The menu googly eyes is still so awesome lmao, such a great bit of juice. I think all your iterations on UI were well worth it, the bubble design you landed on works very well imo. Its clean and out of the way, while providing all the necessary info to the player. Using bubbles as the containers fit the feel of the world perfectly. The new music is great and really amplifies the intensity of the gameplay. The wave systems feel timed out correctly and there was a good balance of chaos fighting the enemies and a brief pause to catch your breath after (the pause when leveling up helped with this balance too). I also agree that the colors feel a little off (check out my last paragraph) and hold back the overall visuals a bit. Another critique I had about the visuals was that I wish there was some more contrast between the player, enemies, and collectible air. They are all roughly the same size, shape and color (at least the outlines) and the visual clarity gets a bit muddled, especially when you start getting bounced around the arena. I think changing the color of the enemy outlines to the same reddish/orange of the rest of them that would go a long way to solving the problem.
The roguelike elements are just the thing and turned a fun little arcade experience into a much deeper and replay able experience, that pairs nicely with the challenge of completing 30 waves. I think all the upgrades are great, but one critique is that I wish that accuracy was just set to 100% by default and not something for the player to upgrade. I felt as though not being able to aim exactly where I wanted to was an arbitrary limit enforced on the player and lowered the overall skill ceiling. I would maybe add something like the ability to magnet collect the air bubbles as an alternative. I loved the design of the bubble shield made only of circles, it looks sick, like a proper tank. I was a bit confused on the purpose of it though, it kind of seemed like it just made it easier for the enemies to hit, so maybe some kind of tool tip text for that one would be helpful.
I played your game for well over a half hour, it is a really fun gameplay loop and you've added a lot of polish and juice. The charming story is great, the game is presented cleanly, great job!! Keep up the great dev work!
The develog was a great read!! The lessons learned section was interesting. The do the small things NOW tip is spot on, and I'd say it's a good sign if you like playing your game that much, must mean it's at least somewhat fun. About the colors, I would highly recommend using Lospec to find a color palatte and then use that. Or you could start with a color you like and then use some kind of online Color Wheel Calculator to generate a few other colors that work well with it. As someone who also struggles with color choice, I've had a lot of luck with these two methods.
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Hey!
Thank you very much for tacking the time to write such a long and detailed response.
I'll give the color wheel generator a try, I have been using "coolors" in the past but for this game I didn't find it useful. Very few colors work with the underwater theme. I had an attempt of adding some corals in the background made out of pentagons but then, the UI problems worried me too much and ended up leaving it aside =).
The idea of changing the outline of the enemies may work, but what I observed that what makes it harder to see the player is fact that the bullets are the same color as the center of the player. When things move rapidly my eyes keep focusing on the bullets instead of the player.
Its probably both the bullets and the enemies that have to many similarities to the player.
I am very glad you liked the updates! Yes the upgrades really need a description. The "heavy" upgrade makes it such that you no longer receive
knockback and move slower (there is another one that makes the bullets bounce it is called "bouncer").
The game could use a lot more work, after this game jam all prepare some notes with suggestions and things that need to be done but who knows when, or even if, I'll update the game again.
Would love to add a boss at the end tho =}...
Thank you again! Good luck your next game jams!
What was the saying... ah I remember "May the bubbles be with you!"