Loved this lol. I do have a few critiques, but I definitely loved this
Everything about putrid s4nd which was great works beautifully here. Although, I'm not entirely sure if some of the changes you made for this version work as well they should. Though take some of these issues I had with a grain of salt cus most of them are because I felt that putrid s4nd was perfect as it was lol.
I kind of wished that the indicators for which ability fires after a given number of bullets was similiar to putrid s4nd where you had it next to your current bullet count. Having them to the left is fine, though in the heat of battle I hardly looked at the left side instead of checking my right for the bullet count.
The larger levels are great and allow for more mobility, though it makes the earlier sections of the game a little boring since you have only enemies which move around rather than the ones which shoot at you. Maybe the first level could have no platforms, incentivising players to actually learn to dodge better, and also aim upwards for flying enemies since they probably won't do it much in later levels as the levels allow more mobility as I said before.
I also feel there needs to be descriptions for mods for weapons between levels. Mostly because I wasn't really sure what the icons actually meant. Again, this might be just me and with repeated playthroughs a player will remember of course, but for initial playthroughs, it may cause frustration choosing a mod you didn't really want, mostly because you didn't know what it was lol.
No complaints about the elite fights though, very well designed and fun to fight. As you can see, I died in the second phase of the boss lol, though I felt that even it was designed damn well and was fun to fight. I have one complaint about the boss though. His vertical smash was well indicated, but I sometimes couldn't really see the waves sent in both the left and right direction from that smash. They were also the prime reason why I actually took any damage in that fight. Maybe making them bigger and more noticable would help here because I wasn't really sure for a good chunk of that fight why I was taking damage until I looked a little closer lol. Again, this might just be me, but something to keep in mind.
As a whole though, fantastic bite-sized rogue-lite and a great expansion of putrid s4nd.
P.S
You honestly make some of the best boss-fights I've found in any game on itch.io lol.
Viewing post in PUTRID SHOT ULTRA (Demo) comments
Wow thanks a ton for the feedback!
The new spell indicators is something I was mixed about too. Putrid S4nd's restrictions with pico 8 is what resulted in the really elegant design of showing the spells on your ammo counter. For this game, I wonder if I could double-up and show both the spells on the left and show a mark on the ammo counter. I could also experiment with having them on the same side of the screen, or even just make this all into some kind of game option (like an option to show spells on ammo counter or something). Either way, this is exactly the kind of feedback I was looking for, I'm sure in the heat of battle it's tough to keep switching between both sides of the screen.
I like your idea of removing the platforms in the early levels. Like you said, it'd incentivize players to practice shooting up and also practice dodging enemies.
Ah yeah the weapon mods text was something I was being strategically lazy about, but I got the same feedback from others during initial playtests. I was originally keeping it minimal with the hope that players would, over multiple runs, learn the mods based on minimal text / icons. But like you said, it feels pretty bad to pick a mod only to realize it does something you don't want it to do. I'll look into adding some contextual text that appears when you move under the mod so players know what they're getting into.
Boss battles are usually my favorite part of development, so I'm glad you liked them! The shockwaves for the zone1 boss's slam were the most common thing to hit everyone who playtested initially too, so I definitely need to make them a bit more visually prominent.
Glad you enjoyed the game! I'm really excited to continue working on this and release it, though it might take some time. Thanks a ton for the feedback, this is exactly the type of stuff I was looking for.