I was hoping someone wouldnt notice that. I accidentally forgot to remove the R key level skip I made for testing. Glad you had fun! Thanks for playing!
It's true, that is a very unbalanced mechanic in its current state. I basically had no time for play testing and balancing, so it's pretty unsatisfying. Thank you for playing!
I'm glad you liked the difficulty scaling, I think the boss is a little too hard if we're looking at it from the perspective of a smooth difficulty curve. But after playtesting it myself for a long time, I got so good at the game that it was really hard for me to judge. I personally would have rather the final boss be too hard than too easy. But for the rest of the levels, if they were too hard I consider that a failure on my part, and there definitely are a few levels I think are too hard.
Thank you so much! Fixed spawn locations is definitely a good idea. I'd be interested to see the scenarios when it spawned it the wall, I had written some code to prevent that but it's still technically possible on some levels just extremely rare.
The pixel-perfect visuals were done by having a low output resolution (640x360) and then setting the texture filter to "nearest" at the root of the scene. That way, when a sprite doesn't perfectly line up with a pixel, it chooses the nearest full color to the center of the pixel instead of interpolating between them based on distance to the center.
It's true the first two areas are bland, perhaps some bad art direction on my part as I wanted the later areas to be a surprise.
I agree it feels very retro. I kept referencing SNES games to the artists, so it was definitely in my head when building and designing the gameplay.
I've been playing a lot of UFO 50 so I think that's the source of inspiration. Well that and SMB1, which I'm always thinking about when I think about game design. Thanks for playing!
Your character stops taking damage after getting hit, and this invulnerability continues if you get hit again (even while already invulnerable). The invulnerability just doesn't prevent knockback, is that what you're referring to?
Totally agree about the replayability. I wanted to have multiple endings for beating it under X time or beating X levels without getting hit (or both). Just simply ran out of time. Thanks for playing!!
The hitstun/knockback/invuln mechanic works like this right now:
When you get hit a "hitstun" timer that lasts .35 seconds starts and an invulnerability timer that lasts .45 seconds starts
While the hitstun timer is active you can't control your character, so that leaves you with .1 second of simultaneous control and invulnerability (this feels longer because the game timescale also slows down and ramps up over ~.5 "seconds" when you get hit).
If you get hit again while invulnerable, the invulnerability timer restarts, but the hitstun timer doesn't, so you can still influence your velocity while invulnerable. It's true though that it's possible to be knocked back in such a way that you basically have no ability to prevent yourself from taking damage, this especially happens if you don't get hit a second time and don't get to extend the amount of time you're invulnerable.
It's not really a perfect system for sure, and I love your suggestion of having the knockback effect diminish with each hit.
Yes I tried to have some lower health platforms in the levels where I wanted it to matter more, but it's true I should have leaned into it a lot more I think. There was also a decision in the last like 3ish hours of development where we changed it from 4 energy/uranium capsules per drill to 3 and I think that's part of why the platforms have less impact (you spend less time in the levels).
Also, I wanted the player to actually be able to run around and not just be using the jetpack all the time, otherwise, whats the point of having the platforms at all. It was tough to balance for sure and if I had more time it would have been a lot more refined I think. Thanks for your thoughts!
I loved your game, thanks for checking out mine! I really struggled with the theme and tried to have it present in more subtle ways. The platforms being unstable are the main gameplay related one, also with the unstable controls after you get hit. The other things are the planet itself being unstable from the aliens, which I tried to visualize with a lot of screen shake and whatnot.
Thank you so much for your kind words and detailed response! I always try to have a high-ish production value. Polishing is my favorite part of making a game, and it helps I have so many talented artist friends.
The batteries not respawning is a glitch I noticed yesterday, I found it at some point, didn't write it down and it's still in there now because of it :(
I agree about a score/time limit and the lack of replay value. I just simply ran out of time to implement something like that lol. In my original vision for the game I wanted to have multiple endings for beating X number of levels without getting hit/dying and under a certain time limit. Like in the metroid series basically, which was a really big inspiration for the game (visually at least).
That's a fair critique. The color is really similar, we didn't restrict the color pallette at all and kind of ran out of colors. Basically everything was used at some point in the things that do damage to you so there was no color we could use to distinguish. I tried to use the line effect and the swaying animation to help with the problem but I agree it's not perfect.
Very creative, I only wish you had to engage with the bullet hell aspect of the game more (and that the player movement allowed you to do so and succeed).
The best strategy seems to be camp in the tower you build during the waves, and just make a move between waves or when the waves are coming from the right side.
Fair point haha. I just wanted the first level to let you run around and learn the controls with basically no pressure of any kind. Glad you enjoyed it man thank you!
If you have all the upgrades, including aerodynamics, it should only be a matter of time before you make it there. Try just maintaining Roger, Dodger and Pixel Pal. Thanks for playing and I'm glad you think it's cool :)
