Bullet★

• Designer:  Joshua Van Laningham
• Publisher:  Level 99 Games
• Players: 1-4
• Age: 13+
• Time: 15 minutes
• Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/471BkQU
• Played with review copy provided by publisher

Assume the role of the universes’ most powerful heroines as you settle their disputes with excessive firepower! Use actions to form patterns, clear bullets from your sight, and bombard the opponent! Deal with the curtain of bullets coming at you each round and be the last heroine standing to win!  Each heroine wields a dynamic power that changes how you play the game! Control fireworks, zombies, the news, and more!  4 game modes! Play solo with Score Attack. Free-For-All with 2-4 friends, form 2 player Teams, or fight each heroine’s dangerous Boss Mode by yourself or with others!

To start, each player chooses one of the eight heroines and takes the matching heroine board as well as a Sight board and an action board – placing them next to each other to form their player area.  All players also take a small black Current bag and place it above their Sight board.  All players start with their Action Point track marker at the highest spot.    Each player takes the pattern cards associated with their character, shuffles to form a deck and then flips the top three up below their board.  

All of the bullets are placed in the big bag and each player draws 10 bullet tokens and places them into their own current bag.  The intensity board is placed on the table with a counter on the starting space of the track.  The powerups are shuffled and one per player are revealed to form a market.  Find a timer and set it for 3 minutes.  

Turns in the game are simultaneous.  Each player works through the Option phase – where they place Bullet tokens into their Sight board.  To do this, a random bullet is drawn from the Current bag, placed in the column matching the color of the Bullet and then moved down a number of spaces equal to the number on that bullet, skipping (and not counting) any occupied spaces. If you are forced to place a bullet directly into your Hitbox (bottom row of the Sight board), that bullet automatically hits you and it follows the arrows to the left to be placed in your Life Row at the bottom of your Heroine board.

In the Option Phase, you can also use Actions – spending AP (moving the marker down on their track) to activate actions found on their Action board.  Many of these Actions allow you to move or manipulate your bullets.  In this phase, you can also play any of the Patterns in front of you.  If you have bullets in your Sight area that exactly match the card, you can then clear spaces marked with burst icons. 

These cleared bullets are placed facedown in the Incoming area of the player to your left.  That player will have to deal with those bullets on their next turn.  If you are able to clear a bullet with a star on it, you will generate a bonus action for that – the actual bonus differs by heroine.  Finally, if you have a powerup available to you, you can discard it to take the action printed on it.

The game recommends a 3 minute timer for the Option phase, though you can choose to go without.  If you hit the time limit, players who still have bullets left in their current bag may continue to Place bullets but not take any other actions.

Once all the bullets in your Current bag are placed, you can move onto the End phase.  Take a face-up powerup from the table and place it on an empty slot on your action board.  Draw patterns to get back to your hand limit (usually 3).  Draw bullets from the main bag equal to the current number on the intensity track and place them into your Current bag.

Check to see if a heroine has lost – if all their life spaces are filled with bullets.  If so, they are eliminated.  The Incoming area of the player to their left is also cleared and the Incoming area of the lost player is transferred to that player on the left. All the bullets on their board are lost and discarded to the center.  

Once everyone has finished the End Phase, the game has a short Cleanup Phase.  All players move any bullets in their Incoming Area (given to them by their RHO) into their Current bag.  A new set of Powerups is revealed. The Intensity marker is moved up one space per round plus one space per Heroine lost in the most recent round.

Continue playing until there is one Heroine left.  Is she is able to survive the final round, that player is the winner.

Once you have played the regular version, you can also explore different modes of play including Team Mode, Solo Mode and cooperative Boss Battle.

My thoughts on the game

The Bullet series of games has been around since at least 2021, but I hadn’t actually played it – until I saw that Level 99 was promoting the newest game at Gen Con 2025.  In this game of survival, you try to survive through each successively more difficult round.  

The puzzle of the Option phase is my favorite part of the game – this is the puzzle phase where you have to place bullets one at a time onto your sight board; trying to manage your special abilities and heroine abilities to get things in your favor.  As you place your bullets, you’re constantly trying to form the patterns on your cards so you can clear the bullets from your field. This has two benefits; first it simply clears your own board. Second, you’ll pass on all those cleared bullets to your opponent in the next round, so it also helps work towards eliminating one of your opponents.

To make things more difficult, you have to do this in real time, and honestly the three-minute limit can really become a huge thorn in your side.  It’s not uncommon to be rushing near the end of the time period and you have to limit the number of mistakes that you make in your haste.  Alternatively, you can try to optimize the decisions that you can make in those three minutes, but then once the time runs out, you can only place your remaining bullets – without using any of your special abilities.

Each heroine plays out differently – a direct result of their special abilities – and you’ll likely play better as you gain familiarity with them.  Luckily, they are graded on their complexity, so you can also handicap games in this way.  After my first few games, I’m not overly sure if the heroines are balanced with each other; but I’m pretty sure I also don’t have enough experience with them to know for sure.  In the end, I don’t think it really matters to me – I am still learning how to play with each of the heroines in the box, and any perceived imbalances could just be differing speeds of people learning their own heroine.

The game is pretty easy to learn, if you have someone to teach you the game or if you’ve watched a video.  The rulebook is maybe not the best way to learn what is going on.  I found it a bit confusing with some terms not really being clearly defined.  However, once you figure out what is going on, the game moves along at its rapid frenetic pace.

There are at least two standalone Bullet games and three expansion heroine sets, and all of the heroines can be used interchangeably; so if you have them all, you have so many different options for setup.   Each round is a frenetic 3 minute race, then you resolve the boards, take a deep breath, draw a few new tokens, add in the ones passed to you from your opponent, and then do it all again.  It’s an exciting ride, and if you’re not too worried about the balance in the game and willing to just ride along the wave of excitement that Bullet can provide, this is the sort of game for you!

Thoughts from other Opinionated Gamers

Mark Jackson: I’m not very good at Bullet – but it’s an excellent real-time game that managed to “feel” like Tetris (or maybe more like Dr. Mario) and offer an enjoyable playing experience every time. My younger son owns almost everything in the Bullet universe and has actually played it with 8 players (using both standalone sets) – and it works. There’s also decent cooperative and solo modes.

Ratings from the Opinionated Gamers

• I love it! Mark Jackson
• I like it. Dale, Steph
• Neutral.
• Not for me…

Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/471BkQU