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Dark Matter's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Gameplay | #27 | 3.984 | 3.984 |
| Music | #63 | 3.651 | 3.651 |
| Art | #120 | 3.698 | 3.698 |
| Overall | #126 | 3.640 | 3.640 |
| Is the graphics 1 bit? | #182 | 4.603 | 4.603 |
| Theme | #291 | 3.063 | 3.063 |
| Originality | #310 | 2.841 | 2.841 |
Ranked from 63 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Write down what effects you used.
Dithering, lots of dithering
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Comments
5 stars, nice game
What worked:
Very cool take on the concept of needing to kill to survive. I love these retro-type space shooters. The game is definitely designed for the player to be aggressive too, both through the laser mechanic and the needing to kill to survive and heal. It's fun and even rewards strategic shooting as opposed to holding down fire (since I think it was draining my life faster?).
What didn't:
The attacks the enemies fired were extremely hard to dodge, so added onto the aggressiveness that the player feels the need to exhibit. I never felt the need to dodge as it seemed more rewarding to just keep firing and hope I outheal the attacks.
Bugs:
Didn't see any.
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Great job!
Great game! This feels great to play. The enemy bullets were slightly difficult to see though. It's definitely a solid submission.
Lots of fun. Man, I don't play too many sh'mups, but this is one I might revisit. I'll admit I had some trouble seeing the enemy bullets, and I died without realizing it my first run.
Very funny and satifiying, contains a lot of game juice! I also like the color switching a lot :)
36958. This is so juicy and satisfying to play. It gets really hectic, just how I like my shmups.
Enemy bullets can be a bit difficult to see, and since there's no variation in shooting you could just not have a fire key and have it shoot automatically.
Still, this is so far my favorite entry, and the kind of game I'd love to play on my phone. Amazing job!
Funny you say that, we’ve actually been spending some time porting to android lol.
Juicy, good music and art and ecxellent feeling. I would have liked more type of enemies. Another point is that enemy bullets are quite unseeable, camerashake (dont get me wrong is amazing), shooting, moving, explosion etcc adds up to that. Good job tho.
Nice gameplay!
Good shoot em up! Polished, with a lot of good effects for the juice..yeah, I liked it!
It took me a second to realize that one can just hold spacebar instead of pressing, and after that the game became super fun! Very well done on the juice and polish.
This is a great shmup!
Changing the colors every few waves and/or after you are defeated, was a nice touch!
Also, the laser beam ultimate when filling up the power bar was really cool. :D
Love the little screen shakes and the juice added to the game.
Also, not sure if it was part of the game, but the bullets blend into the background, making them hard to see. Though, if they go into your ship's light source, you can try dodging last minute.
An addictive game loop!
In terms of sheer playability this game feels plain awesome to play! The screen shake makes every hit feel so satisfying, but I have to say that I genuinely still have no idea why I died in any of my attempts. I don't think I got hit by any enemy bullets? But I genuinely couldn't see them since my eyes would just naturally gravitate towards all the enemies and the player, the screen shake doesn't help either despite making the game feel and look awesome. It just tends to get a lot when the game really gets going so it's hard to focus.
Maybe try having enemies shoot less bullets but having the bullets be larger? Idk that's just a random suggestion it might not fit the pace you want for the game.
BUT THAT STILL DOESN'T STOP THIS GAME FROM FEELING SO COOOOL TO PLAY
Amazingly programmed, very interesting little bullet hell.
Could have had some better game design, since it was hard to see the projectiles I had to avoid (in a Bullet Hell, that is something quite important), along with the main mechanics of a bullet hell of well, having to avoid the shots, barely happened since the enemies barely shoot, but it felt incredibly fluid to play.
I do always love to see games that do what previous good games did well. Very unique and felt great to shoot those little spaceships :)
Thanks for the feedback! The biggest points of improvement we've heard thus far from all of the comments are either the enemy's bullets are very hard to see, or the player didn't know why they died. To try and fix this, we went in and inverted the colors of the enemy's bullets, which hopefully give them a more enjoyable visibility. If you have time, let us know if this improves the overall game feel! Thanks again!!
Hmmmm it still feels hard for me to see the bullets. Depending on the engine you’re using, you might be able to invert the palette of everything around it, so it’s a bit easier to notice. Although, it will still be hard I believe, due to the 1-bit limitations.
One thing you could do, would be lower the amount of rain. That could make everything a lot more visible.
Lowering the number of stars, in our opinion, really helped with the visibility, thanks for the suggestion! In the spirit of the jam, we are going to refrain from uploading the changes until after the voting period is over (as it required some changes in the code).
Fueled by Nostalgia, this game is great!! Loved the retro vibes of the games making it similar to the classics. The color theme change adds a new layer to it. It'd be great of the themes could integrate into the gameplay rather than just aesthetic, but overall it's a fun game!
Great combination of graphics and music, very enjoyable gameplay too, that’s a gem!
I love retro space games so this immediately was loved by me! good job i really enjoyed playing this and the laser was a nice touch, id love to see it expanded upon more!
Great game ! The feel of shooting is great and music very nice!
this game is just awsome how did you make this in one week? everything feels so good
The effect use is very nice !
Super tight and satisfying to play. Loved it.
Full POW meter and the shifting colour palette feels cool every time.
My high score :)