itch.io

Thank you for the feedback!
The game is supposed to be a relaxing/chill game, not a bullethell like Astro Prospector. So with this in mind, the game will not be difficult to play, even enemies that damage you will not be very complex or hard.

The full game has a tutorial/logs screen with story/lore + tutorials for mechanics.

"especially because the tutorial states that you get damage the more you stay in it, so I figured I'd avoid touching enemies only" The first thing the tutorial says is Red Viruses cannot damage you directly, instead you are taking corruption damage the longer you stay here. - I think it's clear enough how you take damage overall, but also in the logs screen all this will be explained and will remain in game so players can look at it whenever they want and understand mechanics.

"It really needs some sort of visual cue for enemies that hurt you. In stage 1 nothing could hurt you, in stage 2 however, not only it was a suprise when the green enemies attacked, but also when it spawned out of nowhere some new enemies that are super fast and kind of difficult to see at first." - It will be easy, only red enemies will NOT do damage to you, everything else will. And also surprises are fun, not everything has to be explained word by word, usually these type of games have 0 tutorials, 0 explanation of anything.

"A targeting mechanic should be looked into, or a priority system for the auto-targeting. Countless times I wanted to attack a green enemy only for the game to target something else instead." - It does, everything that is not a Red Virus is a priority target, the following enemies, green enemies and boss are prioritized by weapons. It probably targeted something else because the green enemy was out of weapon's range.

"Progression is quick and fun, but lacks strategy and often times, the upgrades are a bit too cheap. There's really not a lot of room for skill, it's all somewhat dependent on the things you unlock. You can't really beat the boss without life/shield upgrades and the boss damage perk, for example. Positioning doesn't matter all that much." - same here, game is not supposed to require "skill" or strategy in playing it beside dodging some enemies, but not like in a bullethell. And yes, you need upgrades to progress and beat the bosses, it's supposed to be dependent on upgrades to progress, after all it's an incremental game.

"It could use some more feedback for when getting damaged. Think knockback, or changing the ship's color." - there is a camera shake effect for that, but changing the ship's color is a good idea.

"Movement is not that important apart from dodging some enemies, maybe consider implementing mechanics to make it more of a core feature? I'd also recommend changing or giving the option to change the ship's control to WASD, especially if you're planning to add things such as enemy projectiles." - again, the game is a relaxing/chill game, movement is there to dodge few enemies and collect drops, and will be played fully by using the mouse. The spring-like movement of the ship towards cursor is intended and it cannot be replicated on keyboard.

"The progression in general could be tweaked slightly, especially things such as spawn rates. It's very quick to get a lot of enemies on screen, unless if the full game is meant to be a couple more extra stages, this will get out of hand very quickly." - the progression is pretty different in the full game compared to the demo. The demo is much faster since these games have a slow beginning, and as a developer you have to make it faster so more content can fit in a 30 minutes demo.

"The "code" text in buttons while cool, make them a bit difficult to understand. I suggest having an option to turn it off or just not doing things that way." - This is in the theme and immersion of the game, also it is not a complex game and the 7 buttons it has can just be pressed and see what happens. Each button has a least one recognizable word by anyone: initialize_protocol() - initialize = start, access_upgrade_core() - upgrade - upgrades screen, reboot_instance() - reboot = restart round etc.

"Consider having a way to heal the ship during the run or reduce corruption damage over time (perhaps the less enemies that are on screen, the less damage over time you get done to you). Either a power-up or simply just the green pick-ups, for example. It's very demotivating when you get damaged and know you won't have enough HP left to fight the boss and is going to have to start all over again. Which, again, is not a matter of skill, but of how much HP you have left and how much corruption damage you get over time." - There will be some upgrades that offer healing, but also the runs are short about 1 minute long or less, having to do it again is the idea, until you get enough upgrades to overcome the level and the boss (again - incremental game). But what you said, it is a little bit a matter of skill - enemies hit you - you take damage - don't have enough HP to beat the boss because you didn't dodge the enemies that damaged you. Again the idea is to do each level a few times until you get enough upgrades and progress, otherwise the game will end very fast, this is how these type of games play, I am not sure if  you are familiar with games like this, I suggest looking into Nodebuster (what inspired me), Minutescape, Astro Prospector, Max Manos and other incrementals to get an idea of how these games play and what the core gameplay loop is.

"Bosses should offer some unique challenges other than just being damage sponges. They should be the thing you're upgrading towards, sure, but they need to be a bit more interesting. Consider giving them collision, having them throw projectiles you have to dodge, maybe giving it a shield that gets deactivated for a short amount of time after you kill X enemies, " - The boss will have a collision, as for now I cannot say if it will do anything other than floating around haha, I will think about it.

But like I said in the beginning, the game is supposed to be a relaxing/chill game, not a bullethell like Astro Prospector.
So maybe you had other expectations from it, being something else than it is.