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Something I forgot to note is that I felt like I needed more information about the overall progression ie I could see which world-level I was on but not how many levels there were left

I liked this.

1. What round did you get to before quitting?

I beat round 5, probably after 10 games.

1. What was your strategy, if any?

Having the tasks not change between games really helps you strategize.

Buying at least 1 card a round so that you can reduce one dice to a d4 for the divide by round and then back up to a d10 or d12 later. 

1. What did you most like?

It was quick to play the next game

1. What was frustrating?

Randomness sometimes is too random.

Sometimes you roll a really good first turn and have enough coins to get through round 3.

The first round (sum of all dice) seems to have such a bigger impact than the second round (divide by).

1. What did you wish you could do?

More control over the result. Re-roll a dice or change a number after the roll.

That really hooked me and I played through until the end. I had to use the hints twice. I think the hint system works really well

I really like the theming and art style. I think your font animations are really cool and really fit well. There are a lot of little polish touches everywhere and it all really adds to the game.

Using just the keyboard, it was a bit of a pain navigating around when to start a new body sometimes. Particularly when there are gaps that you can't navigate through because they're not yet filled.

I needed another element of progression as I got towards the end. The directional tiles were cool, but the puzzles didn't really evolve after that.

I found the music a bit frustrating. I find music in games distracting but this felt like it was too simple and too short a loop.

• Was the game enjoyable? Could you imagine playing a longer version?

I haven't played these type of vertical scrolling shmups in a while. I quite enjoyed it, but it isn't really a genre I play much any more.

• Was the boss too hard/easy?

The boss felt about right for the first boss.

• What was frustrating?

The movement felt slow and sluggish compared to what I remember from games like 1942 or Raiden. 

I had trouble with the aiming. It took me a bit of time to adjust the aiming to the vertical scrolling of the world. For a while I was missing because my intuition was that the enemy was stationary, but really it was moving with the world while my bullets weren't. Mostly I started to shoot vertically so I didn't need to counter for the world motion.

Having the option to change the default shooting mode in the menu screen led me initially to think that I only had that mode. Luckily I had chosen the bigger gun, so when I ran out of shells I realised that I could shoot the machine gun as well.

• What did you wish you could do?

Fun game!

I'm not sure that I can give much feedback on the mechanics. This is an established genre with a lot of expectations about what makes a good game, both in terms of the combat and the rogue-like mechanics. I'm not familiar enough with the genre to know where the game is meeting those expectations. 

I agree with Frosi GameArt's comment about not knowing what was hitting me, or even that I was being hit. I died a couple of times without realising that my health was that low.

I thought the tutorialization was really good, except the dodge roll. I think that was missing, but it was where I expected it to be.

I also really liked the progression with the merging elements.

The elemental effects looked cool and felt satisfying.

Thank you so much for playing the game and offering your feedback.

I hope you found the option to invert the Y-axis. I need to take a poll to see what the default should be. I expect its about 50-50 but maybe I'm wrong.

Your thoughts on a mothership instead of the landing pad is not something I'd considered. I'll have to think more about how that would work.

Thank you so much for taking the time to play the game and offer your feedback.

** sorry I accidentally deleted my previous reply **

Thank you for taking the time to play the game and for your comments. I appreciate the feedback.

You've hit on a number of points that I've struggled with, primarily the art and UI style. It is helpful to have this feedback from someone external and independent. 

I particularly appreciate your honest and well meaning advice on whether this is ready for steam. I think I needed to hear that.

I thought the pinball in particular was a really cool idea. It seems like a natural fit for body breaking ragdolling.

I didn't have the same problem with rotating the canon as TryHardStudio, but I also had a ragdoll get stuck just outside the canon. This made it completely impossible to shoot Daves up in the air.

I enjoyed the time I spent with the game, but didn't feel like I got any better. I kept just falling shy of the 300 point threshold level, but it never seemed to click what I was missing to pass that stage. Because the level is random I couldn't see what I had missed to learn from. 

A couple of times I realised after I had rolled the ball that I had set up one of the walls incorrectly. Since there is no undo or level retry, an error like that has a really high cost since it effectively ends the run. 

I enjoyed the time I spent with the game, but didn't feel like I got any better. I kept just falling shy of the 300 point threshold level, but it never seemed to click what I was missing to pass that stage. Because the level is random I couldn't see what I had missed to learn from. 

A couple of times I realised after I had rolled the ball that I had set up one of the walls incorrectly. Since there is no undo or level retry, an error like that has a really high cost since it effectively ends the run. 

Hi IGC Test Buddies. I'm Philip Dunstan on the IGC discord. I'd love to hear your feedback either directly or on the game's project-updates page: https://discord.com/channels/1249676288512495636/1461497693514895380/14614976935...

I'm getting this demo ready for release onto steam in the next month or two. I'm really interested in hearing what you think are the most important things to improve before the demo release.

I'm okay with this being played on a public twitch or youtube stream.