Hey thanks for giving it a try.
I'm glad people are starting to see the base game take shape now, the design of the levels will be improved with that new generator v3, so far it's been a really solid test to see where I wanna take this or if it was worth further development, which it has by a massive long shot.
Despite being put up in competition with other juggernaut indie titles, I think the trick is to not reinvent it per say, but to continue doing my interpretation of this type of game which should make it unique and have a unique feel to it with still staying true to the incremental formula.
I might have to add bloom options later on, I agree they are a bit overbearing I'll continue to tweak the balance of them.
The synergies will work with the core talent and in game incremental level ups, that should be enough to let people make builds, from then on is playtesting and I'm guessing I'm going to need another pass on the parts, there also will be timed powerups in game I'm thinking, I'm not sure if I'm going a bit overboard, not for scope but for the overall design of everything, but all I can do is develop it and then test it, and if it gets scrapped well that's alright, but everything so far feels good so that I think that says I'm on the right track, not that I don't have a design document, the game's just evolved overtime.
I haven't played enter the gungeon I'll have to it a bash, I'm not sure if it will kill my ideas though for in place of doing what they do type of mindset, if I'm ignorant to those games then I can evolve this without mental constraints, if I hit a design block I'll do it then I think.
I want that floatyness to be determined by your ships weight which I'll be putting in soon, maybe not for next DD though, I'll have to see, weights going to play a massive part in overall feel and handling, I'll have to also figure out where to display that in the ship creator, maybe down the bottom middle, just a few bars that show total weight and power to weight ratio, so if you have a light ship with a gun it will shoot you across the map type of mechanic, it's going to take some tweaking though, this might even evolve into something with weight parts as a trade off for a singular gun, I am being mindful not to go too technical.
Ships shooting sideways might end up being a powerup, but I get what you mean, it's easy enough to implement now the constructor is finalized, it's as simple as moving the chassis sockets around in blender, so I could have more than 4 sockets, but then it becomes more complex and it's more data I have to show players, and I'd have to fix up the menus to be a bit different to show the extra sockets, which might be a thing for DD71 I think so 6 months away at this rate.
The AI needs more of a brain on it, it's at a point it's starting to suffer, I have some ideas to fix some complaints for these little guys, like if they have no guns they just dive bomb you .etc, I just haven't had the time to do that, but I should now that I'm making some new enemies.
The debris is a placeholder, the destruction doesn't really do much detecting, I'll probably do something over the next few months about it since the levels are looking better I need better items, but it might actually come when I update the generator, they're just cut up in blender and activate when you shoot them, I guess I could just extend the collision box down and call it a day actually.
The room variety will be more of a living entity, so hazards, room shifting all of that good stuff, there's a bunch I need to do with it that should make it feel pretty nice.
Then once I got generator v3, that should be enough content for that gamemode's demo, then it's on to gauntlet mode which is an entirely new game mode, then after that it's a basic story mode, then that'll be my early access demo I think, it should be enough content to start going hard on the wishlists, I'm wanting to build the demo that should last people a few hours, and then just cut off content so you're still getting a solid demo to play.