Outer space is badass, and so is this game. There are a lot of things I like about this game. You gave me a lot to comment on, so rather than give you a bunch of paragraphs, let me list them out a bit more cleanly:
- The music is probably the best of any submission in this game jam. It's so good that you earned an extra point from me in the "art style" category for it, since music really should count toward that anyway.
- Speaking of which, the art itself is great, too. I love the spaceships and different-colored energy blasts.
- The gameplay is fun at its core. Flying around space, dodging enemies, and shooting energy blasts is just fun.
- The space logs are a great addition. I love things like this; they make games with simple but fun concepts more engaging, and they show that you're serious about it.
Here are my critiques, with some suggestions for how I would improve on them:
- I think that my biggest complaint is that the game is too slow. Though it's a fun game with a classic concept, it's not very engaging because everything moves so slowly. On top of that, the player's speed is relatively pretty fast, which makes the game too easy.
- Easy solution here, just speed up the ships and projectiles.
- I'm not sure if it gets harder as you progress - I probably played for 5 minutes - but if not, that would be a good thing to consider, too.
- The power ups look more like obstacles. I didn't read the guide you posted showing that they were power ups before playing, so I avoided them thinking that they were enemy ships.
- I wouldn't use ships for the power up sprites - it isn't really intuitive that flying into ships gives you power ups. Instead, you should use sprites that set them apart from the enemy ships somehow.
- If you really want them to be ships that's fine, but make it super obvious that they're power ups. For example, put a huge plus sign on the health ships to show that they'll restore your health.
- Though I love the concept of space logs, I actually don't know how to progress to unlock them. After playing a couple games, I looked at the logs and didn't see any change. Also, I might just be stupid, but I actually don't know how to exit from the instruction or space log screens back to the main menu, lol. I just have to quit the game when I go to the instruction or log screen.
- Did you actually implement the logs, or did you not get to it?
- If you did implement them, then...
- Maybe make it a bit more clear how to unlock the logs in the instruction screen, and
- be sure to make the "escape" button take you to the previous screen.
- The instruction screen is cut off for me. It's zoomed in, and I can only see what I assume to be about 80% of the screen.
- The controls are pretty straightforward so it's not a big deal, but just decrease the scale on this screen.
All these criticisms have pretty simple solutions imo, so don't be intimidated by the fact that I wrote so much. Great work on this.