Very satisfying to play and chaotic. One criticism I would have for this version is that it's a bit mindless. There's too much on the screen to reasonably dodge projectiles, and there's time pressure as well, so I feel compelled to just ram into enemies and tank the missiles, and there are so many enemies that aiming isn't really necessary - just fly towards the arrows. I pretty much just kept flying up and down and mashing both mouse buttons until I eventually died. I think I would have preferred fewer enemies, zoomed out screen and more punishing projectiles, so that I have to dodge on the way to them.
That's just my personal preference in games though, I play for the challenge. If you just want a silly stress relief game then it's close to perfect
Good points!! glad you liked! Yeah I recognize the game is a little too easy right now, but I have a lot of new enemies and challenges planned. I decided early on this game isnt supposed to be a shmup/bullet hell or anything like that, so dodging isnt the main challenge - i'm focusing more on managing your blood via positioning and maintaining combos. hopefully this all becomes more clear as the game develops :D
you touched on a lot of really juicy subjects!! i'll be thinking about how to make it clearer when the player is being hit and how to avoid dying, and i've been trying to find a good compromise for what the lock-on effect is achieving right now - it's just simply too hard to hit enemies without something to help you "aim". someone had the cool idea of having an ability to somehow slow down time to aim yourself, or i was thinking that maybe on hit you had a split second to change your direction so you could chain together several enemies in sequence in a more directed way. i dunno.
as for temp invulnerability on hit, there is already a buffer time for dying (the flashing and beeping when you're at 0 blood) so i dunno if i want to add even more of that or else it might be too difficult to actually die ever, but i am thinking about ways to circumvent it. maybe something like earthbound where instead of taking damage all at once it's sort of spread out over time (though it would be a much shorter time for this game, lol. and you're right about the weird reflecting missile hitboxes - i think i'll just have a bigger circle area thats active all around you when you're slicing for reflecting missiles. collision is one of the harder things to make feel right in this game - i'm trying tho.
Very well done! Had a lot of fun with this. See the video for live reaction, but otherwise:
- the UI is very well done, professional quality. You are communicating the game ideas in such an intuitive matter. Screen shakes and subtle pauses are great, combo meter and health meter placement are good, sound is good for encouraging the right behavior
- I love games that are chaotic like this. You don't reward exact behavior , you subtly help the player. The rocket booster has a great level of "weight" to it with turnaround time, which feels really nice for the chaos
- combo meter is tuned well -- easy to start, right amount of difficulty to lose. Every time I lost a combo it felt like my fault, not the games
- The camera needs a bit of work. The player would constantly drift off screen, I would lose him. Also, during heavy explosions, the player would become lost too. Move his z-index higher in Godot and outline him in white pulsing outline so you never lose him.
Overall I had a lot of fun, this is well polished and very fun considering the art style. Would love to see more of this!
hey, thanks so much for putting the time in to make this review. you've given me a lot to think about! and im glad you enjoyed!! something i plan on adding to address your comments on punishment vs reward is an "overcharge" when you go over your max health/"blood" which might be different things depending on passives/abilities/whatever i end up adding
P.S. - lock on was enabled the whole time :P you'll notice your cursor will sort of "stick" to enemies with the red box around them when you are boosting
really fun, but the art is quite bad and it's VERY easy to loose track of the crosshair
like having grayscale or super saturated enemies would help the crosshair stick out more, or any other kind of colour contrast, but as it stands this is a major flaw with an otherwise really fun game, you probably need to come up with a new colour palette for either the enemies or the crosshair
oh, good point! thank you for the advice :D i was having some trouble myself with the crosshair earlier but i had so many thing on the todo list i forgot to give it a touch up. that will be first thing!
ah, looks like i'm just an idiot. i updated the post with an executable that *does* contain the pck. still not able to test if it works but when i can i will try to get it working proper
gah! well, you're on your own for now... sorry! eventually I'll get everything up and running.. in any case you can enjoy all the other sick demo day games in the time being :D
Comments
very fun game, only complaint i got is that its too easy to lose track of ur character and ur cursor
nice!!!!!
Fun, well-made, juicy and looks good, congrats.
A bit too mindless to my tastes, but if that doesn't matter then it's all good.
thank you! on one hand i also like the mindlessness but i also plan to introduce more strategic elements :)
there a hint of strategy: like killing weak mobs while powering up for the helicopters, so you can focus on that
Very satisfying to play and chaotic. One criticism I would have for this version is that it's a bit mindless. There's too much on the screen to reasonably dodge projectiles, and there's time pressure as well, so I feel compelled to just ram into enemies and tank the missiles, and there are so many enemies that aiming isn't really necessary - just fly towards the arrows. I pretty much just kept flying up and down and mashing both mouse buttons until I eventually died. I think I would have preferred fewer enemies, zoomed out screen and more punishing projectiles, so that I have to dodge on the way to them.
That's just my personal preference in games though, I play for the challenge. If you just want a silly stress relief game then it's close to perfect
Good points!! glad you liked! Yeah I recognize the game is a little too easy right now, but I have a lot of new enemies and challenges planned. I decided early on this game isnt supposed to be a shmup/bullet hell or anything like that, so dodging isnt the main challenge - i'm focusing more on managing your blood via positioning and maintaining combos. hopefully this all becomes more clear as the game develops :D
wowow i will have to watch this and report backwhen i have the time! thankyou so much!
you touched on a lot of really juicy subjects!! i'll be thinking about how to make it clearer when the player is being hit and how to avoid dying, and i've been trying to find a good compromise for what the lock-on effect is achieving right now - it's just simply too hard to hit enemies without something to help you "aim". someone had the cool idea of having an ability to somehow slow down time to aim yourself, or i was thinking that maybe on hit you had a split second to change your direction so you could chain together several enemies in sequence in a more directed way. i dunno.
as for temp invulnerability on hit, there is already a buffer time for dying (the flashing and beeping when you're at 0 blood) so i dunno if i want to add even more of that or else it might be too difficult to actually die ever, but i am thinking about ways to circumvent it. maybe something like earthbound where instead of taking damage all at once it's sort of spread out over time (though it would be a much shorter time for this game, lol. and you're right about the weird reflecting missile hitboxes - i think i'll just have a bigger circle area thats active all around you when you're slicing for reflecting missiles. collision is one of the harder things to make feel right in this game - i'm trying tho.
thanks so much, really!
Very well done! Had a lot of fun with this. See the video for live reaction, but otherwise:
- the UI is very well done, professional quality. You are communicating the game ideas in such an intuitive matter. Screen shakes and subtle pauses are great, combo meter and health meter placement are good, sound is good for encouraging the right behavior
- I love games that are chaotic like this. You don't reward exact behavior , you subtly help the player. The rocket booster has a great level of "weight" to it with turnaround time, which feels really nice for the chaos
- combo meter is tuned well -- easy to start, right amount of difficulty to lose. Every time I lost a combo it felt like my fault, not the games
- The camera needs a bit of work. The player would constantly drift off screen, I would lose him. Also, during heavy explosions, the player would become lost too. Move his z-index higher in Godot and outline him in white pulsing outline so you never lose him.
Overall I had a lot of fun, this is well polished and very fun considering the art style. Would love to see more of this!
hey, thanks so much for putting the time in to make this review. you've given me a lot to think about! and im glad you enjoyed!! something i plan on adding to address your comments on punishment vs reward is an "overcharge" when you go over your max health/"blood" which might be different things depending on passives/abilities/whatever i end up adding
P.S. - lock on was enabled the whole time :P you'll notice your cursor will sort of "stick" to enemies with the red box around them when you are boosting
thank you!!
really fun, but the art is quite bad and it's VERY easy to loose track of the crosshair
like having grayscale or super saturated enemies would help the crosshair stick out more, or any other kind of colour contrast, but as it stands this is a major flaw with an otherwise really fun game, you probably need to come up with a new colour palette for either the enemies or the crosshair
oh, good point! thank you for the advice :D i was having some trouble myself with the crosshair earlier but i had so many thing on the todo list i forgot to give it a touch up. that will be first thing!
hey well, better a laggy web-game than none at all, right? :DD
interesting... i'll have to debug it on my linux machine. does the linux executable run for you?
ah, looks like i'm just an idiot. i updated the post with an executable that *does* contain the pck. still not able to test if it works but when i can i will try to get it working proper
gah! well, you're on your own for now... sorry! eventually I'll get everything up and running.. in any case you can enjoy all the other sick demo day games in the time being :D
Here's your (you)
No but seriously, great job and very impressive ultra progress.
Notes:
I'd say pan out the camera a bit
The sounds are a bit loud and annoying (especially the dying sound)
Other than that, das it mane. Great entry!
thank you for the feedback!!