Interesting game! But very hard!
I couldn't get too far before running out of lives. Meanwhile I was looking longingly at "easy" on the Menu screen.
I thought that the timestop mechanic was used well there are many times where I found myself really using the timestop . It's quite a lifesaver. I do think it can be quite tricky to get players to use all the mechanics of a game but I thought this game did it quite nicely.
The scoring system was interesting since it encourages you to keep enemies on screen for as long as possible so you can kill then all at once really quickly. I feel like if I was better at the game I would have gone for high scores, since it gives you an interesting risk/reward kind of dynamic.
I thought that aesthetically the game all comes together quite well. It has a nice "Windows XP" kinda feel to the 3D models, which also fits along with the music quite nicely.
I do feel like dying is quite punishing, since some attacks, such as the Boss's Laser attacks, would kill me in one hit sometimes. I do wonder if there may possibly be a bug where some attacks deal more damage then intended, since there are a few times where I swore I had plenty of health but would still be killed by a projectile.
One thing I would recommend is shortening the runbacks to the bosses. Most of the challenges were at the bosses, but going back to the boss would take quite a while since I needed to play through the entire stage. There was also quite a long pause after finishing the stage where nothing would be going on before the boss appears.
I may visit this again after I rate a few more games. Good job!
Viewing post in Watson Warp Speed jam comments
I will accept fault for the insta-deaths. I failed to implement i-frames that were sorely needed. The way it's suppose to work is that if you take damage again while still under "Danger" on your health, you die regardless of health left. Problem is, for beam weapons if you didn't leave the hitbox before the next frame, it registers another hit. So hence beams can literally instakill in two frames when I didn't intend it to. This doesn't happen to regular bullets since bullets self-remove right after dealing damage. Sadly I only figured this out AFTER the grace period.
The blank spots before the bosses were meant for a little "Warning: Anomaly incoming" graphic thing that I had planned, but didn't get to implement on time, among many other things.
Thank you for checking the game out though!