operated my ship.

The difficulty is definitely there and it’s so subtle, that at first the game looks pretty easy. Like most other people here, I rarely have trouble beating the first level, but this one really makes you work for it. The only negative thing I could say really, is there is too much offered and I probably would be even more interested in beating each level, if each one unlocked a ship and not just the last, which I’m definitely going to have trouble doing.
lp

i hate shmups that cannot be controlled by mouse :(
Zmann

What horrible shoot-em-up is controlled by the mouse?
Magical Man

i hate shmups that can be controlled by mouse :)
thearmyofnone

Can’t beat the third stage on hard… can do it all on normal, but Hard is… uh… hard.
r13

Nice clean graphics, suitable music and good challenge the game provides.
Bronze Dog

Definitely right on the “unforgiving” part. Can’t beat the first stage, yet except for a freaky instance of me doing it with the Hand of Xom on my very first play.

Definitely going to give this guy’s other stuff a look.
th15

Good solid SHUMPy goodness.
lp

Zmann: remember tyrian? or tubular worlds? mouse shmups ftw…
http://www.tscreative.net BMcC

I dig the style. I wish I were good at shmups, aah!
squish

good! easier than henzels other games, but still fucking HARD….