It was pretty fun for what I played. I liked the second boss (I think I beat it on my second try), but I gave up at the third boss after dying once because I honestly didn't want to go through the first boss too many times. I rarely play bullet hell so I assumed it would've taken some time to learn the patterns. Some notes I have on the bosses is that the first boss isn't very fun due to the short time frame for counterattacks (partially because of the timer and partially because of how attacks linger for a long time), making it a drawn out fight unless you counterattack during enemy attacks, and there's basically only one attack pattern that won't just end you if you dash into the enemy during that time. One minor note here: I would suggest changing the bullet sprite for the bouncing spread attack because it took me some time to notice that the nondirectional spread attack bullets don't bounce. The third boss bullets are a little bit hard to view against the background and the boss blocking the view of them doesn't help, though I get the feeling that this is purposeful. As for enemy attack choreography, I would've appreciated longer windup animations instead of only having the stamina bar to rely on for any indication an attack is coming, but this mainly only impacts boss 1 because of its lingering attacks causing my focus to be divided. Overall, I enjoyed it. Honestly, beating this game seems more achievable to me than normal difficulties in Touhou games (that's how bad I am lol). Although I will say I don't have as good as a feel for the hitbox in this game. I'm assuming it's probably a circle around the point that the cursor is over when you're not moving, but it's a little hard to keep track of once you start moving.
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A Swordfish's Revenge (FishFest)'s itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Fishiness(?) | #18 | 4.500 | 4.500 |
| Overall | #34 | 3.983 | 3.983 |
| Audio | #46 | 3.750 | 3.750 |
| Fun | #54 | 3.833 | 3.833 |
| Creativity | #81 | 3.917 | 3.917 |
| Visuals | #87 | 3.917 | 3.917 |
Ranked from 12 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Pre-existing assets (optional*)
Sound effects were downloaded from online sources.
Comments
Thanks for your feedback!
I'll try to respond to your criticisms:
1) (First boss being drawn out and not fun) Yeah... a bunch of people complained about the first boss's difficulty, which is why I plan to make it easier once the jam is done
2) (One of the first boss's attacks don't end when the boss is hit) Oh which one? I never noticed it.
3) (First boss's bounce attack respite) I'll see what we can come up with as a replacement for the sprite. ( Consider it done now)
4) (Third boss's projectiles not easily visible) I don't see how the projectiles blend in with the background... Though the boss blocking the projectiles is somewhat intentional, but not entirely. I don't think I can really fix that unfortunately without a whole respite of the boss or having the projectiles render on top of the boss, which would look weird when first spawned.
5) (Enemy choreography) Yeah I wanted to do that (and you can see that I did for some of the more deadly attacks), but the animator was really busy so we weren't able to do that unfortunately.
6) (Touhou) Yeah I suck at it too lol, I've only beaten 1 game on normal iirc
7) (Hitbox) The hitbox is 1/4th the width of the entity (this goes for everything), and yes that's where the player stops moving when it overlaps with the mouse. I wanted to have a way to show the hitbox, similar to touhou, but I had no clue how and forgot about it lol.
Thanks for pointing out these criticisms!
Thanks for the feedback!
I removed the ability to dash while moving and vice versa in order to make the code slightly easier on myself (less if checks and math) 😅
Though wdym by imprecise?
Ah I see, for that I think I'm going to add a way to change your speed, probably via scrolling the scroll wheel or something. I don't want to add keyboard controls to the game.
Thank you for your feedback!
And yes the reason there are no checkpoints was because it'd make the game easier and I didn't think it'd be an issue considering the game is quite short.
And in terms of the need of holding left click, probably a toggle (which I'll add once the jam is over) would've been better but the player does need to stop eventually, so this gives him more control.
I may have gone a but too much for the first boss lol, but thanks for trying out the game! (Also tip: focus on the enemy's stamina, this is your cue for when you should attack or flee)
No problem! I hope you enjoy the game
And yeah I'll definitely try to fix this issue after the jam, sorry for the inconvenience.
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