itch.io

Thanks for playing and the, usual, great feedback!

Glad to hear it is doing well on the tablet. We have not done much optimizing, and only basic testing on mobile, so that is good.

We did add some new items, and adjusted some old ones. We had thought about doing the Game Demo Jam, which had a theme item of a candle, so we quickly added one in. It turned out to be a useful early game item for Fire, so we added similar early items for other Affinities.

We will be adding resistances in the future, so Status Effects may not be quite as easy to apply, but glad you are enjoying them. They certainly make combat feel better. 

I agree that it could be hard to tell what happened on an enemy turn before. I've been wanting to add the Combat Log for months, but it was never high enough priority. Now that it is in, I feel like I should have moved it up, as it really does make combat clearer. Also, it is so nice for debug!

We will see about updating the Training Hall to add a dedicated entry for how to gain AP. It is a bit unique for the Slimes.

I'd love to add the AP by the character sprites, but there simply is not enough space. The main reason we added the larger icons to the details boxes at the corners was because there was already too much, and we couldn't even expand the icons. There can be up to 6 characters in a party, and there needs to be enough space between them for the icons to not overlap. I've debated different options for zooming and pulling the characters out of the main map into a battle scene, but I like them fighting where they encounter each other. One limit is the main UI. Another is the road. We try to keep it so they look like they are fighting near the road, rather than lost in the trees. Part of that is because we make sure that area is reasonable to be on and don't have to worry about them being on top or a tree or river. I am continuing to think on this, and we have had cases of enemies appearing behind trees, so something needs to be done for that. But I just can;t see how to cram 9 extra icons, plus the number that goes with it, next to the sprites. No characters currently use all 9, but Mindy has 4, and characters can gain others in the game, or at least, that is the plan. I could, possibly, do like the Status Effects and have a display that cycles through the AP for each Affinity, but even that I'm not sure would fit... unless the cycling also included the HP and it shared that spot. I'll have to think on it, and see how it looks. If we add it, it will certainly be an optional setting, as the flickering might distract people. Maybe it could be independently selected between the HP #s and Bar for where/how to show AP.

Once the character animations are done we do want to get back to adding more to the towns. This update will include more trees, specifically Hazelnut tress near Hazelgate.

My goal for towns is to have you select the location from the menu and have your party move to the location. Ideally eventually setting up art to show the location and be more visual. That is still a ways off. Adding icons to the buttons could be a good upgrade we could do more quickly. I do agree that the towns being largely menus takes away from the experience.

We noticed the music looping when we split the combat to use different tracks, but it got forgotten in the push for other things. I'll try to clean it up before the next release. The tracks are designed to fade into each other, but the tails are really long, so we cut them down, and that one clearly needs to be redone.

We do actually have some animations for the Slimes eating, and the logic to add the item to the combat is already in place. They just haven't been refined yet to where they fit with the flow of the game. The next update will include new animations, including for spit. For battle speed I'm not sure that we will be able to show eating and spitting for each action. For eating a healing item, though, we will likely do so. As we work on animations you can be sure that we will be trying to get the animations to work with showing the item being eaten.

I'm glad that Hard difficulty was decent. I admit that I did not put a lot of effort into the difficulty settings yet. It was picking some numbers that sounded decent and adding basic buffs/debuffs. The initial ones were a bit much, especially for Insane, but a slight tweak made them better. I have other ideas for the future to make it more than just stat changes, but even just the stat changes feels decent if that is all we go with.

I'm glad you like the optimistic feel. We want the party to have that hopefulness. They will get a bit more somber as the story progresses and they have to face the reality of what is happening that they had been shielded from, but we want them to keep the determined optimism, and use that as the reason to keep getting more involved. There will be sequences of doubt and questioning if they are even making any difference, and how could they possibly be doing enough. But overall, we live in a bleak world and need that kind of hope that even little things can make a difference.

Thanks again. Your feedback always gives me new ideas for ways to improve the game!

I want to be upfront and acknowledge that I am going to be a bit more critical in my review. You've been submitting to our jam for several months now, and many of the annoyances that make the game unpleasant to play, which have been there for a long time, remain. We like the concept of the game, and it could be fun, but the problems take away from any fun, especially after dealing with them for so long. You keep adding new content, but really need to focus on fixing the initial experience.

The number one issue I have is the lack of details on the controls. There are many buttons that do things, and can be essential to playing the game, but you do not list them anywhere. I know certain things can be done, and have to think back to th last time I played to remember the buttons, or randomly press things. I've spoken to everyone in the tutorial and the Main Hub, and the only control mentioned was Space. Esc is problematic for web, so I can understand not using it, but P for pause is a common secondary option. If that is not used, then you really need to tell players at least how to pause and navigate the menus. Considering the Main Hub sells placable items, you really should be telling players how to place items, and how to switch between the item to to place, in that area. I purchased a block and nothing was said about how to use it.

After starting I wanted to go back to check something. I recall that Esc was not used, but I thought that P did pause. It did not work. I started pressing random keys. I found that T seems to be a debug option to refill the screen with collectables. Considering the R is used to reset things, which is common, I expect plenty of people will stumble on this by accident. Eventually I found that Backspace got me out of the game and back to the mode select screen.

I think the SFX are too loud compared to the background music. I even raised the music to be at the same level as the SFX, and they still feel unbalanced. When I go back to the Options, the sliders for the volumes have been reset to their defaults.

I again went into the options and reset, then did a hard refresh of the page, so I'd be starting fresh. I did some testing and then repeated. I started with 1 key and 101 coins. I was also below the first checkpoint and when I went up, it did not initially trigger any dialog with the NPC. I refreshed and reset and eventually it did trigger. Maybe for a first time player this won't be an issue, but when testing I do want to start fresh to see the current experience.

The movement still feels very jerky. It is not too bad when moving slowly, but when trying to cover a larger distance it is unpleasant.

The dialog boxes often show too much text to fit on a line, and start to squish. While having that as a fallback can be helpful to ensure nothing is missed, you should really update the text so it fits and remains readable at the default size. This may mean splitting the text up into multiple dialog boxes.

Going up I see a star next to the # 33, which made me think it would be blocked until I get that many, and I was blocked with an SFX playing, so that was good. I went to the left and saw the same Star with a #, but this one was 54. I was able to pass through that one. I currently have 3 stars. The bottom one also blocked me, so it looks like just the left one is broken,

I like the idea of these. Being able to get to the different numbered areas from the start felt a bit odd, when it was clear they were meant to be incremental. I've explored all of them randomly and didn't really feel any were notably harder than the others, so viewed it more as just identifying the areas, rather than a difficulty. I've never completed the game, so maybe as you go deeper in there is more difficulty in the higher numbered ones.

Going to the right, the map zooms to show an area, but part of the are, containing a star, is under the UI. Maybe this is meant as a challenge, rewarding people paying attention with the star? Considering that your UI can look like part of the play area, I'm not a fan. In the past I have often seen elements of the UI lined up with tiles and initially thought something was there, until I moved and it stayed in place. With it lining up with other UI elements, it feels more like a mistake, than intentional.

I moved to the right, unlocked the door, and and continued off the screen. Continuing to move after going off the screen it then shifted me to the next area. It looks like this room/section based design may be the standard now. That is fine and can work, but it needs to be done right. You should not have to walk an extra step, and certainly not several, after going off screen. If you require going off screen, then that should be the trigger to transition. Considering the nature of this game and stepping on tiles can cause you to lose, you should not expect players to be randomly waling where they cannot see to transition each room. I suppose there could be an area where not seeing was part of the challenge, but that should be a deliberate challenge, and not the norm for moving between rooms.

In this room part of the play area is again under the UI. This feels less like an occasional challenge, and simple poor design. If you are going to stick with this mode where you no longer have the camera following the player, but go room to room, then you should design the map so the play area is not covered by the UI.

The UI covering the top of the play area is even worse when going up, with the exit from the area covered by the UI, and still needing to go off screen several tiles. It can be very hard to tell when the top edge is a hard edge or if there is more and you can go up to exit the area from there.

Some of the puzzles feel good, but many, at least the early ones I'm going through right now, just feel like a lot of repetition of swapping realities. It feels a bit like filler to make things bigger. With the delay in swapping, it really slows you down and gets tedious as you try to go back to the Main Hub.

I went back and unlocked the second area, and explored a bit of it. Since area 4 was also accessible I went through some of it, though it still listed me as being in the Main Hub in the UI.

Overall, I think that you have a good idea, and eventually this could be a fun game. Right now it is still in an early and very unpolished state. You need to work on introducing players to the game so they know how to play and can focus on solving puzzles, rather than fighting with figuring out the controls and what they can do. A better user experience is needed before more content.

Well, if you like charge up abilities, one of the things under consideration is adding more of them! Some of the work I did for the jam update was to make the Sword just be another tool, so that we could do more with the others. We are thinking that there may be hidden upgrades, which would allow the upgraded tools to have a charge ability. We haven't fleshed them out yet, and don't want to try to cram too much into a small space and make the rewards feel less rewarding, but we will probably get at least one or two in.

We will keep your suggestions in mind when we review the tools. Thanks!

Thanks for playing and the feedback.

Glad you like the changes. We are happy with how the game is shaping up, and it is good to hear others agreeing. And yeah, I may have gone a bit overboard with the complexity of the battle system.

Adding sorting and/or filtering to the combat item select is on my to-do list. The current one doesn't fit, so I need to decide what to keep and what to cut to make it fit.

Thank you for such great feedback!

I can see the logic in allowing access to both dungeons. We have been discussing how best to do the demo to draw people in, but not give away too much. Since we are letting players have access to both dungeons already, letting them go between them doesn't really have much of a negative, and you are right about it showing something we make a key part of the gameplay. I'll make the change for our next update. Ironically, I had to add extra logic in to be able to limit them to staying in the one they picked when continuing.

I do use the sword, but rarely use the Whirlwind. I can agree that giving it a bit of invulnerability does make sense. I want to revisit it in general, as the Earth Scroll feels like a better version of it. We need to take a look at them and decide how we want each to work and if there is too much overlap. We made a significant change to the weapons in this update, and they still need some refining. The weapons used to be part of the main character sprites. We broke them out to be there own sprites and nodes. The collision shapes are now on the weapon nodes, but they are not as good as they could be. There is something to be said for if you are directly over an enemy you might not be able to hit them with a longer weapon like a sword, so leaving the collision shape on the blade, but not the hilt or over your character can work, but for gameplay we may extend the collisions inward more. Maybe we need to add a dagger for close range. You could fight with sword and dagger... but that probably would not play well with the enemies and dungeon design we have, even if it is a good style for melee.

I can agree that Dash on F is problematic, especially when moving to the right. I don't know why I did not think to swap it to Space... oh, right, we have that as using the primary tool. Instead I added middle-click for it. You can customize the keys in the settings. We'll review the defaults. I'm wanting to leave Shift for a potential run ability, at least for debug mode, but we'll see. Dash is important.

We've discussed the attack through walls and left it for now, but are debating adding logic to remove it. It is not very realistic, but can be convenient.

Enemy logic is on my list to work on. I've done an initial pass on the bosses, but some of the core logic is still a bit flaky.

Those doors have been a real pain, though generally more the logic than sneaking past them. I plan to completely redo them in the near future. We will check the collisions on that one and make sure it is properly blocked off.

I did see the water issue shortly before we uploaded, but we didn't have time to fix it. I think the issue was the effect was designed with the base idle frame, and did not account for the full animation size.

Glad you enjoyed! We really wanted to do more with the puzzle aspects, so it is good to hear they are appreciated.

While I can appreciate the concept of the rotating space rocks hitting multiple times, I think they need some adjusting so that players have enough time to react if they move between turns and hit one of your ships. I saw the ship was hit and already planned to move it, but before I could move it was destroyed. I suppose that it could lead to future efforts to stay further away, but when they first show up, you may not have a good feel for where it will end up on the next turn. I thought I was far enough away, and ended up being just close enough to be hit.  It really was that being the start of the turn and not having reacted fast enough to move away. Maybe a limit to how fast they can hit the same ship again, or perhaps a short delay at the start of the turn to give players a chance to select the ship and start moving. It was unpleasant, but at the same time, in battle mode I died so often that I suppose it wasn't that big of a deal. I will keep it in mind for the future.

I'm not sure on Kunai. I was able to find a strategy that worked for me. The cost reduction was nice, and allowed using abilities sooner. It was nice to start by giving 1 energy to self and an ally, allowing a setup for the next turn. The special allowing the others to have that was good for longer boss fights, especially for Arcania reducing the cost to revive. The higher speed, but narrow aiming window took a bit to get used to, and was not a favorite, so I did not do a lot of attacks. As it progressed I got better, but for something like the Grapple, I always got close. I'll need to try a play of Battle Mode using different combos of ships, but I am liking the new ones. 

Battle mode is certainly tough. It is meant to be a challenge. When I think of a Roguelite, I think of getting more permanent upgrades. With the between battle upgrades being lost when you die, and some fights being hard to survive early on, I think it makes many upgrades feel less rewarding. I'd just get this cool upgrade, and then be in a fight that has 2 ships destroyed quickly. To keep the upgrades survival is important. I think the shield has become almost a requirement. Allowing the specials to reset will help with being able to use the more powerful shield, but even the lesser one can be enough to take an otherwise fatal hit. If you get enough HP upgrades to be able to survive, it makes the others last long enough to be enjoyed. I need to try some new strategies when I next play. Fixing some of the bugs, especially the Max HP up not working, will also help it feel more reasonable. It certainly needs some adjusting, but I'd say that it is tough to define how best to do so until the next batch of planned updates and fixes are in.

I'm not really sure of similar games. You've got the cards and limited slots, but in many ways that could be compared to having equipment and weapon/ability slots for them. Abilities often need something to use. Having a low max, and regaining some each turn is not that common that I can think of, but there are games where you are fairly limited on what you can do and have to build up for more powerful actions. I'll try to think on it more and browse my games collection to see if anything stands out. I've not been playing many non-jam games in a while, so there may be some I'm just forgetting.

I did a bit more testing. It seems that the Display Options for Resolution & Window Mode are not being saved/loaded. This is not just when restarting the game by refreshing the page, but also when starting a run and returning to the Menu. I was trying to experiment with different settings to see if they had any affect.

I also tried switching to fullscreen as soon as the game started, with the default settings. I did not get the crashes my kid reported, though only played a couple locations. When I went back to the menu I was zoomed in at the bottom left with clouds, and just a portion of a building showing.

I'm using a mix of mouse and keyboard currently. I don't often use fullscreen for jam games, but with my extra testing, I'm acknowledging that for keyboard you heavily use Esc. On the web Esc will exit fullscreen. You should add an alternative button that can be used for web. P is common for Pause, but would not make as much sense for some of the other uses. Similarly Backspace could make sense for going back, but if the game loses focus, many browsers will go back a page when Backspace is pressed and you are generally focused on the page. If you enable both by default that could let players in fullscreen use Backspace, as they'd be unlikely to be unfocused such that it would go back in fullscreen, and those not using fullscreen could stick with the default of Esc, along with non-web being fine with the default. You could add this as a note on the page or instructional popups in the game, while leaving the default Esc in the UI. Adding input remapping would be the best to let players chose what works for them, but that would obviously take longer. A non-Esc alternative could be a good fallback for web fullscreen users for short term.

Thanks for playing and the feedback.

Glad you liked the puzzles. We really wanted to refine things in this update so the puzzles felt more a part of the dungeons, rather than being too obvious and perhaps feeling like just filler. We have a few more thoughts for additional puzzles to add, mostly in the final dungeon.

Good to hear the movement feels fun. That was one of the things we had an issue with in the previous version, and I myself wasn't happy with. The recent updates felt better to us, but it is always nice when others agree.

I can totally understand that. It was easy enough to figure out while playing, and the game is short enough that playing again to get a better score was worth it. I suppose it could be seen as an added bit of replay value.

Thanks for playing and the feedback.

It looks like the music restarting may be a web export only issue, as I just tested and only get it there. I'll do some looking to see if I can find what is causing it. We've had music issues on web in the past, so I have an idea of things we can try to adjust. Thanks for letting us know!

We were very much inspired by (S)NES era Zelda games.

Good job getting to the boss. Beating a boss without taking a hit would be tough... Hmm, maybe when we implement difficulty settings we can add a super tough challenge mode where you only get 1 HP... or maybe just an achievement for not taking any damage.

We're glad our feedback is helpful.

I'm playing on a 4K monitor, with the browser window plenty large enough for the viewport. Here is the offset menu I see:

One of our kids played as well. We'll be posting their full review later, but they had issues with the game crashing when they tried to play in fullscreen.

We do use the Vivaldi browser, which is Chromium based, and are on Linux. I just tested with Chrome itself and Firefox, and both seem to be centering correctly. I'll need to look into it more to see why Vivaldi has an issue and Chrome doesn't. Another dev I know recently had a similar alignment issue in browser with one of their games made with Godot, and I don't think they were using Vivaldi.

For the shops, the main issue for me was not knowing how they worked. Now that I do I can adjust thing in the future. Since the game is replayed many times it won't be too bad learning this in a game and only impacting that game, but it is also something that could be added to any tutorial or instructional materials.

I can totally understand having things designed so that you expect them to be setup when the gameplay starts. Just a shortcut to get back to the upgrades screen would be enough.

This is a cute and simple game. I like the art. The layout is pretty good for giving space to move around, while not being too big. The music works for the game. This was fun and after I learned how it worked I retried for a better outcome with more animals surviving.

The instructions say to click on a suspicious animal to send it to the lab, but does not make it clear that doing so ends the day. It should really be more clear that you can only send 1 animal to the lab per day, so that on the first day you know to spend more time making sure you pick the right one. It would also be nice if it told you in advance when the day will end if you do not send an animal to the lab before then.

I had a number of problems with the game. I only played a bit, as the problems were enough that I did not want to keep trying.

When I started up I tried going to Settings. It opened up a browser window with a link to join a Discord server. The More link did the same. The Settings should not be going to Discord, and the More link, if it is meant to be the Discord link, should be updated to be clear that it is an external link to joining a Discord server. I'm assuming it is meant to take you to a different screen with more info and potentially multiple links, which would ideally make the Discord link clear as to what it is.

The Play and Quit buttons worked. After pressing play I thought to try to get to the menu to see if I could adjust settings. There was a Menu button, but it did nothing. Pressing Esc also did nothing. I thought to try P, and that did bring up a Pause screen, but it flickered as if it was set to toggle as long as the button was pressed, rather than reacting once to each button press. When I got the timing right to end on the Pause screen, it did say "Press Esc/P/Pause to retun" (Typo in return). The clock was still moving and the sounds in the background were still playing. Esc did not exit the screen.

Moving beyond menus, it was not clear what surfaces could be walked on. I started on the stereo, but I had a very hard time getting back up there. Only once did I do so, and that was while attacking and there was a sound being played by the stereo. During my first play when I jumped off the desk the first time, I fell through the floor. I had to externally close the game since I could not find a way to get back to the menu or any other screens for quitting from in the game. My next attempt I was having issues getting around due to not being sure what I could jump on, but managed to deal with some noises. The wake up progress made it quite high before I silenced things. Then nothing else activated. The clock counted down to 0, and nothing happened. Upon restarting and letting things go, the progress goes up, but nothing happens. There are errors in the console, which I will put below.

I think the concept is interesting. Plenty of people have a hard time sleeping, so playing a game where you are trying to help someone get a good night's sleep sounds nice. Unfortunately, in its current state I really can't give good feedback on how the gameplay would be. The only real gameplay element I can comment on is making it more clear what surfaces are walkable, and if some are situational, making that clear as well.

The console had a lot of this error:

ERROR:SCRIPT: main/main.gui_script:48: bad argument #2 to 'post' (hash expected,
got no value)
stack traceback:
[C]:-1: in function post
main/main.gui_script:48: in function wakeometer
main/main.gui_script:58: in function <main/main.gui_script:53>

We use Linux. I tried to play your game using Lutris (Wine), but got an error when starting. Maybe it is just an issue using Wine, though we regularly play jam games this way and I don't recall seeing this error before.

"Cannot find function DeriveAppContainerSidFromAppContainerName in library USERENV.dll"

When starting on the web, the menu was not centered, and things did not react properly based on the mouse position. Going into full screen worked, and when I exited fullscreen it was properly centered and worked. Whenever I return to the menu it again has the issue with being misaligned. Adjusting the browser's zoom level also fixes it, so I have been zooming in once and then back out once every time I need to return to it.

Sometimes the screen zooms in for an enemy attack. It usually ends up being a killing blow. The zooming in messes with my timing, which isn't great to begin with. The Merfolk are the ones I've seen do this, and in general I find them to be the most trouble for me. Their down low attacks are the ones I most have issues with timing properly.

Sometimes when combat starts I was not able to attack with Space until after one or more blocks/parries. I'm not sure if it was after a counter attack, or just blocking, that I could then attack.

After I started playing and got into the game map I forgot it was a Roguelite. When I died it would bring me back to the start & I just kept retrying. It would be nice if there was a quick way to get to the Mastery screen after dying to spend points, rather than needing to return to the main menu and starting a new game. Even if it takes you out of the current game, and is only shown at the start of a run after dying, just having a direct way to go there would be convenient. It would be even nicer if this could be done in a way that the main game did not need to be unloaded such that it causes the alignment issue that the menu has. Just go buy the upgrades, and then return right to the combat map, possibly reloading the same as if you had died.

I had 2 shops in a row, and they had the exact same content. It would be nice if each was unique so I did not have to pay for a refresh on first visiting a new one. I'd have picked a different path and refreshed the first shop, if I'd known they'd be the same.

I made it to the first god twice. The second time I had a sword that could cause freeze. With that I was able to get him down to 75 HP, but I did not react fast enough when he wasn't frozen.

I got the 3 initial Mastery upgrades on the main path along with some 5 point upgrades for HP & Attack, but none of the higher cost ones. It seems that saving is implemented, so I may try again later. When I first played it was tough. My timing is not great, and I got a lot of the Merfolk who loved to do the tail attack that I especially do badly with. Before I acknowledged the Roguelite currency and went back to spend it, I was getting ready to be done. As is typical for a Roguelite, it was properly tough without getting the upgrades. Afterward the difficulty became far more reasonable. I also got more used to the timing. I still don't do well with low attacks, but was comfortable enough with combat that I chose to fight bosses, instead of avoiding them.

I mentioned the CPU usage as one of the things that happened, but it wasn't the game slowly ramping up over time and using more CPU until it overwhelmed my system. I'm playing on desktop with my dev system, which is decently powerful. This was a case of something happening in the game and causing it to quickly spike  CPU usage and then lock up. It stuttered for a bit like it was trying to recover, but after several minutes of high CPU usage it was still not responding. My browser still responded, including scrolling the page the game was embedded in. The issue happened shortly after starting a new level, with a bunch of boss enemies and a laser hitting them. I also had just started to click over them. Things got laggy, then locked up.  One of our kids has played and also got a lock up. They commented on getting a lot of crits when theirs locked up. Theirs only had one boss on screen, but there was a cluster of enemies they were attacking and getting the crits on.

I like that you have 2 music options, plus mute. We like offering players options for what works best for them.

The first puzzle is not very intuitive. I started with it, and got frustrated enough that I stopped. After I got frustrated my partner played and beat it, using the tips. They mentioned the others were easier and more enjoyable, so I came back and beat the other levels, along with getting some of the other downs, before going back to the first one. The others were much better. You should change the order of things so that players start with an easier puzzle, and then progressively get harder. Your first puzzle should be your last one. My partner offered some tips on the first one when I got stuck, and I finished it. In the end I had 12 downs. I like that you have the hints available for those who want to use them. The concept was good, and the other puzzles I liked. I liked the idea of the multi-part puzzle, but it needs some rethinking to make it feel more intuitive.

I don't play a lot of platformers these days outside of jams. This one seemed decent overall. There were some spots that were frustrating, including one where I stopped, but overall it was pretty simple. Having full control of movement in the air made it pretty easy to position where you needed to be. On the ground it did feel a little bit slidey at times for certain sections, but overall it was fine.

I like your menu screen having a mini level to let the player practice the controls.

I found the room with the 2 long stretches of spikes on the ground, followed by small jumps with 1 or 2 spikes, to be a tough room. I kept having trouble with sliding into the spike after landing from the jump. I got the message asking if I wanted help after 10 deaths. I kept trying and was able to complete it. I don't think it was overly hard, just that for me that combination of the long jumps followed by the short ones with limited space was causing me trouble.

Some dialogue says to press Space, but it does nothing. I had to click to advance the dialogue. The start screen does say to click for dialogue, but the dialogue itself should probably be updated to either support Space, or remove those comments.

Typo in the text "I will distroy him." It should be "destroy". "employie" should be "employee". "I belive you" should probably be "I believe in you". I'm going to leave off with typos/mis-spellings after these, but you should probably double check all the dialogue.

Starting the room that has that bit of story by falling into a trap is unpleasant. The fall is fine, but give a small spot to start on so after losing you can be ready to start again.

I got to the point where you go under a full diamond/double-ended spike, and have to jump over a spike, landing between it and another. With enough tries I could make it, but I did not feel like going through the rest of the level that many times. Breaking this room up, or otherwise giving a checkpoint before that area would be nice. Of course, it looks like that my be one of the final challenges of the room, in which case it wouldn't make sense to have a checkpoint right before it.

On your page you say "The physics are exact". I would not describe the game that way. The jumps are not what I associate with physics based jumping. You have full control of your movement while in the air. With this being a space game, maybe you have directional thrusters, and your jump is a small jetpack capable of limited thrust up, but able to quickly recharge. There are plenty of ways to explain it in story, if wanted. My point is mainly towards setting players' expectations. With physics based jumps I expect my movement before and at the time of the jump to have significant impact on the jump, and to have limited control of movement while in the air.

This is a nice, minimalist incremental game. I like the simple geometric shapes. I don't think it really qualifies as an idler, as I'm not sure what I could really do while idling. I got the laser, and that did some, but it was minimal and I still needed to start each round. Maybe after many upgrades, but I did spend a decent amount of time playing, and at no point did I feel like I could just let it idle to build up currency or levels.

The upgrades are pretty good, though some could use with more details. For example, how does time money work? The upgrade screen could do with better readability. As you unlock more upgrades, they display over the arrows and words along the edges. This can make the text hard to read. I don't think you need the arrows and words for what upgrades are in each direction, since you really can't do anything with it. You need to purchase the first upgrade to open the others, and those will give you an idea of what upgrades are unlocked in those directions.

It looks like a some of the upgrades have a mis-spelling. "chance" is being spelled "chanse".

I got one of the +5 second upgrades, and the +2 second one was marked as sold out.

Crit chance reached a cost of 2164$, and I was no longer able to purchase it, even though I had enough money. I tried again the next time I went to the upgrades screen, and it was the same.

In battle I am seeing the normal cursor, plus another which is moving slightly lagged from the real one. I find it a bit unpleasant. It would be nice to just have one. If you can't hide the default cursor, then being able to disable the in game custom one would be nice.

I reached level 12. My previous run I had gotten over 30,000$. It started with several big boss enemies all coming from the bottom left, and the laser hitting them, along with me moving the cursor to do so as well. This resulted in some stuttering, then major CPU usage and locking up.

I'm not sure that I would have played up to the win condition, unless things started to jump quickly. It was enjoyable enough for a while, but did start to get a bit repetitive, at least for me. I don't do a lot of idler/clicker games, so for those who like this style, it probably is fine.

I played to around 12,000 score. The game is simple and easy to figure out. I'd suggest changing it so that the character is centered on the mouse, rather than the mouse being at the top corner. It will help with movement around the edges, especially the top.

It did not feel like the difficulty was increasing, and unless there was bad RNG, it seemed like I could just go on forever. The game could use with something more to keep it interesting. Slowly speeding up the movement of the bombs over time could help. Some background music would also be nice.

We've been busy and I don't think I got a chance to write out a review for the last release, so this will be on all the changes, and just my general thoughts on how the game feels in its current state. I started a fresh game and did not test if an old save would still work.

Shortly after starting, I took a break, and rather than leaving it up, I saved and closed. Everything seemed to load fine when I came back. I like that you have time since last save. The only oddity was that the customers were all in a vertical line at the counter, when normally, they line up horizontally in more of a zig-zag pattern.

I really like how empty it is when you start. It gives a nice feel of just starting out small and trying to build up. There is a bit of a delay to get things going as you wait for chances to pet you first adopted cat, but then the upgrades are quick and you can enjoy watching it grow, and things quickly getting chaotic.

It is possible that things can progress a little too quickly. The new achievements will help somewhat, but it very quickly goes from manually needing to manage, to lots of money and being able to mass update everything. After I get things started I get all the upgrades to level 10, then repeat getting everything to the next multiple of 10, before moving on.

I did check on the achievements from time to time, but it would be nice if they popped up a message when unlocked. If there is any indication of unlocking them, I missed it. I am writing this and a bit distracted, so I certainly could have missed things. I just dumped a bunch of money into upgrading coffee to get the last one for Biggest Sale, and did not see anything. Maybe the TV could light up for a few seconds, possibly with an icon of the achievement. Or it could be a message top center with the icon/name of the achievement.

I know you just quickly implemented Achievements, so likely have lots of ideas for future refinement. But, with this being the latest addition, and something people love to get, making it a bit more prominent could be good. Maybe your latest achievement is a sort of trophy that stays on display. It could hang on the wall. With the current layout I'd say the fir right, or much smaller above the door would be the only places it would fit, so maybe not. Another option could be to have a trophy or other display piece that could go on the counter. With this being something people might leave going in the background, they might not see a popup, but having a trophy waiting when they come back could be nice.

I've gotten 64/81 Awards in about an hour of game time. I think the changes you've been making are doing well. I'm looking forward to seeing how you handle the other cafes.

I know things are not complete, and you likely are aware of some of these, but I'm still going to comment on some things I think are important for near future. Besides, there's always the chance that some of these aren't on your list.

Flinn's Ignatius description is too long to fit the card. Most of it seems to be there but the comment on explosion damage is cut off.

On the ship select I know you just started adding the stats. It would be nice to see fuel added, especially for evaluating Flinn's Ignatius.

It would be nice if there was UI showing HP & Energy Regen, especially since these can now change. I'm just starting so don't know how high it can go, but you could possibly add an icon above the HP bar for each point you regen. Or an icon with a # next to it for the amount. Maybe also add the popup messages about gaining these to the Battle Log.

I had a Refined Diamond move onto one of my ships between turns, and it kep doing damage every second or so, destroying the ship before I could move it away. This was in my first fight.

Extra Cargo Hold does not mention the name of the ship it affects in the description. At first I questioned if it was meant to affect all. Then I noticed the ship icon at the top left.

In the devlog you mention that no ship stats will be reset after battle. It does not seem like the current Energy carries over.

I like that when using Wolverine at -1 Energy, the Energy is applied first, allowing it to be counted towards the heal.

I lost to the Phantom. I kept getting bad luck with the space mines and other destroyable objects. I hit one and lost a ship from it, and the Phantom hit several, healing at times and hitting my ships others, sometimes from a chain reaction.

I am finding the Kunai to be tough to get the timing down for. The smaller arc does mean you are more likely to hit, or get close, but getting crits are harder due to the speed. I'll need some more practice.

I've decided that I should start looking at some of the other support cards. The new ships, and lack of healing between fights, means things are more serious and need more thought. This change certainly increases difficulty. It gives me new things to think about in planning my strategy and load out.

I continued at the Phantom fight. I was not expecting that. I decided to open with Ignatius, doing 22 damage.

I used the Anachronium Pills on Kunai. The change felt very minimal, if at all. I didn't exactly time it, but it did not seem worth using again. I'll need to test it out later in the practice area.

I beat the Phantom this time. It was much nicer having all 3 ships for the fight. I'm also getting more familiar with the ships, and forming more strategy for how I want to use them.

My cards were a 12HP group repair, Extra Cargo Hold for Talaria, and Remove Junk for Talaria. My HP is low, but not too bad, and I can heal that in combat. So it is +1 Max Energy, or +2 Max Energy, to the same ship... pretty easy choice. I noticed that "energy" is misspelled "enegry" for Extra Cargo Hold's description.

I messed up my healing decisions, and ended up losing Talaria. That was problematic, as my strategy was based on Flinn doing most of my damage. Thankfully, the next turn a Godrin's Stone appeared. It took 2 turns to activate it, but things would have been much harder without it.

Going through cards I saw Recycle Fuel, and figured that would be great for Talaria with so much fuel. Use that and the next turn be ready for a max power card. It gave 2 Energy. I think the description should be updated to note the limit, or it should be reworked to offer more for the fuel capacity of a ship. Still, I found that I did keep it around, as even 2 free Energy can be useful, and nothing else was demanding it be swapping in yet.

I got 2 identical unlocks. It would be nice if there were not duplicates, especially with how specific some of these are.

I forget the enemy ship names, but I died on the fight with the Doom Cannon. During the fight the UI was hidden on the enemy turn. When I continued I had my specials back, so started with Ignatius, and that ended the fight.

The lack of Energy carrying over, but HP not recovering, really sucks when you just used Recycle Self. I had not expected the fight to end so quickly, or I'd have done things in a different order.

Wow, the cards here are a tough choice. +4 Max HP for Arcania, which could use more HP due to constantly using it for Energy. +1 Energy Production for Kunai. Always a nice boost to have. And a whopping +13 Max HP for Kunai from Hand Crafted Armor. That one has to win out, but they are all nice options.

Ouch. Alpha Defender used Hexa Shot and took out Telaria in a single attack. I've started to bring along Godrin's Ring, and have enough Energy for it, so not as bad as it could have been, but still a lesson in not underestimating these enemies.

I was 1 HP short of taking a ship out. Their next turn the took out Talaria and Kunai with Hexa Shot. I had been building up enough Energy to heal. The real shame is losing that sweet Max HP upgrade for Kunai.

That fight was nasty. I finally gave up and after reviving the other 2 ships, yet again, I used enough fuel to get a clear shot and finished it with Ignatius again. I had eliminated the healer, but the rest I kept getting close, but not quite finishing them off.

My cards were Scrapped Parts, with 1 for each ship. I gave it to Arcania, as my heavy use of revive means I want to keep her alive at all costs.

As I start the next fight, I am acknowledging that I rarely use shields, but in the last fight Arcane Defenses may have been another option to get through it. Having used Recycle Self so many times, and not getting to do any healing, Arcania is low on HP right now, so going to use it for this fight, as I expect the next turn we will be getting hit hard.

Yeah, they used Fibonacci Strike and took out the shield. I did not notice how much damage it did. It would be nice to know just how powerful the attack was for future planning. The other Mobile Destroyer used Sniper's Dream, for 8 damage to Arcania. That left only 2 HP, so the previous upgrade was a good choice, and nice timing. I've found that Pravarshan does well for me when my ships are more to the left. I recovered 12 HP for Arcania using it.

The amount I have been dying, also has me more willing to use my Energy, instead of saving it. I spend all that time building it up, only to be wiped out before I can do the big thing I have planned, so I change tactics to reduce potential losses. Sometimes I will build up a reserve, and then only use lower Energy cards as I set things up, but now I'm more likely to value using the energy over saving for a potential better move later.

The next round of power attacks, there was only one of the Mobile Destroyers and an Energy Crusader. They again used Fibonacci Strike, but did so on an asteroid. I think it showed around 21 damage, so that was very convenient. I managed to end that fight at full health for all ships.

Again I got 2 of the same card. Regen 1 HP for Arcania. Keeping alive is very useful, so it is tempting. The other is +1 Energy regen for Talaria. I often use cards to boost Talaria's Energy, so normally that one would win, but as often as I am losing Talaria, having more HP on Arcania to recover Energy and revive lost ships seems like the better choice for now.

It would be nice to have a screen that shows all currently active buffs.

I haven't changed things much in a while, so here is my current load out.

Kunai: Double Attack, Therapeutic Grapple, Phantom Flower, Recharge Ally.

Talaria: Triple Attack, Fuel Shot, Phantom Ray, Recycle Fuel

Arcania: Recycle Self, Solar Power, Godrin's Ring, Pravarshan

I mainly use Fuel Shot for damage, with Phantom Ray for dealing with shields or groups. Therapeutic Grapple is mainly used on Talaria to fire off another Fuel Shot. Arcania starts most battles using Recycle Self, then Solar Power on Talaria to allow regular use of Fuel Shot.

It would be nice to be able to click on or hover over an enemy to see their name. Hover should probably be a togglable option, as it could potentially be annoying during combat, if using a tooltip over the ship. If it was at the top or somewhere else out of the way that could work for always on. On click having a popup, or toggle showing the name could also work.

And a Remorse Flower took out Talaria. I'd just used Ancestral Secrets and Solar Power, but at least I'd not done the upgrade.

I revived, moved into position, used the Grapple, and Ignatius. Took out the remaining side piece of the ship, but was not combat ending for this fight. With the shields all still in place, and the extra Energy from the Grapple, I used Phantom Ray next. With the max energy, maybe I should have reversed order of things, but I think it worked out fine. That attack removed all the shields.

OOPS. I Used Phantom Ray, moved Kunai up and used Grapple, then Ray again, but I like to be very close to use Grapple with Kunai... and got too close at the wrong angle. Hit twice and destroyed. I'd just used Recycle Self last turn, so had enough for another revive. Well, I guess that just means I can use the special again when I need it.

And another Remorse Flower taking out Talaria. I really don't like letting my ships be destroyed, but I'm starting to adapt my strategy to it.

I wasn't thinking, and after moving use Recycle Fuel, because I just though of it as using remaining fuel. It should probably be disabled after you move so you can't waste a turn on it.

They used a Doom Cannon that hit an Enemy Crate, and nothing else, with 2 of my ships nearby.

Dang, enemy HP is low, and Arcania is at full HP with 0 Energy. Do I sacrifice the health to be prepared for losing a ship, or try to ride it out... I feel like there is enough HP left for 2 more turns, so I'll probably need to heal or revive. I'm going for the Energy.

They used Destroyer for 1 damage. I used Pravarshan and healed everyone to full, so I guess it was the right choice.

My aim/angle was slightly off with Phantom Ray and only 3 hit, so the Fuel Shot would have done more. There is only minimal left in the HP bar. If all 4 had hit it as had been, it probably would have ended. I had an action left with Arcania, who was at the back. I managed to move up and get a crit with a Basic Attack and end the fight.

Ended with a miserable 49% Accuracy, and 77% on Crits.

Oh, Micromanager is a nice card. +1 Energy regen for all ships is hard to beat. The other options are 15 HP repair (my ships are at full health), and +1 Max Energy for Talaria.

Damn, next fight after a shiny upgrade is the one with the 2 Hexa Shot firing ships. And I don't have a shield. Ignatius it is!

My results (accuracy, crits, and badges) look to be identical to the previous fight, even though all I did was 1 attack.

And my unlock cards are all HP repair, for my fully repaired ships. 2 of them are even the same.

Fibonacci finally hit and took out one of my ships. Up until then, the fight had been going fairly well for me. Still won soon after. Took out 1 enemy, and the other used Sniper's Dream on something that wen boom killing themselves and doing a bit of damage to one of my ships, that were otherwise at full HP.

My results now have the Crits down to 76%, but otherwise unchanged.

When using Pravarshan, the HP bar above the ship updates, but the bottom left stats do not, until I click on the ship again.

Some nice upgrades. +4 Max HP to all ships. +1 HP Regen to all ships. And last is +3 Max Energy for 1 ship.

Not all upgrades are easy to verify, but +4 Max HP to all is, and it did not seem to apply. Several others I wasn't really sure were applying, but the ships are all at their default HP. I'm pretty sure the last time I got a MAX HP up it did not apply either.

I had another fight where I was down to 1 ship, twice. The second time was due to having no Energy for revive when it happened the first time, so only got 1 brought back when they did heavy attacks again. They partially missed on one attack, allowing me to fully revive, and, of course, end it with Ignatius.

I'm thinking of swapping out Recycle Fuel with Plasma Shield.

Alright, I think I'm ending here. Things are getting a bit repetitive, and with the upgrades not always applying, it takes away some of the fun of building up super powerful ships.

So, here are the things that stand out the most to me. Current HP stays the same between fights but Energy is lost. With Arcania this really stands out. Not being able to see the active buffs makes it hard to verify what is and isn't working, so a way to see them would be nice. If the buffs are meant to be permanent, then being revived should restore them. Some of those fights can be very tough to not lose a ship in, and it is tough to get enough HP to be able to survive some of those attacks. A shield can help, but then it almost becomes required. That leads into the special abilities. I started to not mind dying as much, since it let me reuse them. I think there needs to be a better way to allow using them again. Maybe giving them a cooldown, based on number of turns since last use, or number of battles. It could also be that they reset after a big boss fight. Having to use an upgrade to reset one feels wasteful. With ships dying the "permanent" upgrades lose some value, but dying also resets the special.

It would be good to add some UI to give an idea of any upgrades the enemies are getting, or just a rough power level based on their buffs to give players a feeling of progression and when a fight might be tougher than the last time they saw this group. A bit more variety in the fights would be nice. I know this is early and more content is planned, but still wanted to point it out as part of my decision to end it here, even though I haven't needed to continue for a while.

I think the Battle Mode is looking good. The core concept is there, and it just needs refining. The new ships are fun to play with, and require different strategy than the old ones. In a future play I'll need to consider all the ships and try with different combos to see which work well together for me. Considering how often I lost ships in this mode, I really like having Arcania as a full time reviver, and that high Max Energy is great for it.

I didn't really pay attention to the time when I started, but based on when I had last looked at the time, I probably played, along with writing this review, for over 5 hours.

You put a non-URL comment in the submission field for a URL. Please edit the submission to move it out of the URL field so no one clicks on it and gets an error. You can add it to your Improvement Summary, or put it in Requested Feedback/Comments for Reviewers. Thanks.

Thanks to everyone who participated in the jam! This was by far our best jam yet! Great games and so much great feedback!

Special recognition to our top commenters for commenting on every, or nearly every, game submitted to the jam!

• VividEnigma with their submission Chaos Cat Cafe
• Triston Griffiron with their submission Anachronium - Gatekeepers of Time (prototype)

Thanks for playing and the feedback.

We will be refining all of the tools and doing more balancing on the game. We certainly prefer to give the player choices in how to play. allowing them to choose the order they do things in and offering some freedom in how to deal with challenges.

For this game we plan to keep it simpler. It will all be within the dungeon environment. We are thinking about a larger game in the future with an overworld, and in that one we would add additional features like shops, and possibly crafting. For now, the only inventory planned is the tool selection and the display of consumable quantities. In the future game we may look at it further, but the style we are going for tends to have this limited inventory, rather than picking up lots of items. We will keep it in mind and if enough people want it we will see what we can do.

Thanks. I know life can get in the way, and it is easy to lose track of time. That's why we decided to start doing these 1 day reminders. 

This jam is all about helping each other out by leaving comments with feedback. I've looked over the submissions and did not see any comments from you on other submissions. The voting period has just over a day left. Please take some time to play and leave feedback on at least one other submission.

I'm also acknowledging that you submitted this very early in the jam submission period, and your updates look to have been done in June, with nothing done for this jam in July. All I see from you for this jam is a single comment below acknowledging the feedback you have received. Please take the time to play and comment on a submission and help others as they have helped you.

This jam is all about helping each other out by leaving comments with feedback. I've looked over the submissions and did not see any comments from you on other submissions. The voting period has just over a day left. Please take some time to play and leave feedback on at least one other submission.

I see that you responded to one of the comments below 3 days ago, and did rate 1 game earlier today. I had hoped that meant you'be be leaving a comment soon as well, but as we approach 24 hours until end of voting I just went through all the submissions again and do not see any comments from you. Please leave some feedback on one of the games.

This jam is all about helping each other out by leaving comments with feedback. I've looked over the submissions and did not see any comments from you on other submissions. The voting period has just over a day left. Please take some time to play and leave feedback on at least one other submission.

I see that we also had to remind you in the May jam. Your devlogs comment on being busy and that you have not had much time to work on your project or get much done. If you do not have the time to be active in the jam, then please do not submit to the jam.

When submitting, only "Improvement Summary" is required. If you don't have a devlog ready, just leave the field blank instead of putting "Coming Soon".

I started by resetting so any past saved data would not interfere.

Having an intro cinematic is a nice touch, though the shaking feels a bit overdone. It was short enough that it wasn't too bad, but it could use with a bit less.

In the intro area after talking to people I am pressing space to end the dialogue and it is still shifting me one tile to the right. I much prefer the dialogue ending and leaving me on the tile to decide where to go. I see that you removed the dialogue for the person next to the traps that trigger a short time after you switch. It was good to have info on how they work, so just moving them 1 tile to the right, or getting rid of the moving 1 tile after dialogue, and restoring the info dialogue would be better.

After the time delay traps I went on the moving arrow section during the day time, and it pushed me off the path onto the brick-like area. I seem to be able to wander around anywhere currently, going to and from the path as I please.

I found a blue key. At first it felt like the game had locked up. Then it caused the camera to start moving to up and right, with the display quickly starting to have a tearing effect where the same image overlapped itself with a slight offset, while the camera was clearly still moving. The there was some blue on the screen and a blue effect in a spot, but I could not see the thing it was focusing on under the overlapping image. When it finished it went back to where I was, and the image was normal again.

The next blue key had the same lockup look for several seconds, then a nearby bit of blue, before the same message as the previous gave.

The game feels more jerky and laggy that I recall it being before, even when walking on the path.

The 3^rd blue key scrolled over to the central area where I could see a blue tile with 2 blue keys on it and made one disappear. Aside from being a bit jerky, no real issues with this one.

I'm acknowledging that there is a lot of gold and yellow in the collectables, and the daytime world. It might be good to change some of the collectables to be a bit more distinctive.

I've explored around a bit. I've "completed" 42%. I have 1151 coins, 78 keys, and 35 of the ring/donut shaped coins. I did occasionally run into spots that blocked me, but they were easy to get around, and I pretty much had free reign to complete the game bypassing all of the challenges.

Obviously, my first recommendation would be to fix the maps so the player has to stay on the path/proper play area. I'd also suggest working on the jerkiness, The basic movement especially needs to feel smoother, but the laggy feeling was really noticeable when the camera was scrolling for the blue keys. I'd also tone down the shaking. Maybe it felt worse because of the lag/jerkiness of the game, but it was definitely more than I like. It also sounded like the background music had 2 track overlapping. Maybe that was a result of wandering off the path. Maybe it was just the music. I went back to the menu and pressed play again and it sounded better, but I did not play for long.

The addition of the tutorial is good. I like the name of "Hatalogue" for it. I would recommend improving the contrast on the first screen that says to click on the hat. The pale background with white text can be hard to read, especially for small text. Either black text or a darker background would help.

As you travel we will be expanding the Arm the Resistance quest to include more towns, and possibly more item types. Some towns may even ask for more of the same items as the situation changes. I also think the quests will feel better once you are getting rewards, and not just dialog. I want to expand the Traders' Depots to also include messages from the towns, with updates about the situation. People in Slimerise can send messages about how you are doing compared to other groups. At each town the main quest progress bars will be updated with the current stores of the town based on what others have provided, but also what has been used. We are thinking that at a certain point of progress  Slimerise will start to distribute some of what it has to help nearby towns as well, so the town's overall stores can also go down, even as you are supplying them.

The main reason for currency is that as you travel further you will be leaving the area inhabited by Slimes and slowly move towards more human inhabited lands, eventually needing to travel through the lands of the invaders. That last area is going to bring plenty of its own challenges, as there is no way a group of Slimes would be able to enter an invader town without standing out. We have ideas for how the Slimes can use magical means to conceal their appearance to enter the towns and learn about what is happening, but interacting there with shops, inns, and taverns, would require using the invader's money. Some interactions might even involve paying bribes, though I suppose special items could work for those. It is certainly going to be a gameplay fun vs realism debate as we flesh out those interactions.

I like the idea of Slimes that can transmute/convert/craft items from others. That may just make an appearance in the game! I've been thinking on a crafting system, and this would be a great way to add it, while sticking with keeping the various Slime clans as a core part of the game. We need to be careful with feature creep, but I have ideas for how this may appear later when we have time to look into it. I'm thinking an alchemist clan that can convert raw resources into others, and a crafter clan that tales resources and makes them into finished items.

We are looking at adding an additional section to the compendium for items with more details on them. Some of the compendium sections will add more details as you play and interact. We will have to see if that works for the items, or if we just give all details to start.

Thanks for playing and the detailed feedback!

We are also classic JRPG players who hoard items. It amused us that we decided to create a game centered on using consumable items, when we like to hoard normally. Yet we found that it ended up working decent;y, even if we do still like to hoard things that are limited quantity, and expect many players will do the same with things they don't know are rare. We are thinking about adding a rarity to the items for players like us, along with possibly a new Bag for storing items you want to keep and not accidentally use in combat or the Traders' Depot.

With the status effects being added we are hoping to give Tanko a bit more use as a support character, giving some stat buffs. We certainly need to do a bit more work on balancing items so that the higher level items do feel more useful, but also leaving lower lever ones as reasonable when you just need a lower power attack or heal.

We initially added the quest to feed your village to fit the story. Then it grew and we added the Arm the Resistance quest as a way to make it not feel too boring just dumping items back to the one town throughout the whole game. With the recent updates it will be much easier to implement then next part of this, where the amount you Arm them will have an impact on the rest of the game. We've debated adding shops, and even started adding money, but the Traders' Depot makes it feel like shops would not really benefit the game, especially once we add in the rewards from completing quests. We may still add money, as it would make more sense for inns to require payment, especially as you leave the forest, but we still need to work things out so it doesn't feel wrong collecting a ton of money only to use a small amount for inns. Shops would help, but we need to decide what to have in them. It could just be allowing you to buy regular items so you can stock up on the ones you like the most. Maybe allowing the player to send money back as part of the quests, so the towns can buy what they need. I think this last would not work as well without also including other uses of money, as it would feel like an extra step for something that could be automatic since you only need a small set amount of money for each inn otherwise.

Yeah, we did ramp up the difficulty on that last fight and give the powerful items for it to compensate, as normally by the time you got there you would have more items of the proper level from normal fights. Glad the healing worked well for you though.

That final fight does need a bit of reworking on the amount the enemies heal. We are planning to adjust how often they can use their healing abilities to make it not feel so long, at least for the demo.

Glad you like the difficulty progression. We will be reworking it a bit as the game grows. It feels like it may be a bit too fast for the longer game being planned. We currently aim at having around 15 towns, with some camps, and maybe dungeons, along the way. Ideally we plan to have some side quests that will open up additional paths you can take to other places that are not on the main path, though we will see how that works out. The goal is to have at least 10 hours of gameplay. We don't want the party to grow so fast that it feels like you are constantly growing out of things shortly after getting them.

Part of the long intro was from comments that we did not do enough character building to draw the player in. We plan to break the current intro up into a prologue before the main story, that is optional. It may also be used as a free promo to learn about the world. At that point it will likely grow, allowing you to interact with more of the town. We are even thinking about adding mini-games as part of the celebration, thinking about the opening to games like Chrono Trigger and Wild Arms (well, opening after you complete the 3 individual bits). The main game would then start after the inn, as you are getting ready to leave town, with the Leader Leo dialogue being shortened and moved there.

I'll take a look at Golden Sun. Several Dragon Quest games also have really long intros.

We plan to work on the UI for showing power of abilities soon. While we were working things out we didn't want to show in-progress info that was changing as we tried to decide how to do it. I think that our current system of using multipliers on the abilities is what we will stick with. It allows even they lower level ones to scale with the character and remain useful later on, even if they do less. They will also require less AP/lower level items to use. I think the AP based ones will remain relevant longer, while the non-AP ones may become obsolete, unless they have status effects or other secondary reasons for using. I am thinking about ways to allow the player to adjust the in-combat icons to allow us more space for adding more. Some may get grouped. We may add a way to scroll. We may also add an option to hide those you don't want showing in combat, or even rearrange them. That will likely be added later after we build out more of the game and start to run out of space, but we expect we will.

As we add more art we are updating the towns. We will take another look at them and see about adding a bit more distinction. As you leave the forest you will also be seeing more distinction as we plan for each area and groups to have their own styles. We only added the Slimes living underground fairly recently. Before that all the buildings were wooden looking. As we add art for the other races in our world, Wildemore will be getting some of them added in, representing its diverse population.

Weather is something we are thinking on. One of the kids started on a system for rain, and we also found a shader for it. We need to do a bit more review on how we want to implement it. We are debating if we will make it have an impact on gameplay. I suppose that using it for towns could be a good first use.

I'll take another look at the screenshots. I wanted to show off everything I could, but there are so many menu based elements that they do overwhelm. I added a screenshot of Slimerise. I took it before for something and really should have added it sooner. The screenshots do make the game look too menu heavy, when most action is the combat.

I'll take a look at the words per line. Currently, a lot of the design is centered around making everything fit, while still being readable. After we add all the features we will be taking another look and seeing how best to optimize the layout.

My partner loves world building. We have so much in mind for the world, and have been struggling to figure out how to best make it fit into the game in a way that makes things feel better and not forced or in the way. The Compendium was the best we came up with. Glad that the current systems are working well enough.

Good to hear you are not having any performance issues. This last set of updates changed a lot of code, and I took that opportunity to do some additional cleanup.

Thanks again for the great feedback! This gives us a lot to think on and will certainly help lead to a better game!

I like the recent update. There is now enough in the game to get a feel for the mechanic. I was able to get through to the end. It took me a few deaths at the start to get a feel for the controls and movement, but then it felt fine. The level layout was a decent amount of challenge for a short jam demo showing off the game mechanic. I'm used to air dash and double jump, but can't think of playing another game with an air glide, and only being able to do the second jump from the glide state. It is an interesting mechanic, and with good puzzle design can be fun. I would add other abilities so the gameplay doesn't get too repetitive, but this does feel like a good mechanic to be part of a platformer's base set of abilities. I like the umber of checkpoints you have, especially for an early demo. It lets the player do more experimenting, without needing to redo the whole level, even if it is short. A bit more explanation/tutorial would be good, but this was decent for such an early state.

We tried posting one of our games on CrazyGames and when looking things up for it they recommended the URL restrictions. It does mean needing to maintain a list of all the possible domains for anywhere you want to host, but once setup it shouldn't be too bad. For basic jam games we don't currently bother, but it is on our list to add to our template so it is always available when we need it.

Having extra pieces that make testing easier is often good, especially early on. We have plenty of debug extras in our games, with only some of them exposed for testers who know where we hide them (5 quick clicks on Development Preview to unlock and 1 more to open the unlocked menu). While trying to figure out the camera stuff I agree that the 2 camera approach is a good one. I can see how having both be cameras can make it easier to compare things when the math doesn't seem to be working. I'd so much rather be able to switch between the views and see how they compare than just look at the math and end result. You seem to be on the right track, experimenting with different ways to do things to find what works. Personally, the only issue I have with the current system is the small hops interfering with my jump timing as I approach an edge.

I agree with being prepared, and these days having an EULA is reasonable for a full game. Maybe keep it in game, but put it as a button to view it. Godot with GDScript does have an issue with being easy to steal as a non-compiled language. Using custom export templates with encryption does make it harder, but only so much. We do use the custom export templates option for all our games now. Those who are doing the ripping off of games aren't really going to care about any EULA agreements. Most are also likely going to be in places where any legal action will be difficult to take, and with or without an EULA, trying to get big companies like Google, Apple, or Steam to care about an indie claiming their game was stolen can be a pain. Each game having its own encryption key, and web exports using URL restrictions, seem to be among the best current options for indie devs. It won't stop those with the resources, but it will make it require more effort, which might stop some. Having a license agreement in the game is reasonable, and is something we should think of adding as well. We do have a basic copyright on the About/Credits page, but adding a bit more somewhere may help should any legal issues arise. Personally, I'm not ready for adding something that pops up on load, but having it from the main page might show up in the future in our games.

Honestly, the movement test's slippy movement was what drew most of my focus. I just retried it, and the tilt didn't seem too bad. The tilt was only odd in that I am controlling the camera with the mouse, so it changing was just an annoyance that was then adjusted as need by the mouse. Not doing 3D myself, why do you need 2 cameras for the workaround? Wouldn't you just have one outside the player that has its position adjusted to match the player's position every frame? Even with the dual (1st/3rd person) view options, I would think that you could have a single camera that tweens between the 2 positions as a smooth transition effect, rather than 2 dedicated cameras. Even with 2 cameras, Wouldn't they just have preset offsets from the player's position while moving with the player? Some day we will learn more about the 3D stuff. The kids really want to play around with it more, but it opens up so many additional details to work with, that we are sticking with the 2D stuff we know for now, and trying to have a solid base for the many aspects of game dev before opening a new can of worms.

Best of luck to you as well!

Glad to help. A lot of this was due to being tired and just letting random thoughts take on a life of their own and lead down trails I'd not considered before.

Our jam is all about feedback as the project grows, so don't feel that you submitted too early. This is meant to help each other at all stages, not just as you near final release. Even in an early state it can be important to hear about where people see the game going, or how it feels to them. If it doesn't align with the dev's vision, then it may be time to step back and consider why it comes off that way, and if it is an underlying aspect of the game, or simply the early state of the game. It can be annoying sometimes when you know that you need to add things so people can see the intended vision, but other times it can be an eye opener and help your refine the vision early on to save you from a hassle later. Itch is a great place to share early, in development work.

Having sleeping habits and personality does sound neat, but I don't think it is need now. There are more important aspect to work on now. Maybe later it can be looked at. I am a night owl, It is currently 5 AM here and will be a while before I get to bed. Still, my comments on the game where more about the change impacting gameplay and how I had been doing things than really thinking the game needed to accommodate night owls. Even fewer people do a polyphasic sleep cycle as I was doing in my plays of previous versions, than are just night owls, so the current design can work and for most people will feel normal.

My initial post was too long, so here is part 2.

On to Stage 3! The red of the background makes seeing the enemy indicators a bit tougher. However, this is even more open than the previous stage, and I found the gate in under a minute. This time when I activated the gate the boss was a ways away from it. It took a bit to find it, but I took it out in the first volley of regular fire. Unfortunately, it did not seem to register, as I am still seeing that I need to defeat the boss, though there is no longer a boss HP bar. I also no longer seem to be able to interact with Black Markets, Turret Fabricators, or similar.

I started from the Linux terminal. It has had plenty of errors and warnings from the start (UIDs, changed parent Nodes, viewport textures, and similar) but now I'm getting new ones. It looks like some of this might be AoE effects trying to be added to enemies that were already destroyed between triggering the AoE targeting and dealing damage.

And now I seem to be stuck on the ring. I was trying to head towards the bright shiny station looking thing in the distance to see if I could find another boss so the gate will finish charging, and while fighting off a swarm of enemies I probably backed or strafed my way into a situation where I seem to have very limited movement... OK, so it looks like I can move, but it felt like I could not because the ring did not appear to be moving, and to get back to the gate I had to head into the ring as if I was going to hit it or go through it. Still have no idea if I will be able to get through the gate.

Current stats:

HP: 414, Shield: 7890, Delay: 3.1625, Rate: 0.25, Energy: 140, Speed: 183, Acceleration: 1.12, Boost: 329, Rotation: 0.04489, Speed Scale: 1.0, Damage Scale: 225.09, Fire Rate Scale: 0.85, K. Armor: 290, E. Armor: 315.

I'm at 90 minutes. I've destroyed everything I can. I've beaten the 2 Restricted Zones I found. I've gone off in various directions, using the gate as a rough guide, and not found any boss or other way to advance. I can fight enemies, and could activate the Restricted Zones, but cannot interact with any of the shops. There is also a Throne that I thought about trying, but it did not seem to react either. At this point the enemies are not even a challenge anymore. They are just constantly there, with new ones arriving as I take out others. Eventually my shield gets taken out, and I use the invincibility several times while it recharges, then repeat. I can use the heavy attack fairly constantly as I regen enough energy when hitting enemies for the next shot.

Here are my current stats:

HP: 414, Shield: 7890, Delay: 3.1625, Rate: 0.25, Energy: 140, Speed: 183, Acceleration: 1.12, Boost: 329, Rotation: 0.04788, Speed Scale: 1.0, Damage Scale: 688.806, Fire Rate Scale: 0.85, K. Armor: 290, E. Armor: 315.

I'm going to charge into the enemies and end it to get a final score... And the ship AoE took out all the enemies... I charged into several and then just stopped so they could take me out, and then they were gone. All of them. I haven't seen the screen this empty in a while. The next wave spawned, and I just sat there. They took out my shield, and did nothing to my HP. I don't think they can get through my armor... Yeah, I did it again and they kept hitting me, but no damage at all. I'd like to end and see my final score stats, but I may have to simply quit, as I don't think there is a way for me to lose any more. Maybe one of the Restricted Zone enemies would have been enough, but they are gone now. Oh well, I ended it. I think I am done for now. I will pull it up again later to try out the Sandbox.

This has been an excellent update from the previous version. The bug preventing me from moving on was really annoying, as I was doing so well. Hopefully with my better understanding of just how important the Upgrades are I will be able to regularly do better in the future and get past that stage. This is a much faster paced and intense game than I generally play these days. I did pretty badly last time, and expected to do similar this time. I don't think I did that great, but I had some good luck on a couple runs and was able to take advantage of it to continue on. I enjoyed playing and look forward to seeing what the next update brings.

Primarily, is the game fun, and is replay value yet apparent? Is the game's onboarding effective?

Yes, the game is fun. I have not beaten all the levels yet, so I can't fully judge replay after beating them, but I would say that there is at least some replay value in trying different ships out. Much of the game is very random and luck based, so it will likely take several tries to win. Replaying to win is certainly there, as long as players don't get too frustrated at many early deaths from bad RNG.

Here are the errors I got later in the game:

Adding 0.120, total added 0.120, speed scale now 1.120

Adding 0.120, total added 0.240, speed scale now 1.240

Adding 0.120, total added 0.360, speed scale now 1.360

Removing 0.000, speed scale now 1.000

SCRIPT ERROR: Invalid access to property or key 'global_position' on a base object of type 'Nil'.

at: Gift._ready (res://game_data/ui/Gift.gd:28)

GDScript backtrace (most recent call first):

[0] _ready (res://game_data/ui/Gift.gd:28)

[1] spawn_gift (res://game_data/entities/props/Breakable.gd:42)

[2] explode (res://game_data/entities/props/Breakable.gd:34)

[3] on_hit (res://game_data/entities/props/Station.gd:18)

[4] receive_hit (res://game_data/entities/ship_components/Hitbox.gd:28)

[5] collide (res://game_data/entities/ship_components/Hurtbox.gd:56)

[6] update (res://game_data/entities/ship_components/Hurtbox.gd:76)

[7] _physics_process (res://game_data/entities/ship_components/Hurtbox.gd:69)

SCRIPT ERROR: Out of bounds get index '6' (on base: 'Array[EnemyTier]')

at: EnemySpawner.spawn (res://game_data/entities/functional_objects/EnemySpawner.gd:20)

GDScript backtrace (most recent call first):

[0] spawn (res://game_data/entities/functional_objects/EnemySpawner.gd:20)

[1] _on_timer_timeout (res://game_data/worlds/EnemyManager.gd:51)

Adding 0.120, total added 0.120, speed scale now 1.120

Adding 0.120, total added 0.240, speed scale now 1.240

Removing 0.000, speed scale now 1.000

Adding 0.120, total added 0.120, speed scale now 1.120

Removing 0.000, speed scale now 1.000

Adding 0.120, total added 0.120, speed scale now 1.120

SCRIPT ERROR: Out of bounds get index '8' (on base: 'Array[EnemyTier]')

at: EnemySpawner.spawn (res://game_data/entities/functional_objects/EnemySpawner.gd:20)

GDScript backtrace (most recent call first):

[0] spawn (res://game_data/entities/functional_objects/EnemySpawner.gd:20)

[1] _on_timer_timeout (res://game_data/worlds/EnemyManager.gd:51)

I am playing 0.40.5, on Linux, with a 4K monitor.

I went into the Options and set the Resolution to 2160x3840, leaving the rest alone. It resulted in very large black borders on each side, with the viewport only taking up about the center 1/4 to 1/3 of the screen. I could see part of the controls, but the edges were cut off, including the apply button. I changed the Resolution Scale down a lot, and used the arrow keys to select Apply. That did not help. I then changed the Resolution to 1920x1080. That made things better, though the Resolution Scale change left them still problematic. I dragged it back to the right as far as I could with the mouse, and then again used the arrows to apply. Then I could see everything, and I moved the slider all the way back to the right and applied. I'm going to try playing at 1080p and see how it does. If I run into problems, I'll switch back to your default.

The font size for the text of the tabs themselves on the Options screen is really big compared to everything else.

The menu screen transition feels a bit jerky, and I think it might be disorienting or headache inducing for some people. It is short enough and if only here may not be too bad overall, but it might be an area to look into for accessibility.

Next I went into the Sandbox, as I wanted to check everything out. The ship selection screen is so much nicer than last time I played!

Looking around, I did notice some display issues, so went back and changed the resolution to your default of 1355x768.

I like the Overview/Stats offering differing ways of looking at the ships' info. For someone starting fresh it certainly helps to translate how those numbers line up in comparison.

I am not certain what button is supposed to be used for the top ability from looking at the screen. The bottom is clearly R, but the top looks almost like an inverted Q, or maybe a fancy capital U. It looks like the font is a low res pixel font that was majorly scaled up. The F at the bottom right is clear and crisp, and neither the R nor F look fancy, which is why I did not initially think U, but a fancy U makes the most sense currently. I went back to the game's Itch page and looked at the images of the controls (these are awesome btw!), and the Heavy Ability is R, which makes this character a V for the Utility Ability. The bottom is too flat for me to see it as a V. Not trying to be nitpicky here, just being detailed with my thoughts. I went back and double checked the ship select on the Play screen to confirm this is the same there and not just for Sandbox.

Later on I skimmed through older devlogs and saw that F1 brings up an in-game copy of the controls, though only once in a run it seems. I did not see this mentioned in the game itself, nor on the game's page, including in the image of the controls. This would be helpful to include beyond the devlog so the average player will know about it.

That transition shake as I'm going back and forth between Play and Sandbox to compare is really unpleasant.

I'm going to go ahead and play through normal from here and come back to Sandbox after the tutorial.

So, I've skimmed the devlog, and obviously played the previous version, but I'm going into this looking at it fresh. It is afterall a pretty big update.

I'm starting out by comparing the ships to see what the options are like. The Overview shows the initial selection of Tank as the lowest Difficulty. Makes sense for the easiest to be the default for new players who just jump in. I notice that all 3 ships have Mass Drivers, but they are different. The damage and rounds per minute are different for each ship. Also, on the Dart, they do not have the target reticle that every other weapon has. My initial guess would be that weapons with the reticle can track, or at least slightly adjust their aim, while those without only fire straight ahead. Looking at the ship art, I would say that lines up with some looking like rotating turrets, but the Dart's wing Mass Drivers looking to be static hardpoints.

I did not do very well last time, so I'm going to stick with the Tank for now, but the Carrier intrigues me. I feel like my situational awareness is lacking, so having fighters able to find and hit the enemies for me may be just what I need. I will certainly be back to try that one out later.

Overall the tutorial feels better than before. I still had a bit of trouble with the moving while facing another direction, but my second try I got it. When I got to the controls for the Utility Ability, it showed the same fancy V button image and was just as unclear to me as before. The auto advance for dialogue text still feels a bit fast to me on some parts, but the arrow keys to advance are also inconvenient for also practicing the controls with the mouse, with constant swapping of positions, so not forcing players to press them is good. Maybe having a message log that the player can pull up to reread anything they missed or went by too fast. Possibly even something like you have for the combat log that fades, but gives you a bit more time to read. I don't know how much text there is to read beyond the tutorial, but for the tutorial I think it would be good to be able to pull your instructions back up if you missed, or misread, something.

I found the gate, and defeated the boss on the first level, then I stuck around to do a bit of testing before going through and was swarmed. My final score was 148,610. I feel like this first level is much more reasonable than the previous version. I was worried about going through the gate to see if the next area was as hard as I remembered the previous first area being, which is why I stuck around to practice with the Barrel Roll a bit, and then got swarmed.

I'm still having an issue with Barrel Rolls. Sometimes they work and others they don't. I think it is the timing. Using the Sandbox I did some more testing, and I think that the timing of the button presses just has to be so close that I am having a hard time in the heat of combat, when I need it the most, hitting them just right. Personally, I think that I'd prefer if you are boosting and press a Strafe input, it would do a Barrel Roll, without needing to let go of Boost and perfectly time hitting the key combo. Maybe you could make that an option players could toggle. After this I rarely even tried to use Barrel Role as it was not worth the risk.

I really like the Tank's 4 weapon slots. I see now that the weapons themselves define if they are rotating turrets or straight shooting, and not the hardpoint/weapon slot. I picked up 2 straight shooting 14 damage weapons, with ~180 firing rate. After playing with them a bit, I think next time I will only go with one higher powered straight shooter, and keep more targeting turrets. For the moment, however, I'm going to try out the Carrier on my next run.

I found the gate pretty quickly, but had very few upgrades, so stuck around trying to find more. I found the Carrier to be pretty good for me overall. I would like a UI element to quickly see how many fighters you have. I don't always notice the text when one is taken out, so a small dot under the ability for each fighter would be good, or even a number. I ended up losing when I was near an asteroid and hit T to target an enemy only end up targeting a Rock Crab on that asteroid and got a lot of camera shake. By the time I disabled targeting and tried to point away, it was too late. My score was 72,262,

I tried again with the Carrier. I really like the fighters dealing with most enemies for me, though I find trying to hit things myself is harder due to the slow movement, and the best thing to do is evade while the fighters do the work.

I see that the Tank's Shield is a huge benefit. I was doing fine, at full health, and then got hit hard and it was over. I'm going back to the Tank for now.

I replayed several times, and it felt like the difficulty was much harder than the first run. The first run I got a bunch of upgrades, and played for a while without feeling overwhelmed. I had 2 14 point energy weapons with decent rates of fire. Since then the Turret Fabricators have been offering mostly weaker or equal stuff to what I start with. Reading through the devlogs I see that you have random chances to spawn enemies of varying difficulties. It feels a bit extreme for Eldritch difficulty enemies to spawn on the first level. Their shields alone make damaging them difficult, and they hit hard. It is hard to be certain, but I'd say that most, if not all, of my deaths have been from them. I like the idea of varying difficulties, but I think the first level should prevent spawning the highest difficulty enemies, or at least drop the rate down a lot.

I took a break, and realized that the first time I played the tutorial was enabled. I'm now wondering if the tutorial gate takes you to an easier first zone than the regular game start without the tutorial. I don’t really want to redo the tutorial, but I think I need to test this. Not only am I more comfortable with starting there, but getting those upgrades from it would make this other level much easier.

I decided that before doing the tutorial again I would restart the game and do a normal no-tutorial run. The level feels better than the last several I have played. The turrets were not as generous as the first play, but I eventually did get better, so maybe it was just extreme RNG. Though that first run was very nice, compared to all the Turret Fabricators in the games played after. In this latest run after the restart I got a Beam Laser 3 Energy, 76 RPM. Pulse Gun 8 Energy, 95 RPM, and then non-targeting Pulse Gun 14 Energy, 246 RPM. This run and the first I also got Coccoon of the Gods, which is awesome and so far my favorite upgrade. This run my score was 55,434.

On the loss screen it would be nice if you had an option to go to the menu, rather than quit the game entirely, as I may want to switch to the Sandbox. Not a major hassle to restart, or get into the game and quit to menu, but shouldn't need to, just to get to the menu.

Now I am retrying and enabling the tutorial. The down arrow advances dialog, but the right arrow does not skip. After getting to the controls for forward and reverse I saw the gate, so went for it and skipped the rest of the tutorial. The Strafe commands are showing and the Gate is not accepting F to charge, even though it does show the interaction text saying to press it. I have pressed the Strafe keys, but it is not clearing that box, likely since I am nowhere near the asteroid. I'm not sure the way back to the tutorial asteroid from here, so am restarting. I tried again after being told to go here for some fun, but the Gate still would not charge, so I guess I'm going through the rest of the tutorial. I paused to write this last note, and when I resumed the indicator of where to go was gone. I had turned off Inertia dampening, and was able to use the direction indicator to resume traveling roughly where I was headed, and eventually the indicator showed up again. I'm guessing it was distance related and had stayed up before, but resuming from pause something rechecked and decided it was too far away to show. Once I got there the targets spawned right on top of me, causing them to launch off away from me, so I had to chase them down. The zoom in crate was also moving when it spawned. And now when it tells me to Boost over to a new area, the indicator is not showing. I caught a flicker of the gate around the curve of the planet, so I headed that way, angled away from the planet, hoping to get a better angle that might let me see something more. That worked and eventually a marker showed up. I made it there, but it did not advance. I probably missed boosting enough or through the right area. Either I followed the wrong indicator, or the detection is not at the marker arrow, as I've been flying around and it won't advance. I'm guessing the detection is based on expecting the player to come from the previous tutorial step, so not having a good orientation for that, I don't know which way to travel to trigger it. So much for my attempt to speed through the tutorial. It looks like I am starting over again. I'm thinking I had gone to an earlier marker, and did not see the correct marker for where I needed to go, and that is why I could not proceed. It would be nice if the tutorial markers where set to always show for cases where people may play around testing things out and lose their way.

During my next tutorial run I had a Giga Harmless Drone, which meant it took a while to deal with the shields and then take it out. Initially I thought I was missing when the health bar didn't change, then I noticed Giga in the name and it got close enough to see the shields. Then I got a Mega on the Turret Mode step.

I did several runs through the tutorial, but did not do as well in the following level as my first run, so went back to the normal mode without the tutorial, rather than deal with it each time. I finally had a decent run with the Tank. It took me almost half an hour to find the gate as I was constantly feeling bombarded, but I seemed to get enough good upgrades from random drops, along with a single Turret upgrade, that I was dealing enough damage that even the Eldritch enemies were dying reasonably fast. It still felt overwhelming with the constant enemy swarms, and like I never had a chance to hunt for the gate. Eventually I was again near the edge, and just started going around the perimeter taking out what I had to and destroying every asteroid I could until I saw the gate particles. It was still a fight to get there, though the boss was fairly easy. I'm not really sure what I have that makes my hits so powerful. The one moderate weapon upgrade certainly didn't do it. Must have been some of the upgrades that I didn't have time to read. I'm not sure how to view the upgrades outside of a Turret Fabricator, and I haven't seen one in a while. I just made it to the second stage, so maybe I'll find one here and can see what all I have... I just glanced at the controls image and it looks like Tab might be what I was wanting.

Here are my stats as I start the second area:

Max HP: 414, Max Shield: 2630, Shield Recharge Delay: 4.25, Rate: 0.25, Max Energy: 110, Max Speed: 167, Acceleration: 0.92, Boost Max Speed: 313, Rotation Speed: 0.03, Speed Scale: 1.0, Damage Scale: 76.534, Fire Rate Scale: 0.85, Kinetic Armour: 220, Energy Armour: 315.

Upgrades:

Grave Robber x3, Two Horses x2, Transmutation x3, Engine Tuning Nanobots x2, Chumbawamba's Best Friend, Bounty Guzzler x2, Chromatic Chainmail x2, Old Boomerang x3, Cocoon x2, Don't Jinx It x2, Hopes and Dreams x2, An Extension Cord Plugged Into Itself x2, A Case Of The Zoomies x4, Vampire's Blessing x3, Weight Of Existence, Not Today x3, Demolition Permit x2, Fame x2, Hal > 9000, Noise-Cancelling Headphones x2, Spice x2, Griffiron, Nothing x3, Cocoon of the Gods, Pure Gumption x2, Phaser x2, Sadistic Cannon x2, Fresh Cabbages x2, Garish Christmas Jumper, Unhinged Collector, Virus Injection, Polarised Sunglasses x2, A Single Horse x2, Shiny New Weight Set, Avarice x2, Green Vegetables, Black Market Fuel x2, The Secrets of Manifestation, Aura Farm, Touch of Bloodlust.

I replaced one of the starting Mass Drivers with a Pulse Gun 9 Energy, 116 RPM, non-targeting.

I guess the key to this game is to start destroying every asteroid you can as soon as possible, stopping to upgrade your weapons if you can, and hope you get lucky in the drops. Getting good early drops can set up the rest of the game.

Stage 2 was much more open, though it also quickly became a swarm of incoming enemies. Thankfully, all my upgrades made it fairly easy. And being so open, it was also easy to spot the purple of the gate from rather far away. I manged to get another weapon upgrade (Mass Driver 17 Kinetic, 132 RPM), it was also non-targeting, but with the damage boosts I have, I think that is fine now. I've also taken to largely moving backwards and strafing while firing as my way of dealing with enemies I can see. I rarely do any targeting mode any more, and instead just spray over the area, often in a bit of a spiral, if there is no direction indicator.