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Altabestudio1 year ago(+1)

I gave it my go finally, I know this is a very polished game at this moment, any comment I make would be ideas to help you "stand out" from the rest of bullet hell type games. 

1. There are a lot of bullet hell games with spaceships, if you vary from that, you can fair well, I would suggest add more to the concept of the potato ship, add enemy skins that also are food, when indiegames don't take themselves too seriously, they tend to sell well with the audience. Maybe consider it for an alternative version. Same mechanics, different look, it can appeal to a different audience from the original target.

2. Bullets hell games tend to stand out when the bullets look like "fireworks" visually as in the colors patterns being shot at look pretty on a screenshot, consider that as a possibility to add to your game, right now they work really well as gameplay, but doesn't seem to have the firework qualities yet.  

I didn't get very far so I am not sure how many different stages and backgrounds you got, I would say for first few stages, consider making the backgrounds your most pleasant and your best, so you can intrigue players to stick around and want to explore your world even more. I think your story is flexible enough to switch things around. 

You are around for the stream but here's the VOD: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1817769943

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LMG3864 Games1 year ago(+1)

Thanks for the feedback, and thanks for the VOD link!

I'm not sure about a full Potato rebranding, but I can give it some thought. It is true that the Potatostrike alone has gained far more attention than the game ever did on its own, so it's worth looking into it. However, even just adding a full Potato mode will take a moderate amount of time, as I'd have to make unique models for all enemy ships in the game, and there's over 30 of them at this point.

I can look into replacing the projectile models for something more visually pleasing. I've actually looked into this a few times in the past, but never quite committed to doing it for a multitude of reasons. I'll try to have it ready for the next patch, 1.3.9, but it will most likely have to wait for the following one. Here's an early look of what I've got so far during testing:


The Campaign is not divided into stages, but the world has a total of 8 Areas you can explore. There's a total of 8 fully unique backgrounds, and 9 variations of those backgrounds. Each background is tinted with coding to fit the area you're in, and most variations add a large number to the background, indicating which area you're in. For example, Area 1 would be tinted green and display 0-1 on some rooms.

This was done mostly due to budget constraints; pixel artists often charge by size, and backgrounds by design are pretty large images. I've wanted to get new backgrounds for some time now, I even have contacted an artist on Mastodon about it, but without a way to cover the expenses there's not much I can do, unfortunately.

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Altabestudio1 year ago (2 edits) (+1)

Potatostrike is definitely going to be a commitment, but I think the potential to do well might be high. Glad you are considering it. 

As for BG, I think you have some bg that can move up to earlier that already exist like the pan with the mountain in the later side of the campaign. 

Projectile fireworks, a good visual example would be Touhou series, the whole screen is just fireworks over and over, different shapes and color combos, lots of circular forms.  I heard other devs have better luck with fiverr for art commissions if you ever need to try for that. 

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LMG3864 Games1 year ago(+1)

Right now the game takes place in an underground base. When you see the mountains, that's on one of the few corridors that actually have a view of the outside.

Unfortunately I can't move that corridor earlier in the game without redesigning major parts of the map. Especially the first area of the game, which houses the tutorial. Alternatively, I might have to break the established shape of the base to excuse an outdoors corridor several kilometers underground. I did think of improving the background of the starting room, but I would need more funds to do that change.

As far as enemy attacks go, there are a few enemies that do actually have some more distinct patterns or behaviors. The Spinner fires projectiles in a spiral, the Javelin fires projectiles that bounce off walls, the Knight fires projectiles that explode into smaller pellets, and the Stinger just rams into enemies with their Energy Spike. Most appear later in the game since they're more difficult to fight.


I actually do know Fiverr, it's where I found the artists that did the Title Screen art, the Ending Screen art, and most of the ship models. It's a fairly good platform, and I was planning to use it for the Steam achievement icons.

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Altabestudio1 year ago (1 edit) (+1)

Great to see what you got already, I think just switch the colors of the bullets would do to add that fireworks effect if it's an easy enough tweak. Yeah no point to break the game over something like a minor improvements. If you can get pink, blue or pink green on screen it can work like fire works, with it so busy though u might want to stick to just 2 different colors of bullets from enemies, plus the players white bullet. Best wishes!

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