You play as Beth/Bess, a super-advanced hyper-destructive sapient robotic weapon made by a bunch of mad scientists to take vengeance against the country who had wronged them by trying to stop their research. Except she has the complete set of emotions, morals and free will, so her response to "we are your creators, you were made for the sake of death and destruction, now obey us and crush our enemies" is an "uh, no, killing is bad, can't we talk it out?", leading the mad scientists to try and scrap her. Naturally, she breaks out and fucks off to try to live on her own terms.
Gameplay:
The game is a fast-paced 2-d side-scrolling platformer made with WolfRPG (I think) with a relatively linear stage progression. As noted in the OP, your main goal in each stage is to either make your way to the goal zone (a checkerboard-tiled part of the floor; can't miss it) or defeat the boss should it be a boss stage, violently repulsing the various enemies en route. Scattered around the stages and dropped by defeating enemies are yellow coins, which when collected accumulate an 'EXP' counter; at certain thresholds of EXP (can be seen via the Up+F and Down+F menus in an action stage), Beth will obtain new abilities or obtain upgrades to existing abilities. The majority of them give her more dakka/choppa. Aside from her standard abilities, "Tail Blade" (Z), "Normal Shot" (C), "Air Raid" (aerial Z, direction key optional) and "Burst" (aerial C), all her abilities are shown on the bottom left of the screen, and have a cooldown before they can be reused.
Next to boss nodes are usually treasure nodes; they generally unlock only when you manage to no-damage-clear the corresponding boss, and contain phat loot such as a HP extension or a buttload of EXP.
Overworld controls:
Directional keys - move the cursor.
Z - confirm.
X - cancel, opens the menu.
C - opens/closes a ranking menu of some sort. Unsure of its use.
V - swaps around the criteria for the ranking. Again, unsure of its use.
Stage controls:
Directional keys - move.
Z - talk with/examine NPCs/signs and the like; attack with the Tail Blade and Air Raid melee attacks.
X - jump.
C - attack with the Normal Shot and Burst ranged attacks.
F - scan the nearest enemy. Beth's comments are usually quite informative and include various tips especially vs bosses, but that admittedly requires you to be able to read the text.
Up+F/Down+F - opens the skill list, showing what dakka you have and what new dakka you'll get at what EXP threshold.
A, S, D, V - used alone or in combination with directional buttons to use an unlocked ability.
Space - pause the game; you can opt to return to the title screen, continue the game or (if you've already cleared the stage) return to the world map. You'll probably be returning to the world map a lot if you're going for no-damage boss clears.
Scenes:
At times, there may be skull-and-crossbones markers in a stage, signifying "super-dangerous areas". Get caught in whatever's making the marker for the scene.
Random boss tips:
1. Giant Slime
Essentially the tutorial boss. Has no contact damage. Will open his mouth right before he attacks. Gently stream the slow-moving barrage of black bullets, quickly stream the fast-moving barrage of black bullets, and slip past the scattering of purple bullets. The second version of the purple bullet scatter move lasts much longer, but the bullets will be blocked by the platforms; use that to your advantage. At low HP, can launch a devastating barrage of giant bullets, but he can only fire those bullets horizontally so gain some vertical distance. Gun him down whenever you have the chance.
2. Giant Worm Boss
Comes with two mooks at both ends of the arena; it might be better to eliminate them first, especially the worm on the right end. With some proper positioning you can take out the worm mook by using Gatling(V) right at the start of the battle. Boss' primary attack method is a very quick-moving targeted shot, done 5 times in a row; the shots are quite telegraphed, so if you time your jumps well you can come out unscathed. Use Air Raid or Burst if you need extra movement. Can spawn extra worm mooks; Gatling them down.
3. Dryad
Note: this boss' hitbox is firmly in the human part. Don't bother shooting the plant part.
Will generally cycle between summoning Thorns covering the entire bottom half of the battlefield, and an escalating 1-2-3-4-5 barrage of quick-moving shots. White worms will regularly fall on top of the topmost platform (the only safespot from Thorns), and purple worms with one-hit-kill contact damage spawn occasionally from the boss. Most of Beth's weapons can't really hit things below her that well, but Chase Missile (Up+V) will handily eliminate Thorns and sometimes the white worms too. Use Ignis(S)->Arm Cannon(Up+S) for your primary methods of offense and sprinkle in Burst whenever you can; you can hit the boss from the topmost platform. Air Raid and Burst are, again, your primary mobility tools for getting out of tight spots.
3.5 Giant Spider
The pink spiders don't move, but deal contact damage. The big spider in the center will launch powerful homing explosives that can be set to detonate if hit by sufficiently strong attack (such as Z or down+S). Trigger the explosives next to him and make him eat his own bombs. The barrage he uses as a counterattack afterwards is easier to dodge if you're on the right side of the screen.
4. Moon
Just run.
(WIP)
