I’m really blown away by the polish of this game. The colors, lighting and music all come together for a really nice mood, and the hard-edged lines on the player and enemies, UI, and bullets etc all come together to give a really unified and finished feel. The sounds and visuals feel really impactful, and the controls and shooting are super slick and well done. I died before I managed to see the third stage, but the transition between the first and second stages was also really nice -- just when I was starting to wonder if that was all there was, stage 2 kicked in, the music ramped up and the color changed, and it really re-energized it.
It’s also just generally pretty fun! I didn’t run into any frustrations at all in the controls or anything, it all felt really slick.
My main criticism is the difficulty curve; I think stage 1 dragged on for a little too long, and had me get really complacent since I was basically only fighting one enemy at a time. Then suddenly when stage 2 opens up and the difficulty really spikes--enemies get a whole lot harder, their attacks become more numerous etc. The damage values also feel a bit off; for stage one most hits would only dent a tiny fraction of my health, but then in stage 2 there are enemies that can kill you almost instantly and with very little warning. If they telegraphed their attacks a bit (I know it’s a bit too much to ask for a 2 week project, but hypothetically) it might help with that.
Finally, maybe a bit more clarity about progress; how many enemies to kill before the next stage, something like that. In all though, I thought this was really really good!