Skip to main content

On Sale: GamesAssetsToolsTabletopComics
Indie game storeFree gamesFun gamesHorror games
Game developmentAssetsComics
SalesBundles
Jobs
TagsGame Engines
(+1)

One of the few games in this style that doesn't feel like it exists just to kill time but is rather quite engaging.

At first I felt the difficulty tuning wasn't quite right as it seemed much harder in the beginning but afterwards got much easier. I guess my expectation was that it would just ramp up as it went but, in actuality, this ended up being a story through gameplay.
The challenge is at first daunting but, with a bit of effort, you overcome it enough that it's still a challenge but no longer the impossible task it first seemed. Eventually you start to get so confident and self-assured in taking the probes down that you don't need to even try anymore, that is, until it starts to get a bit tougher near the end again to humble you right back down and make you take it seriously. I always love when you can get a story like that through pure gameplay.


However, it can get a bit tricky to click the right thing at times or keep track of all the ships as you get more and more of them and the sound gets quite messy with all the shooting and drilling. I also found it weird that a malfunction would give the probes the ability to self-replicate but all in all, a great submission to the jam! I'm pleased to have played it!

(1 edit)

Thank you for the feedback! I'm glad that the gameplay arc you experienced ended up making sense. I definitely wanted the probes to get really strong at the end -- the first time I played with the current ending, it was like, super exciting for me and a great experience, and I hope some of that translated to everyone else's playthroughs.

Also, thank you for the feedback on the sound! If I'm honest, I literally cannot even hear the drill sounds unless I buy the drills in debug mode with a bunch of extra cash (so there's nothing else on screen)... they just get masked by everything else. I think I definitely need to learn more about mixing to make the cacophony work a bit better... I tried to use a compressor on the SFX bus at one point, but it seemed like I got a pumping effect that was even more annoying. I think better sound design would help as well.

Thanks for playing!

(+1)

Speaking for myself, it worked exactly how it was intended, I even died once right at the beginning and won the next try like I saw you mentioning in the comments to someone as the "ideal" playthrough experience. The ending definitely made me work hard after I was just cruising ahahah.

Ye, these games seem to always end up struggling with this kind of thing and to be fair, it's understandable, it's a difficult thing to know how to fix but something that is also easily noticeable. I guess panning could help (I don't know if there's any already or not as I didn't play with headphones) but only for headphones so the only other thing I can think of is to try to make the sounds for each thing be on a different range of frequency, like, the horizontal lasers could be a low tone, the green shooting middle and missiles more high pitched. Basically, you'd first focus on making it so that all the sounds playing at once in the most messy way would still sound harmonious rather than choosing a sound for each and then try to make it work together.

 Another idea could be having slightly different rhythms for each thing so the chance of them playing at the same time is lower. Then, even if it's still a bit messy it's not as constant which might be better. For rhythms I mean you could have something firing on slow septuplets and something else that also needs to be just as slow could be on a slow sextuplet. The septuplets are a bit faster but it's a minimal difference that I think would keep the mechanics of everything still balanced and by having a rhythm everything is a bit more harmonious, hopefully. But those are just some suggestions ^^

As for mixing, it can be hard, take your time and if you can get someone who already knows something about it to help you.

My Pleasure!