This was fun, although reading the 3D space (when bullets hit and how to target enemies) felt really awkward, but maybe that's just a skill issue on my part.
The uncapped acceleration is silly. In a fun way. I eventually sort of memorized the environment and just blasted through the levels while comboing enemies by wildly flailing around with the mouse. God bless the combo SFX.
Managed to beat it with a time of 2:16.16.
Good time was had.
incredible score, nicely done!! i doubt you're having any skill issues, there's just genuinely more work to be done on making bullets more readable. in particular, once they cross the player's plane, i think they need to get dark immediately instead of just semi-transparent. i also think the enemys' habit of directly shooting through the screen origin, especially salamanders, is not an ideal bullet pattern, kind of a worst-case for readability actually.
i'm glad you got into it enough to discover that speed strategy! i'd love to see a video of it if you happen to have one on hand (you don't need to go too out of the way for it though). you're one of the most valuable types of playtesters if you can find exploits... though it's not an exploit if it's fun! my thought, just from your description, is that enemies should fire at least a small volley of bullets before exploding to a combo shot -- that way you can't remove bullet dodging altogether via mouse flailing alone (if the game is updated later this would be combined with better bullet readability). would you agree?
Congrats, you finally made me create a YT channel! (I've been procrastinating on that for awfully long time, don't ask why, I don't know either at this point).
Since I did not record my original run, I had to finish the game again. Video includes all attempts done in one sitting, without any cuts.
About enemies exploding into bullets on death (or shooting on death): wouldn't make much difference IMHO. Right now the challenge of "speedrunning" is more about just avoiding any and all bullets or obstacles because getting hit resets your speed. You could theoretically get much much more silly times than the one I got if you were to skillfully dodge the bullets.
As you can see in the video, I constantly get hit. It's just that my strategy relies a lot on invincibility and checkpoints.
It is still fun as it is, there is still some degree of challenge. I have not trivialized the game to the point where it's not fun to play, so it's all good.
