I tried for a while but never seemed to deal more damage than I took. It seems like the enemy's damage is always "on" while mine does not work as described - it feels like it's only active for a frame so I have to be *very* precise with my timing to dealt any damage at all without getting hit (i.e. flying right beside the enemy and pressing spacebar exactly when next to them). The sounds and particle effects etc are nice, and the enemy behavior is pretty compelling, it just feels impossible to play the game as intended.
EDIT: replayed after re-reading the instructions (and the other comment). I was able to win, but yeah it was mostly by spamming while the circles intersected. I had thought it was the transparent damage zones that mattered, but it seems your circle has to intersect theirs so that was the major misunderstanding I had.
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Thanks a lot for playing the game. Yeah, the damage system is designed so that when you press space, a damage area appears around you, and this area needs to overlap with the enemy’s body in order to deal damage.
When making a game, it’s easy to become “blind” to how unintuitive or difficult something might feel for a new player, since you’ve tested it so many times yourself and know exactly how everything works under the hood.
I need to be more clear about how I communicate what is happening.
Thanks again for the clear and constructive feedback, it’s a big help, and something I can learn from to make my mechanics more understandable next time. Also I really appreciate you giving it another try and managing to beat the game in the end :)