This game has been an enjoyable experience. The challenge has been exciting for someone who enjoys these types of games. I implore anyone to at least give this game a go and stick with it as it can be satisfying once overcoming the challenges the game has instore for you.
The progress of playing is quite challenging but enjoying. The introduction is well designed and this game prepared its own background storys, the completeness is pretty good.
While these are drawbacks of current version:
1) the color of "dangerous" meaning is ambiguous, and it's not easy to figure out which part will hurt player.
2) the behavior of 'upgrade' is not proper considering the gameplay pace.
- movement of 'upgrade ship' is too quick and its appearance is not obvious enought in the colorful environment
- the switch frequency of the 'upgrade type' is too high which make it quite random when play upgrade his skill. if player missing or eaten an wrong 'upgrade type', the difficulty will be different.
- the power of different types of weapon are not fair comparing to each other, when this one work together with 'switch frequency' problem, player will feel some frustration just because he hesitated 0.1 second to eaten 'upgrade box' and get an unexpected one.
Overall, this is a quite good title in this contest, which has a retro arcade style.
Justus, thanks for your feedback. I'll respond to your points: 1) You mean which parts of the enemy will hurt the player? Their hit boxes are generally a little smaller than their body shape.
2) Related to the power up capsule/power up roulette:
A) I lowered the movement speed of the power up capsule, however not by much because I recently chose to increase its hit-box. In this build, you can only hit the capsule area to break it, but now the area above the capsule respond to bullets too. So it's easier for the player to hit.
B) I will not be changing the switch frequency because what you described is the exact point. It's supposed to be challenging to get the power up you want. And you have agency too, you can shoot the power up roulette to force it to cycle. Just learn the timing, and manipulate when needed. (You can use the boomerang shot to pick up a power up too!)
C) I can try playing around with having the capsule flash so players can't miss it in colourful environments.
After a recent streamer played my game he echoed similar sentiments to you. Just wanted you to know that I did end up changing the frequency at which the power up roulette cycles between items. At the time I disagreed with you, but you were right about this in the end.
This is a good game. I enjoyed the soundtrack and difficulty, which is just right as far as I am concerned. The pacing of the action is also excellent. Good job.
If you're a fan of shoot em ups like Gradius or 1942, then look no further! Coma State Eden has what you need in a game, lots of action to keep you on your toes. The game has a unique feel and artwork that helps the story to unfold. The game may look like an old fashioned shoot em up game, but dont be fooled it has some fresh elements to keep players interested long after the nostalgia wears off.
I really enjoyed this fly around shoot-em up style game. The motif was really trippy at first but when i connected the dots about it being in a dream-like world it fell into place just right. The thing that impressed upon me the most was the nostalgia. With the progression of every level all the artistic elements reminded me of my childhood.
Studio Daeera's Coma State Eden is a fun, challenging, and extremely satisfying shoot em up with a charmingly unique aesthetic! You can really feel the amount of passion the devs had for this project in all aspects of Coma State Eden. Having been a minute since i've played an arcade shootemup, it took me about an hour to get into the groove with using the different firing modes and weaving through enemy projectiles. Although I died many times, I never once felt cheated. I knew each failure was my own fault, and how to avoid the same fate next time around. Once I made it to the first boss, I knew I was in for a good time. While the gameplay hooked me in, the soundtrack was the cherry on top that immersed me into this arcade shooter. The composer did a fantastic job with the chiptune soundtrack! I do hope an official soundtrack release is in the cards for this project. Definitely looking forward to the future projects from everyone on this team, and this title is one that I will continue to come back to as time goes on.
When I woke up this morning, I knew today was going to be different. I didn't know how, or why, but I knew. Most of the day went rolling on by, and nothing out of the ordinary. It was suiting up to be just a regular Thursday in New Covid. 9pm rolls around. There I was, staring at my computer monitor, waiting for something to happen. I lit my e-cigarette, and suddenly a noise - "BA-DINK!" Huh? What was that? A second time. "BA-DINK!" There it is, out of the corner of my screen, a notification. A notification that would change my life. I click as I take another puff. Then it loads...COMA STATE EDEN, it reads. I knew this was it. This was what I was waiting for since the day began. Immediately I was transported to a new world. It was needed to escape this terrifying reality. Left and right, monsters came at me, as the effervescent chiptune score warmed my ears. I was hooked...but would I ever leave? 5/5
What a great game! A perfect balance of nostalgic and new. Coma State Eden is a fun to play game that feels complete and unique; each level brings forth new challenges along with a great game loop and fantastic vfx/sfx.
Of the games I have played so far, this is my favorite (Edit: After playing more of the entries, it's currently my second favorite, but it's still very strong. For anyone interested, Ovs is currently my favorite, as while Ovs' art is weak, the gameplay is fresh and interesting in a way that really speaks to me.). The intro is dynamic, and the game feels like you could publish it right now and be better than all the mediocre games being sold on Steam and the like.
On a negative note though, I agree with aandreaasperges about the art, (specifically, the beehive that the first boss comes out of was the biggest offender) and it's just a tad too difficult for me personally.
I want to say that I agree with you, OvS isn't my #1 favourite but it is one of the stronger entries in this contest for sure. There aren't other games that play like it. The presentation is a bit simple/minimalist and that can put some people off (in addition to if they don't like puzzle platformers much.)
I think the game deserves more ratings. Same with Mortimer Dark. Also, you'll be happy to know I fixed the Wasps Nest.
Out of curiosity, do you find the game too hard due to the controls? Or would it mostly be because you don't play a lot of shooters? (Unless you do, in which case, never-mind the second part of that question.)
Y'know, after playing a bit more, I honestly don't think that the difficulty is too much, at least on Practice Mode, for me. Sorry for the unhelpful feedback, haha. The controls (specifically the up/down weapons and flash shield) took some getting used to simply due to being different from any other shooter I've played, but I think I've crossed that hurdle now. I'm still having trouble finding ways to apply the down/up firing modes to gameplay, but it's nice to have them just for some flexibility.
Oh, two little bugs (that you've probably already fixed, but they're broken in the jam version): on the continue screen, you can move the character left and right with the arrow keys (I couldn't find any use for this, so I assume it's a bug), and during gameplay, holding left and right fire at the same time causes the player character to rapidly switch direction.
Hey man, just wanted to say that I totally really appreciate that you assumed I knew that bug existed and fixed it already (I didn't know it even existed lol.) Actually, you were the only one to discover that. Thanks for the bug report! How embarrassing, though. But not as embarrassing as when the high score text on the title screen read "Harcdore" for the longest time and Firespike, who noticed the typo last year when I first made the title screen, chose to wait until near the deadline to see if I would notice (I didn't) because he thought it was funny (it was. BUT STILL!!! That font was pixel art. I manually and very slowly made that typo.)
As for your second bug, it's not a 'bug' in the traditional sense. I was aware of this one. It's impossible to do on the intended controls (game-pad/controller) because you cannot shoot left and right simultaneously on a stick, but you can on a keyboard. Depending on the results of this contest, I may leave the keyboard controls in the final game build. Specifically for players who don't own game-pads. However the game isn't built around the keyboard controls. I was able to beat stages with them, but it's awkward. The game-pad is far superior for the experience. I guess to fix this second bug I would simply put in a check to make sure the opposite direction isn't being held down on each side. At least in my head it seems like a simple fix. I'll do that soon here.
About the controls. I've left in a couple of things for players to discover if they get creative and are observant. I don't want to say what they are, but I will say that whether or not you discover them you will get better at the game over time. This was an intentional decision on my part, I wanted the experience to be this way. The 'twist' with the controls isn't some very sophisticated/complex feature, but it requires the player to get used to the game on its terms. You have to meet it halfway in that sense. And as a result, the experience will stick with you more. When I tested Coma State Eden, I almost always tested on Hardcore mode because I needed to know that the game content could be beaten at its most challenging iteration.
I think that if you have any intention of selling this on PC, you should leave the keyboard support in, as while I mostly played it with my DualShock 4, not everyone owns a controller. Now that the keyboard-specific bug is fixed, I can't see any reason to remove it, haha.
Anyways, thanks for taking the time to respond to my feedback!
Probably one of the most compleated and dinamic game here- good programmed and responsive and the aniamtion are good. For sure one of the best in the contest. Just the graphic and palette can be more expressive and fixed- need more contrast and the pixel scale is a problem inside any levels- there some enemys with a pixel x 8 other x 2 soem tileset x 1. You need to focus a lot on that for create something more professionally looking. but a lot of these game did the same error.
Comments
This game has been an enjoyable experience. The challenge has been exciting for someone who enjoys these types of games. I implore anyone to at least give this game a go and stick with it as it can be satisfying once overcoming the challenges the game has instore for you.
Great shooter, I played a bunch of times, not an easy play keeps it interesting!
Really fun shooter with plenty of challenge. It's a game you can spend invest a lot of time into and it's very rewarding.
I really really enjoyed this game. I couldn't put my controller down! Well done!
Neat game has a lot of effort put into it, transitions may need to be sped up a bit but it might be because of my computer
Very fun challenging game, lots of variety
I had a pretty good time playing this! I would recommend it!
The progress of playing is quite challenging but enjoying. The introduction is well designed and this game prepared its own background storys, the completeness is pretty good.
While these are drawbacks of current version:
1) the color of "dangerous" meaning is ambiguous, and it's not easy to figure out which part will hurt player.
2) the behavior of 'upgrade' is not proper considering the gameplay pace.
- movement of 'upgrade ship' is too quick and its appearance is not obvious enought in the colorful environment
- the switch frequency of the 'upgrade type' is too high which make it quite random when play upgrade his skill. if player missing or eaten an wrong 'upgrade type', the difficulty will be different.
- the power of different types of weapon are not fair comparing to each other, when this one work together with 'switch frequency' problem, player will feel some frustration just because he hesitated 0.1 second to eaten 'upgrade box' and get an unexpected one.
Overall, this is a quite good title in this contest, which has a retro arcade style.
Justus, thanks for your feedback. I'll respond to your points:
1) You mean which parts of the enemy will hurt the player? Their hit boxes are generally a little smaller than their body shape.
2) Related to the power up capsule/power up roulette:
A) I lowered the movement speed of the power up capsule, however not by much because I recently chose to increase its hit-box. In this build, you can only hit the capsule area to break it, but now the area above the capsule respond to bullets too. So it's easier for the player to hit.
B) I will not be changing the switch frequency because what you described is the exact point. It's supposed to be challenging to get the power up you want. And you have agency too, you can shoot the power up roulette to force it to cycle. Just learn the timing, and manipulate when needed. (You can use the boomerang shot to pick up a power up too!)
C) I can try playing around with having the capsule flash so players can't miss it in colourful environments.
Justus,
After a recent streamer played my game he echoed similar sentiments to you. Just wanted you to know that I did end up changing the frequency at which the power up roulette cycles between items. At the time I disagreed with you, but you were right about this in the end.
This is a good game. I enjoyed the soundtrack and difficulty, which is just right as far as I am concerned. The pacing of the action is also excellent. Good job.
If you're a fan of shoot em ups like Gradius or 1942, then look no further! Coma State Eden has what you need in a game, lots of action to keep you on your toes. The game has a unique feel and artwork that helps the story to unfold. The game may look like an old fashioned shoot em up game, but dont be fooled it has some fresh elements to keep players interested long after the nostalgia wears off.
Really, really well done shooter! Give it a try, you won't be disappointed!
Better than every call of duty game I have ever played! I hope to see it in its final form!
I really enjoyed this fly around shoot-em up style game. The motif was really trippy at first but when i connected the dots about it being in a dream-like world it fell into place just right. The thing that impressed upon me the most was the nostalgia. With the progression of every level all the artistic elements reminded me of my childhood.
A solid title with some neat features! Would for sure recommend giving it a go!
Studio Daeera's Coma State Eden is a fun, challenging, and extremely satisfying shoot em up with a charmingly unique aesthetic! You can really feel the amount of passion the devs had for this project in all aspects of Coma State Eden. Having been a minute since i've played an arcade shootemup, it took me about an hour to get into the groove with using the different firing modes and weaving through enemy projectiles. Although I died many times, I never once felt cheated. I knew each failure was my own fault, and how to avoid the same fate next time around. Once I made it to the first boss, I knew I was in for a good time. While the gameplay hooked me in, the soundtrack was the cherry on top that immersed me into this arcade shooter. The composer did a fantastic job with the chiptune soundtrack! I do hope an official soundtrack release is in the cards for this project. Definitely looking forward to the future projects from everyone on this team, and this title is one that I will continue to come back to as time goes on.
5/5, would rate it higher if I could!
I will be putting the soundtrack on bandcamp around whenever the full game is released
Just wait till you hear the audio we're going to use for the trailer lol
When I woke up this morning, I knew today was going to be different. I didn't know how, or why, but I knew. Most of the day went rolling on by, and nothing out of the ordinary. It was suiting up to be just a regular Thursday in New Covid. 9pm rolls around. There I was, staring at my computer monitor, waiting for something to happen. I lit my e-cigarette, and suddenly a noise - "BA-DINK!" Huh? What was that? A second time. "BA-DINK!" There it is, out of the corner of my screen, a notification. A notification that would change my life. I click as I take another puff. Then it loads...COMA STATE EDEN, it reads. I knew this was it. This was what I was waiting for since the day began. Immediately I was transported to a new world. It was needed to escape this terrifying reality. Left and right, monsters came at me, as the effervescent chiptune score warmed my ears. I was hooked...but would I ever leave? 5/5
What a great game! A perfect balance of nostalgic and new. Coma State Eden is a fun to play game that feels complete and unique; each level brings forth new challenges along with a great game loop and fantastic vfx/sfx.
Of the games I have played so far, this is my favorite (Edit: After playing more of the entries, it's currently my second favorite, but it's still very strong. For anyone interested, Ovs is currently my favorite, as while Ovs' art is weak, the gameplay is fresh and interesting in a way that really speaks to me.). The intro is dynamic, and the game feels like you could publish it right now and be better than all the mediocre games being sold on Steam and the like.
On a negative note though, I agree with aandreaasperges about the art, (specifically, the beehive that the first boss comes out of was the biggest offender) and it's just a tad too difficult for me personally.
I want to say that I agree with you, OvS isn't my #1 favourite but it is one of the stronger entries in this contest for sure. There aren't other games that play like it. The presentation is a bit simple/minimalist and that can put some people off (in addition to if they don't like puzzle platformers much.)
I think the game deserves more ratings. Same with Mortimer Dark.
Also, you'll be happy to know I fixed the Wasps Nest.
Out of curiosity, do you find the game too hard due to the controls? Or would it mostly be because you don't play a lot of shooters?
(Unless you do, in which case, never-mind the second part of that question.)
Y'know, after playing a bit more, I honestly don't think that the difficulty is too much, at least on Practice Mode, for me. Sorry for the unhelpful feedback, haha. The controls (specifically the up/down weapons and flash shield) took some getting used to simply due to being different from any other shooter I've played, but I think I've crossed that hurdle now. I'm still having trouble finding ways to apply the down/up firing modes to gameplay, but it's nice to have them just for some flexibility.
Oh, two little bugs (that you've probably already fixed, but they're broken in the jam version): on the continue screen, you can move the character left and right with the arrow keys (I couldn't find any use for this, so I assume it's a bug), and during gameplay, holding left and right fire at the same time causes the player character to rapidly switch direction.
Hey man, just wanted to say that I totally really appreciate that you assumed I knew that bug existed and fixed it already (I didn't know it even existed lol.) Actually, you were the only one to discover that. Thanks for the bug report! How embarrassing, though. But not as embarrassing as when the high score text on the title screen read "Harcdore" for the longest time and Firespike, who noticed the typo last year when I first made the title screen, chose to wait until near the deadline to see if I would notice (I didn't) because he thought it was funny (it was. BUT STILL!!! That font was pixel art. I manually and very slowly made that typo.)
As for your second bug, it's not a 'bug' in the traditional sense. I was aware of this one. It's impossible to do on the intended controls (game-pad/controller) because you cannot shoot left and right simultaneously on a stick, but you can on a keyboard. Depending on the results of this contest, I may leave the keyboard controls in the final game build. Specifically for players who don't own game-pads. However the game isn't built around the keyboard controls. I was able to beat stages with them, but it's awkward. The game-pad is far superior for the experience. I guess to fix this second bug I would simply put in a check to make sure the opposite direction isn't being held down on each side. At least in my head it seems like a simple fix. I'll do that soon here.
About the controls. I've left in a couple of things for players to discover if they get creative and are observant. I don't want to say what they are, but I will say that whether or not you discover them you will get better at the game over time. This was an intentional decision on my part, I wanted the experience to be this way. The 'twist' with the controls isn't some very sophisticated/complex feature, but it requires the player to get used to the game on its terms. You have to meet it halfway in that sense. And as a result, the experience will stick with you more. When I tested Coma State Eden, I almost always tested on Hardcore mode because I needed to know that the game content could be beaten at its most challenging iteration.
Edit:
Both bugs are fixed!
I think that if you have any intention of selling this on PC, you should leave the keyboard support in, as while I mostly played it with my DualShock 4, not everyone owns a controller. Now that the keyboard-specific bug is fixed, I can't see any reason to remove it, haha.
Anyways, thanks for taking the time to respond to my feedback!
Probably one of the most compleated and dinamic game here- good programmed and responsive and the aniamtion are good. For sure one of the best in the contest. Just the graphic and palette can be more expressive and fixed- need more contrast and the pixel scale is a problem inside any levels- there some enemys with a pixel x 8 other x 2 soem tileset x 1. You need to focus a lot on that for create something more professionally looking. but a lot of these game did the same error.