There are some "deal-breakers" here in the details that are spoiling the experience for me but if you can get those ironed out I'm really eager to attempt to play through this properly.
Viewing post in Cosmic Dawn (in development) jam comments
You're welcome; it was fun to do.
Hey I was thinking about this a bit after the fact and I'm not sure if I emphasized well enough how hyped I got when I found out I could weave between the blue lasers to dive in close to the bots and shoot them at point blank with the shotgun. That was one of those moments that tell you you're playing something special. That's the kind of thing I want to play more of. Hopping around in a big circle while shooting backwards at pursuing enemies isn't devoid of fun but it's not as interesting to me as weaving around, changing directions quickly and (sometimes) approaching intentionally. I think it would be worth aiming for more of that with your enemy designs. Some of these extremely fast pursuing enemies are maybe encouraging more of a fleeing engagement than anything else right now. It's also I think worth considering how these designs apply to levels with progression vs. the arenas you have right now. It may be sensible to run away constantly inside a big symmetrical arena but if you're exploring levels with progression, especially ones you've never seen before, it's harder for me to imagine jumping and shooting backwards the whole time. Sure the levels may be large wide-open areas but I think there's still a difference in the approach that should be taken into account with the nature of the enemy designs.
That's a really good point! It's something that I found bothering me a bit too (the backpedalling heavy gameplay, due to the fast running zombie guys). I am currently fleshing out some enemy designs that encourage (or require even) chasing down and being very aggressive. One will be an egg laying type of enemy that will actively avoid the player and be a threat purely by laying eggs out of which lesser enemies hatch. And there's a few more I have in mind that I think will change the gameplay in this sense. You're definitely spot on with the level designs concerns too, as I'm working on a first set of campaign levels I'm finding that my current enemies don't hold up so well in tight space. Might actually end up doing campaign-only versions of them with tweaked ai's... Thanks for the awesome comment!