The gameplay visuals are really polished, especially the boss telegraph animation is subtle but really feels right, and I also enjoyed the game's soundtrack quite a lot ^^ makes me want to hear more of it, or something like it. Any recommendations?
For the gameplay, I didn't manage to beat the boss fairly, it just stopped moving on the left side of the screen after I poked it with the scythe a few times and let me shoot it - though I drained about 75% of its HP on several attempts without abusing it. There were some factors (to be fair, my own skill issue was part of it) which prevented me from finishing it:
- The player controls and shooting felt clunky. The damaging weapon's spread is really high and the long range damage is diminished, however getting close to the boss for full damage is not only difficult due to the hard to control movement and dense patterns, but also because said shot makes you fly all the way back, possibly back into the bullets you just dodged. Due to this and the boss' limited number of attacks, the process of chipping down its hp really felt like a slog
- For the damaging shot, there were a couple issues, possibly bugs: 1. Reload times seemed to be random, sometimes way longer than usual. 2. Shooting upward while hugging a wall made some bullets disappear entirely. 3. When staying at the bottom corner, then shooting up at a 45 degree angle, it would propel you upwards, when logically it should really keep you in the same spot
- The impulse shot and scythe not dealing any damage really felt like a missed opportunity - for the impulse shot, even if it dealt small damage, it'd still be a satisfying option while the main weapon is reloading. And the scythe could also be a really, really fun option to use. Even if you don't want it to deal damage, it could be used to erase bullets (perhaps with some attack speed and melee area balancing). Or maybe both deal damage and erase bullets! Melee weapons in bullet hells tend to often have those characteristics, and I find melee in bullet-hells/shoot'em'ups really fun personally.
- The boss' circular pattern really felt random and luck-based. There are several variations, each requiring a different approach to dodge it, but not giving the player much time to recognize which pattern it is and how to dodge it. Most of the time I just prayed to RNGesus and stayed in one of the corners. Still got hit one too many times and died a lot. Could be skill issue though.
Overall - you've got a really solid audiovisual foundation for your game. The gameplay needs improvement and perhaps more boss attack variety. I think you can do it, the game could turn out pretty fun with some extra effort, imo ^^ Congrats on finishing the jam!
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Hey, thank you very much!! You have no clue how I excited I get whenever I receive an essay comment lmao xD
About the soundtrack, Falcon actually has a music channel if you wanna see more of his music stuff, altought he didn't release the music for this one there, at least not yet, but I could ask him to if you wanna hear it anytime x) (https://youtube.com/@imlowgame)
Most of what you said was stuff I was actually already aware of, like the Boss softlock that I already adressed on the game page and how it has way too much HP, wich was just a misdecision on my part I admit. The scythe not actually doing anything was actually an issue of lack of time, on my initial plan it was actually going to have a way more important role on gameplay as a bullet slicer/parrier and style score giver, but as I said on the game page, I just wasn't able to implement it on time. (I was really just overscoping all those system honestly, so much that the idea was for the boss to be multiphased even, wich you can clearly tell that it didn't happened lol)
About the shotgun manauvering those are fair points, altought the bullet spread is actually very little, what made you feel like you wasn't hitting the boss properly was that the boss's hitbox is very small, wich was a little oversight on my part, I should have made it's "damage-receiver-box" to be bigger and leave the small one as only the "contact-damage-on-player-box", this would probably have felt way better. How I was dealing with the high recoil on my own playthroughts to chip away a lot of boss health tho was to always get close to it and spam all three shells instantly, and then quickly do a little pulse shot while holding Z to cancel momentum and regain control, wich honestly, actually feels awesome to do ngl, but since I rushed the game I wasn't able to properly tutorialize any of the mechanics so I really wasn't expecting people to try doing any kind of advanced tricks like that anyway.
The little pulse shot doesn't deal damage on purpose tho, I tought there really was no point on that because it's really almost impossible to actually hit one of those lol, so it wouldn't make that much of a difference.
I can assure you that neither reloading nor the circular boss pattern are random tho, or at least they shouldn't be (the only random thing about the circular pattern is where on the screen the boss will hop in, but other than that the pattern itself always move the same way). They could have glitched on whatever browser you played the game in tho, we never know. You were the first one to mention the bug where you bounce off of the ground tho, wich I was also aware, I actually discovered it a little after publishing the game, I have an idea of what may cause it but to be really honest I don't know if I really know how to fix it xD
Don't worry about the skill issue tho, as I said one of the main consequences of rushing the game out was that I really had no time to make a proper introduction to the gimmicks so it's really not the player's fault that the game feels more punishing than it should be.
Just dropped both you and the musician a follow, would love to see and hear more stuff sometime ^^ (listened to their latest track and something about it felt unsettling and familiar at the same time, it's quite intriguing)
The shotgun cancelling strat you described is actually really cool - I haven't used the scythe mode much and was left wondering if movement would have been a lot easier with it. And I did notice that the reload became slower after each third unload or so, but I don't really understand why - some kind of weapon specific characteristic? Perhaps some visual or sound feedback would have helped me understand... Could also be a browser glitch as you said, Mozilla seems to dislike some of the jam games this year lol
Glad the "essay" comment was useful, haha~ I think many people get overwhelmed, but personally I enjoy reading (and writing) long comments and messages myself. Always lots on the mind, and it's quite fun to read and understand the other person's thought processes too ^^
The shotgun really shouldn't be extending it's reload time I swear x)
It's either a browser glitch or purely psychological on your side. I do wish I made a better indication for it tho, it do feel kinda lacking right now, I honestly just forgot about it at the moment.
Thanks again for the comment and the follows tho! :D
Honestly I feel the same about essay comments, I love hearing everything someone has to say about my stuff x)