This game speaks to me... Thanks to YT algorithm!
Seems a ton of people are finding this game from that one video, I only wish it had better FPS haha.
I've read through most posts so I guess everyone knows rotary cannon was kinda lacking lol, glad it's getting some love.
Poor rotary cannon! I still love it even if it's basically playing on hard mode. Will receive a major buff next build.
Performance wise, it runs extremely smooth on my potato, but the default options almost ruined it with low frames, making the game run at like half speed.
Good to hear! Sorry that it was running at half speed on default. It runs well on my own potato and I don't have to use any of the V-sync settings, but I realize people's rigs vary greatly so I implemented those options. I was worried from watching people's streams and let's plays that the game isn't optimized enough, but it seems like it's mostly the recording software that makes it chug.
Alternate sync instantly fixed my issues. It seems none of the settings properly save and I had to change to fullscreen every time I run the game, thankfully it does read from the ini file to always have alt sync on.
There actually shouldn't be any .ini files saving, it's strange that alt-sync is remembered. I guess that must be an internal Game Maker thing. Both the main menu and options menu are very quick placeholders thrown together in two days for a jam. It'll be replaced with proper ones that save your settings as soon as I can. Had I known so many people would be playing it I would've worked way harder to polish that aspect, sorry.
I showed this to a dev friend and he was very impressed, but he did comment that it felt like a tech demo. With some further objectives and (potentially) a procedural game mode, I can see myself spending hundreds of hours on this at least.
It's definitely a tech demo... for now. I hope to have more missions and hopefully a proper campaign in, assuming things won't be downscoped.
Difficulty felt a bit inconsistent at times: on the same level, enemy spawns, I believe, seem somewhat random, at least for certain enemies (mostly the mechs on mission 1)
Mission 1 does have randomized spawners in each corner that go off at different times. It's to keep it fresh each playthrough. But I see how it can cause the difficultly to ramp up hard sometimes, especially depending on where you go in the city.
Mission 3's beginning can be extremely hectic and I wish there were more situations like that: enemies surrounding you from all directions and aggro'ing the player, but as soon as I move away to a safe position and start taking out enemies, this sense of thrill is somewhat lost. I understand it's likely the intention to make it somewhat stealth-focused, but the hectic dogfighting is so much fun. It reminds me a bit of the Synthetik 2 situation, where enemies used to struggle with aggro and can be easily taken out from a distance, splitting the engagements to many tiny parts of the map where enemies are grouped up, instead of a more fluid experience where player is constantly under pressure.
I have to say it's been super interesting seeing how greatly people's experience and preference vary. Some people say it's way too easy and they beat every level on the first try, others like you figure out pretty quickly that enemies have a cone of vision and you can actually use cover to ambush them and play strategically, dodging missiles and wiping out formations. Meanwhile some other people haven't been able to finish even the first mission or figure out how to turn off screenshake and change the resolution, c'mon it's literally in the single settings menu.
I'm with you in that I think tight street fighting and being surrounded is exhilarating. I love how tense it can get especially when you're low on armor, which is why I intentionally didn't put any health pickups on the map.
Personally I prefer when enemies come in bigger groups from many directions to really force me to be somewhat strategic and take them out effectively, instead of them showing up one by one which can be easily solved by a missile salvo + gun burst, allowing me to play it safe and wait. Similarly, tanks can be super threatening when mixed with mechs, and I love how deadly they can be!
I have plans for a lot more different enemy types to mix it up and put a monkey wrench in the long distance/missile spam. I'm thinking every enemy should have a clear and choreographed behavior, like the noticeable difference between the mech and tank enemies. Oh, glad you liked the tanks by the way! They can really filter more casual players lol.
Finally, big fan of the simple and arcadey movement, maaaybe overdrive felt a little weak overall without much noticeable effect, but considering the planned future upgrades, it might be okay. Running out of energy needs clearer visual and sound cues though.
Yeah the current state of the overdrive function in this case would be your starting level boost. A lot of people have suggested that you should be able to boost into enemies to damage them, I think that'd be a fun upgrade. Appreciate you also pointing out the overdrive needs a better indicator, I'll have the box turn red like the armor indicator and maybe put a quick beep sound if it hits 0/80. Thanks!
I also prefer showing enemy positions around the player instead of the cursor so it's easier to tell and not as demanding on my eyes.
I can probably put that as a setting in the options to toggle, along with being able to turn off the camera smoothing which some people find nauseating.
Apologies for the text wall, this is my kind of game and I'm so glad to have discovered it so soon ;D
Not at all! Thank you for the in depth comment, kind words, and feedback! I will use your suggestions to improve it!