Post by unaware-robot in Slugger comments

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I played this game until I got to the bossfight. Here are my thoughts:

I like the gameplay loop of playing, gaining XP, increasing your stats and retrying a lot! The turorial is nice. The gameplay feels a bit too chaotic and the character movement a bit too limited to feel like you can really get good at this game. I would really like to be able to dash/blink short distances to dodge.

What adds to the chaotic feeling I think is the colored 'lights' (not sure if this is the right word).
Like the large red/blue (depending on wave) edge around the screen and the green light around your player. I think if you tone those down and create a clear distinction between the dark background and the player/enemies/bullets (maybe with some bright outlines), that would improve visual clarity a lot

Apartfrom the health and double bullets, I didn't really understand what the those squares I could pick up while playing gave me.

When I reached the boss, it seemed like I could not hit it? The bullets went through and I saw no damage numbers. This discouraged me from trying again.

A few other thoughts:

- The music is really nice!

- The explosion animation doesn't really feel like an explosion to me

- I would really like to be able to pause mid-game

Looking forward to see where you will take this game!

ProxyFirewall221 days ago

Thank you so much for your feedback! It really helps me out. Before I respond, I would like to just clarify that this version of the game is extremely old and I’m rebuilding the game from the ground up, so this makes your feedback even more valuable.

Okay so firstly, what you say about it being chaotic is kind of the point. I want this game to be the most chaotic. constant-action, flashy game with something always going on. But I’ve always been confused as to why people say it’s chaotic because maybe they don’t understand it’s the point or there’s something I need to do to make the chaotic-ness stop taking away from the game maybe? I’m not sure. What you said about the glow though might be the solution, strong highlights and minimal glow might increase visual clarity while keeping it chaotic. I really want to know if you think it would decrease the chaotic-ness taking away from the game while still being chaotic.

With the movement, that’s something I’m working on in the rebuild of the game and what I’ve done is I’ve simply made it much more responsive and decreased the “slipperiness”. And with the character movement, if you mean that the area is small, I did that to make it feel really chaotic as well, so I don’t know what to do about that. With the dash, that won’t be something you start with, it’s going to be something you can acquire in the new version.

Those squares are all powerups, like the gun is damage and single bullet is increased accuracy for example. I’ll add a clearer tutorial in the new version.

When you say “boss”, there are two. If you mean wave 5, that may have been a bug? But if you mean wave 10, then that is intentional. Let me explain. The way it works is to be able to damage that boss, you need to max out the skill tree to unlock the ancient market, then from there you save up for the ancient bullets or ancient laser, and either one of those allow you to damage the final boss.

Also I’ve improved greatly on the explosion animation in the new version.

And a pause screen is going to be something I’ll add to the new version.

Thanks again for your feedback!

itch.io

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