Nice start!
I played until Ascension, which seems like it's a placeholder in version 0.4.1.
I like how the game starts unfolding right away with a single upgrade that unlocks movement. It's a great way to tell the player how the game progresses.
I like how it's incremental but not idle. The trickle of income you get from the upgrade is not worth much once combat is unlocked.
I'm not sure how the heat capacity upgrade works? With the capacity displayed as a % it is hard to tell how much of an effect it has or if it helps cool down faster.
The damage upgrade costs more than Ascension, there's no point in getting it in this version. The current health upgrade is worthless, you need 5 upgrades to survive a single more hit. Not that it is needed, you end up getting overwhelmed by drones that spawn faster than your gun recharges, a few extra hits wouldn't help much at that point. This is fine in this version, with a couple reward upgrades you can get 800 credits per raid and reach Ascension before the game grows stale.
The enemy projectile behaves strangely. It accelerates towards you, which means if you dodge it it can turn around and come back, but only if you away from the edge since it disappears when it goes off-screen. This makes it much safer to stay at the left edge of the screen, it punishes you if you go forward for some reason.
The enemy can also shoot while crashing, which is annoying. It means the enemies higher up have a higher window to get their shot off after going down. You could spend a 4th shot to explode them but the gun heat is already the limiting factor.
A couple suggestions:
- the basic drones can shoot regular straight line projectiles, they are the initial enemies. Once more enemies get added the drones could even stop attacking altogether and let you practice your aim.
- add a way to actively cool down the gun instead of being forced to wait. It could be an upgrade that makes crystal pickups lower the gun heat?