Thank you for checking the game and reaching the first boss (that's not the final one).
Yes, weapons could be balanced a bit more, but I didn't have time to do that. However thy are not too bad if you play with a friend, since the enemies will be the same.
About the weapons:
Gun - Single shot
Damage: 1
Reloading Time: 1 second
Bullet Angle: 270
Use for:
Basic weapon, you are not going to go back to this (even if initially I planned to let the player lose the power up when damaged and go back to this weapon).
Double - Double shot
Damage: 2 (per bullet) [ This is currently the weapon dealing more damage with a single bullet]
Reloading Time: 1 second
Bullets Angles: 265 and 275
Use for:
Close fight or pave your way in front from far. In close combat, you need to get the right timing, if you can shot twice to the same drone/robot it will be dead since thy have only 3 HP. Actually just tried the game again and I should fix the code because in a very close combat, you can hit with 2 bullets and both of them should deal damage (2 + 2), enough to kill the enemy with one shot.
In close combat is also good to use it when hiding behind a tree, ideally peeking, one bullet will be blocked and the other one will hit the enemy with enough strength to send it back just for the time you need to shoot again.
Finally, from far, when the enemy is in front of you, but is swinging horizontally while coming towards you, you have more chance to hit it. Also quite often you hit it wit one bullet and it will bounce into the other dying in just a couple of seconds.
[ Edit: I just found the bug and fixed it, I can confirm that the game can be completed playing alone and using only the Double bullet weapon. It's actually quite fun to play and it's better to use it as shotgun in very close range. One shot one kill. ]
3-Way - Triple shot
Damage: 1 (per bullet)
Reloading Time: 1 second
Bullets Angles: 240, 270 and 300
Use for:
Stay as lower as possible in the screen to have a large fan and have a chance to hit anyone getting into the screen or moving around, especially if moving left and right to get bullets in different point. Good to focus on just avoiding enemies and their bullets and give you a high chance to hit someone, despite it's precision.
Machine Gun
Damage: 1 (per bullet)
Reloading Time: 0.2 seconds
Bullet Angle: 270
Use for:
Move and concentrate the fire power always in front of the character. It's not easy to defend from side attacks, but the trade off offers the player high mobility and can either focus the fire in front or move around to have a line of fire. with bullets covering a good area of the screen.
The machine gun sort of translate like the laser in the classic shoot'em up games, while the 3-Way is the machine gun at fan arc of those classics. The Double shot is something in between, narrow, but not too much, so you can still have a bit of arc especially if you stay low on the screen.
The Machine gun is at the moment what it seems the most powerful weapon, however despite shooting fast, it's hard to kill minions since they fly away easily when hit, definitely better VS the first boss. I have killed the first boss playing alone and with the 3-Way weapon, not an easy task, though. You need to move away from it way before it closes up too much on you. Not so easy to blow up its arms. The boss is like the little robots, it moves back when hit in the body, but not too much. So the more bullets hits the hull the more you can send it back. If you don't have a machine gun, the support of another player is very useful.
As curiosity, the special weapon (big ray or electromagnetic pulse, to be decided), didn't make into the game, despite having the stats already inside. I preferred to leave it out to concentrate in creating a additional level and focus more in finding the right voices for the whole game (you will hear more if you can complete the game). Anyway, these are the stats, that could change since I didn't have a chance to test them.
CFR (Chickens: Free Range!)
Damage: 10 (single hit for big large ray/wave that should cover at least 1/3 of the screen.
Reloading Time: 10 seconds (it needs time to cool down before being used again)
Bullet Angle: 270
Use for:
Clean up the way in front from lots of minions.
About the speed of players VS machine, yes, they are fast and meant to be, same thing for suddenly coming from back without you be able to do much. That's the real danger of putting AI in robots and one of the warning message the game wants to tell to players (and we are not armed with machine guns with endless bullets and no even have 3 hearts...
What I couldn't fit due to the wasting time of my self challenge to use the free edition and create workaround the limitations is:
- 1 weapon, CFR (Chickens: Free Range!).
- Heads of the chickens on the bottom left and right of the screen with the text of what they are saying inside a balloon.
- Lines from famous movies in the balloons, according to the situation of the levels and game (this will be without audio since the voices come from pre-made game assets.
- 2 more levels (the end scene after defeating the second boss was supposed to be the beginning of level 4.
- Touch input to allow 2 players on tablet.
- Responsive screen and game map according on the device or window resize.
With 9 events only left, last 2 points might have been not possible.
I'm planning to strip the audio from the game (because it's third party) and sell the template as it is (adding proper comments) to show how I overcome the limitations of the free version.
Thank you again for playing and for the detailed feedback. If I will get enough interest I will develop it more with many more levels, let's see how it goes.