itch.io

Too much work due to engine limitations.

Thank you for the explanation ^^ I agree that reviewing/rating a game is subjective no matter what, and as long as the rater applies same logic to every game they play, there's no problem with that imo. Personally, I base my ratings off of "expected quality for the jam" and rate higher/lower depending on if there are issues or a game performs a lot better in a category to the point it feels like part of a full game. I think our rating styles are similar for this reason, I just apply it to each criterion individually and don't take other jam games into account.

By "equal playing field" I didn't mean that "every single game can win" but rather "exactly 1 game can win, but everyone has a chance regardless of how good/bad the game performs in a specific category", hence the multiple voting criteria. A game could generally be rated 1 star in art for instance, but 5 stars in everything else, and it wouldn't disqualify it from winning. No offense taken, just wanted to understand your point of view and share mine. Thank you again!

I don't really understand what "Top tiers" and "B tier" means in the context of this jam, so "scaled the ratings accordingly" sounds like it implies that the jam's games are not all on an equal playing field. Oh well, ultimately your ratings are up to you. Glad you enjoyed the game and thank you for the detailed feedback!

Okay, you sold me - I'm definitely hiring Mortilla to chop trees, slay demons, and bring world peace with minimum violence. Do you think they've got a spot in their schedule for me?

I tried playing again, this time managed to beat 2 loops (not cheesing the boar with the bug) before dying. I've been meaning to write how the jump doesn't feel like a true alternative to dodge rolling, because of how long you spend in the air and how little player control you have while airborne. Then I rolled the axe which turned out to be a gun? and you can spam it in the air to stay airborne forever?? and it turned out to be the most fun thing ever???? ...I guess my gripe now is "why did other weapons feel inferior to the point that beating a boss - without being a facetanking jackass - takes forever?"

I suppose it's a matter of being used to one type of gameplay or the other. 3d Souls-likes never resonated with me, but similar action games like Ninja Gaiden Sigma, Metal Gear Rising and Furi I enjoyed a lot. All of them give you either a dodge ability with invulnerability frames, a type of parry, or both, along with other special attacks and moves. Rather than limit the player's abilities (I tried dark souls once and it felt like the player was a lead balloon), they keep the degree of freedom high while making enemies and bosses harder and less predictable to compensate. With Aku no Mori, it felt like you had to know always when you can be around the boss and when you cannot.  The jumps' timing and required force (for the boar fight) are precise. Jump too soon or too low and the boar will hit you before you can charge another jump. Jump too late and too high - you'll miss the opportunity to strike efficiently, so you'll either have to deal less damage and run away asap, or stay and endure one of its instant attacks. For the fly, it depends on your weapon (and gets really awkward with a melee one), but as you'll either have to use an accurate mid-air attack or a ground attack with wind-up that has enough reach, it really comes down to knowledge once again. There weren't many times when there was an attack coming at me which I didn't expect, and I had enough time to use my abilities to evade while still being able to damage the boss. Again, I assume it's the default for souls games where you have to know what the boss does firsthand and make precise inputs based on specific telegraphs, rather than be able to experiment and trust your gut.

Oh, and you've mentioned the bone's flame attack so I tried it against the fly. It worked, despite me losing most of hp in the process. Crossbow - I've managed to beat Boar with it without cheese, aiming still awkward but it's not terrible (and I never noticed the heal off of trees mechanic lol, idk if it matters since you stay away from the boar and never take damage anyhow). Didn't use it against the second boss, but if neither shooting it on the ground nor the sweeping attack hit the fly then it's going to be way too painful to fight. So yeah, it's not skill issue that led me to all the feedback so far, I hope!

(really sleepy so dunno how readable or objective this WoT is, but I couldn't stand to delete it all either. Anyway, as with other such texts, take what feedback you need and discard the rest)

The devil deal death is kinda supposed to jumpscare you with the dark background, red text and eerie sounds, without any warning. I guess it didn't really have an effect because you, me and Magna were talking about stuff when the screen appeared lol. Russian Roulette is an interesting suggestion, albeit it may remove that element of surprise I think. Worth considering for other chance-based elements though 👀

Well presented and original, with a degree of attention to detail that I'm already coming to expect out of Boneyard Productions™

Aesthetically - the game is designed well. Starting with a blood rain that gives an eerie intro befitting the plot, and the environment gives off a special atmosphere as well. It feels like you're lost somewhere dangerous. Even death animation has you "return to the soil" (I wonder if the forest was alive?). The boss track is short and loops quickly, but turned out oddly addictive.

Gameplay-wise - it didn't resonate with me so strongly.  For the first boss in particular - limited camera angles and slower than the boss speed for the player (even with dash) made it really awkward to anticipate the boar's moves. It felt like you either had to facetank to deal damage at a swift pace (trying not to get yeeted in the process), or chip away very slowly and keep running/jumping around to avoid taking hits. Lack of immediate defensive/movement abilities encouraged running away from bosses rather than proactively seeking opportunities to attack.

For both bosses, I couldn't utilize some of the weapons fully - the crossbow was really awkward to aim, and the sweeping attack of the Bone™ couldn't hit the second boss while grounded. The long wind-ups of some weapons also made it impossible to deal hits while being able to dodge the quick fly demons. All in all, both bosses turned into battles of attrition for me, so I didn't enjoy the combat aspect much.

It's a shame that you've had to spend so much time dealing with IRL stuff. I think the game could turn a lot more fun with more development time, more player responsiveness, and perhaps some extra abilties beyond walk, run, attack and jump. With how the player can climb and jump off of trees I assume there were thoughts to incorporate it into combat somehow? Or maybe there's already some kind of mechanic/game changing strategy I didn't discover?

Overall - solid foundation for an atmospheric deforestation and de-demonization sim. I'd totally hire Mortilla to chop some trees and demon limbs. Combat system may need more attention. Oh, and a crouch button please, so I can feel a sense of accomplishment after beating a difficult boss.

Thank you, and noted!

Warning Forever was great! And now that you mentioned it, Exaltator Nil really looks similar to it in many ways, even though I didn't really think about it during development... Almost uncanny.

The weird labeling was a result of time trouble, I didn't have enough time to edit the defaults. Glad you enjoyed regardless, and thank you for playing!

Beat it after a couple tries - there were a few issues with controls and general ability to parse the 3d environment, which took some getting used to but didn't stop me from completion ^^ The lore and bosses remind me of Rival Megagun, which also has you participate in a space TV show to the death.

Despite seeming very "unity-like" with the way the assets look, I think it turned out well aesthetically, with some nice details and touches, like how Corvette derps out into spins during its second attack. I also liked the bullets - great visibility while pleasing to the eye. The sounds were somewhat too loud, but overall fitting together with the music.

The gameplay - I think it turned out alright as well, the boss attack design is varied enough, player and enemy bullet hitboxes aren't too big. Though to note, ship movement inertia was something I disliked about it, and it didn't feel like it adds anything here - the small and lightweight mobile ship sliding in space like on ice as if it's throwing around a lot of weight, makes little sense to me. It's not that bad since the game doesn't require micrododging - still, I'd really consider removing that mechanic, and if it makes the game too easy - adjust boss patterns to compensate. With how well made your patterns were, the inertia is only going to limit your design options in the long run.

Some smaller things to note, including bugs:
- Corvette boss fight, parsing the boss and player location was difficult due to how the 3d perspective worked. I couldn't hit my shots much of the time, which was especially painful after picking up the exchange power up. Some kind of aim marker, like a laser pointer, would have been nice

- For the same reason, Corvette's artillery attack was hard to parse as well. I figured the best way to dodge is to stay at the very top and move horizontally from the smallest-looking bullets, yet sometimes they'd get obscured by the bigger-looking ones that were closer to the camera. Would be great to have some kind of telegraph, like target marks on the field, showing where the bullets are going to land

- Holding spacebar and using arrow keys made it impossible to move diagonally. Probably a problem with my keyboard, either way it made dodging a lot harder. Being able to remap the shot button to somewhere else, like Z, could have let me fix it, consider adding that option if possible

- When trying to play through itch client, I got an error: "Unable to parse Build/usb.framework.js.gz! This can happen if build compression was enabled but web server hosting the content was misconfigured to not serve the file with HTTP Response Header "Content-Encoding: gzip" present". Because of it I had to play in a browser instead. The game is quite heavy and takes a while to load, so having a downloadable version would have been handy, including for better performance

Overall - good jam game. Has room to improve. And I think you have the skills and sense to make it better, whether it be an updated version of USB or a future shoot em up/bullet hell game. Hope the feedback will be of use, and congrats on finishing the jam!

P.S. - Since you like bullet hells, consider trying our game, Exaltator Nil. It may be up your alley ^^

Yeah this one is really annoying >.< Sadly it's an engine-related bug that I can't consistently fix on my own. Glad you enjoyed the game regardless ^^

Fun concept! A bit glitchy (which is fine for jam a game) and took some time to get used to controls, but it didn't stop me from completion.

I already gave you some feedback about camera and platforms disappearing after you jump off of them, and to elaborate - it felt like I couldn't see enough of the arena with how the camera was zoomed in. In addition, the camera movement while jumping around felt a bit disorienting. Maybe try a static camera with full arena view during boss fights, like in War in Heaven?

As for platforms - because they just turned gray(?) after jumping off, I couldn't immediately read it as "you can't jump back on it anymore". I would suggest to turn them maybe to 10% transparency after jumping off, gradually going back to maybe 60% transparency, before immediately becoming opaque. This way I think it'd easier to read the states of "you just jumped off of it and can't jump back", "you still can't jump back but it's getting closer", and "you can jump back now" without confusing one for the other.

There were a couple more issues/nitpicks, but they all stem from the two I've described. And could also be plain skill issue on my part. I'd just add that Nattland Interactive's comment about color language is spot on, as are Bad Piggy's comments about overall gameplay experience. Last but not least, I want to point out that the artstyle really turned out just fine and not bland at all. The Blade Rush powerup in particular adds personality, and boss attacks are fairly varied and feel distinct from one another. Well implemented minimalist/geometrical styles tend to leave a lot to the player's imagination, so I think if you focus on a solid gameplay foundation and add smaller things to give it life, the resulting experience will be quite worthwhile, whether it's with or without googly eyes for the boss ^^

Hope the feedback will be of use. Congrats on finishing the jam!

Thank you for your kind and detailed comments, and welcome back to the Slam ^^ Cursor visibility and uncomfortable aiming are common points of feedback, and I would like to fix them when SHMUP Creator gets more updates.

(and yeah it was very naive of me to think that going to the final boss early, with a weapon that the boss was tested with in the first place, is a penalty lmao, makes me wonder how many people miss the superweapons you can get after beating Boss 16...)

There was a plan to implement dynamic difficulty - boss attacks would become more intense as Alert level goes up, as well as after taking certain Overclocks. The logic is in place, but I didn't have time to finish the extra attacks and test them. I agree the difficulty turned out a bit too easy as a result, and more inclined towards absolute beginners.

Thank you for playing!

A solid tribute to Void Stranger while still distinct and mostly its own thing.

The atmosphere and vibes are on point, the mood felt very consistent. Complemented well by the music (which didn't play for the first dozen or so levels, not sure if that's intentional or a bug).

Gameplay took some getting used to - the large player hitbox was manageable by itself, but shooting an enemy sometimes pushed it back in unpredictable ways. Not a biggie, as there weren't any solutions that required pixel perfect movement or very precise inputs.

The plot and lore didn't feel very fleshed out and some aspects didn't make much sense, as I don't think there were enough rules and concepts of the game world exposed (e.g. defeating the warden by aggroing his ramiels and solving a puzzle..?). Of course, it makes sense given the jam time limit, and there was still some neat attention to detail at times, such as unique background elements on some levels and the guitar part.

Overall - a moody, interesting piece, well worth the time I spent playing it. Void Stranger influences were quite apparent throughout, and I'm curious how it's going to transition into a full game.

Thank you so much! I'll let you know when a playtest version is ready ^^ You can add me on Discord or send an email so I know where to send the link, you can find both in the readme
(Feels a lil weird to hear "th7 hard 1cc" and "casual perspective" together tho, considering my only th7 1cc is on normal lol)

TL;DR - If you appreciate games with personality, and also like shmups, stgs, bullet hells etc, give Danmaku Gladiator a try. There is no trailer so here's a video playthrough:

bnuuy

Thank you very much for playing and the kind words ^^ if all goes well the full version should go live before February

Actually I just checked your vods and you've literally been at it for 4 hours straight holy hell, what a legend

bnuuy gaming

Really, thank you for saying all this. For a long time I've wanted to make games that are not just mechanically pleasant, but also offer "something more". Having a player/reader/listener/watcher immerse themselves into an experience which involves mind, soul and body all at once - I really think videogames are the perfect fit for this purpose, like no other media that exists. It's just a shame how some people will never open up to the idea of that, especially with the modern game trends where human psychology is mercilessly exploited with the intent of gaining revenue and playtime. Rather than opening up the way towards deeper parts of self, more often than not games block it off, thoughtlessly, so as nothing can interfere with the player "experience" pipeline and metrics.

Sorry for using vague terms, I've thought about stuff like that for a long time but haven't organized it so well just yet. I'm really happy you were able to enjoy the game beyond mechanical fun, even beyond aesthetics, and after watching you play it for ~2 hours on Twitch I'm still questioning your sanity - meaning you're definitely the target audience (I'm only kidding, but seriously, I don't think just anyone can stream jam games daily for 10+ hours at a time. When I used to do streams I'd get tired and end the day after like 3 hours lol)

Again, thank you for playing and the kind words! I'll definitely watch you play through the rest of the game if you decide to do so, today was a bit hectic due to new year prep and tea'ing the only working keyboard, but maybe some other time ^^ Happy new year, and happy holidays!

Sure, sounds like fun! I'm really out of practice for the voice commentary though so it'll have to be text

While the setting felt all over the place at times, I think the game tries to present some really cool elements - I haven't played Resident Evil which it seems to be inspired by, so instead it made me think of Danganronpa: Ultra Despair Girls (don't ask lol)

Unfortunately, there were some issues that prevented me from completing the game:

- Player movement. The character moves really slowly, and when you hold shift it takes a long time before the character starts running, even then it's not exactly fast. I didn't even realize there was a sprint button at first because holding it doesn't seem to do anything at first.

- Stiff, unresponsive controls. I've mentioned the sprint button before, and when trying to switch to handgun I had to press several times because the first time nothing happened. There also seems to be a weird delay before rolling or crouching.

- Enemy growl sound effects. They were really loud and aggressive, going against the game's eerie, creepy setting. They also didn't seem to come from the direction of the enemy, which was disorienting while playing with headphones on.

- Dying forces you to the start of the level as well as rewatch the awakening scene, which doesn't seem to be skippable.

I wasn't quite invested into the story just yet, but the bgm and visual effects did make me feel immersed during some moments. It's mostly the uncomfortable control scheme and general lack of polish that made me bounce - it's understandable for a jam project (especially working for 1 week instead of the intended 2.5), but perhaps the scope was too broad for such a small timeframe. Oh well, hope the feedback will be useful, congrats on finishing the jam!

P.S. It felt a bit weird to hear the character use polite/keigo speech while talking to herself, but I don't know Japanese nearly well enough to dispute that

The bunny combination idea actually sounds really cool - kind of like alchemy... bnuuy alchemy!!

Though yes, I think laying a very solid mechanic foundation is very important to make the levels more engaging. Void Stranger for instance does some... things, but aside from that it's fairly simple, with the key focus being the staff mechanic and tile manipulation with it. You can pick up a tile, and you can put it over an empty spot. That's it, very simple but offers a lot of room for puzzle design even before introducing any gimmicks, tile types, enemies etc.

Of course, you don't have to go their route. I just think more ways for bunnies to interact with each other and the world would be very fun and engaging to explore. What if the bunnies affected not just 1 tile and then perished, but more? e.g. a fire bunny setting grass tiles on fire after walking, or ice bunny being able to walk over water tiles and turn them to breakable ice? It could go especially well with bunny alchemy, having the player figure out which bunnies they should create (and how) in order to solve a level without running out of bunnies.

I hope the feedback will be helpful, do take it with a grain of salt because as you said, players may have different genre experience going in and I just happened to play videogames too much ^^'

Though I do recommend picking up Void Stranger as it's on sale right now - maybe not necessarily for inspiration but because it's just a very fun puzzle game with a very special atmosphere, lots of twists and depth to the game. And to a fellow bnuny enthusiast, another neat puzzle game I'd recommend looking at is Paquerette Down the Bunburrows - it's not exactly sokoban but close enough I think. Pretty cute and has some clever puzzles. And bunnies. Lots of bunnies.

Cheers, and good luck with Bun Below and future games!

Thank you so much! It's honestly surprising how simple some cool elements like afterimages can be to make and implement, I'm glad you liked them ^^

(I actually haven't played Xenoblade, but damn, the Red Blade really is similar to the Monado in some ways. Nintendo pls dont sue thx)

I'm happy that you gave the game a go despite not playing games like that much, thank you for playing and the kind words! Player and bullet visibility is definitely one of my main concerns (and I wish Touhou, among some other bullet hells, tackled it better). It's not done perfectly in Rotschwert and there are some areas to improve on, but I'll do my best to do so while preserving the aesthetics and game vision as much as possible.

I'm also happy you enjoyed the music - I've used free BGM from several Japanese composers, and it's insane how they're willing to share their masterpieces for anyone to use. EN_OKAWA's music in particular inspired and empowered many of the game's elements with its energy and feel, I've put down the credits and links in the readme so check them out if you like! (though you may need to use a translator unless you know Japanese)

Again, thank you for playing and taking the time to comment! It's very empowering to know that not only bullet hell aficionados can enjoy my games ^^

I enjoyed the aesthetics a lot - the music and the visuals really reminded me of Rym 9000. It took some time to get used to the gameplay but I really wanted to hear the rest of the bgm lol, high score is 157.

Some notes:
- I really wish it were possible to change the controls and use arrow keys, wasd felt really unwieldy for me as most 2d games I played, those without mouse input, use arrow keys for movement
- Sometimes there would be downright cursed segments where you have to switch modes right after using a few abilities in quick succession (or die), the difficulty spike felt a bit random as a result
- Player hitbox felt really wide and inconsistent, especially when using the dive move. Often I'd fall into the spikes and die, when it really seemed like I was gonna make it - I didn't use the dive move much as a result
- The dash move only works in the air, if you try to use it while walking in order to get over a pit - you will fall. It didn't feel quite right, and I don't see any point of using it on the ground if it does that
- Deaths felt very abrupt, booting you to the main menu immediately, and it felt like the flow of the game was disrupted. Some way to do a quick restart would have been very nice

If I could change the controls then I'd definitely try to go for the 300 score. Still, I really enjoyed the aesthetics, and the bgm made me keep going until I heard it loop ^^ Hope the feedback will be of use, and congratulations on finishing the jam!

Played it for a few minutes, didn't get too far - unfortunately, there were many parts of the game that didn't quite hit for me:

- Movement felt extremely stiff, and the weird physics is definitely not what I'd love to see in a shmup. it was downright impossible at times to avoid colliding with enemies and especially their bullets that flew much quicker than the ship had ability to evade. Tank had more control but was extremely large and slow, making it impossible to dodge the kamikaze ships.

- Power-ups really didn't feel like they contribute much. Defense and full heal are fair, and I do like how the full heal goes over the health bar - probably a bug, but a fun kind of bug. Offense seemed to increase piercing, which is cool but I'd much rather have a faster fire rate and more coverage, considering how underpowered the ship is. Movement didn't seem to have any noticeable effect, and Energy I have 0 clue what it did, if anything. There was barely any scaling, perhaps I just didn't play long enough, but then comes the third point:

- Enemies went full power before the player even had a chance to power-up. Repeated restarting after being demolished from unavoidable damage, hoping you'll get more power-ups, is just not fun, especially with how little effect the power-ups have. A grace period of at least 1-2 minutes when enemies aren't all coming out at once, while gradually increasing the spawnrate, would have been much less frustrating to deal with.

I hope the feedback will be useful. To end on a more positive note: the feeling of seeing your own art/music/sounds etc in your own game is really empowering - please cherish it - and I think the spritework of Strike Mode turned out pretty neat for a first time. I'm sure it'll get even better in your next game, along with other elements. Cheers ^^

Beat it in about 30 minutes! Very simple, and a very cool interpretation of the theme, kind of like how Witch Core interpreted it.

Rarely play this kind of sudoku-like game, so figuring out the optimal strategy wasn't easy, but patterns and concepts started to click as I went further. Some puzzles were easier than others and/or more susceptible to brute force, but overall there were more than enough times when you had to figure out the right move instead of just fill the numbers by feel. Black and White aesthetics are definitely my thing, and the music was pretty relaxing and fitting for a puzzle game.

Not much else to say - a simple, clever game with just the right mix of both. Congrats on finishing the jam in just 8 days!

Thank you for playing and for the feedback! Adjusting the primary attack's visbility is on my to-do list.

Regarding AlterEgo - the mode is definitely not for the faint of heart haha. The positions of enemy spawns are mostly the same as Standard Mode, with only the enemy amount and screen-wide formations adjusted to be humanly possible to bypass. It's a mode that requires a fair amount of skill as well as remembering which enemies spawn where. I recommend playing AlterEgo only if you've already had enough of the other modes, or are looking for a really really tough, but 100% beatable challenge ^^

Thank you, and don't worry, yours is a very valuable sample point! I'd love for everyone to enjoy my games, not just shmup veterans ^^ (honestly I don't think my games cater to them anyways lol)

Regarding invincibility - there is indeed a window but it's really short, 0.1s (so it takes ~1.6s of constant damage taking to die at 16 hp). I'll probably keep it that way, but for the relaxed mode will likely double the starting HP, and adjust patterns to be easier to predict and "solve". Again, thank you for playing and for the feedback!

Thank you for playing! It's shame you couldn't get to the end of the second level, but I'm happy you enjoyed it despite that ^^

By the way, I'm considering adding a "relaxed" mode to the game later, better suited for people who don't play bullet hells often. Would you tell me which parts of the game were the most difficult/problematic for you?

That's the plan chief o7
Thank you for the kind words!

I just tried playing with "Bad" graphics and it definitely felt a lot better, with a framerate which I'm still not sure about but which definitely reached 60 fps or higher! The inertia was also gone.

I didn't play to completion but noticed a couple things I didn't notice before:
- The left and right screen borders are not sized the same, the left one takes more space while the right one takes less
- When trying to move diagonally into the bottom screen border, the ship slides. Maybe it's part of the reason I thought there's inertia
- When going into focus/small mode, you can no longer move diagonally

As for the last bit - there is still a lot left to learn so I don't think I'd make a good teacher, but I'm open to share thoughts and stuff ^^ Handle is @wingedfoxdev, I'm on the bigmode server but didn't message much yet, maybe we can chat there!

Thank you so much! I'll reply here while also taking into account your reply to my CellShocked comment.

First of all - for all of my games so far I used SHMUP Creator engine, which is a fairly new no-code engine designed for shmups and bullet hells specifically. Everything related to performance is handled by it, and it's really really optimized - uncapped framerates and up to 8000 bullets on screen at a time with little to no slowdown, depending on pc. For bullets specifically I believe it uses meshes: https://www.ogre3d.org/2022/09/10/game-highlight-shmup-creator (the engine is written in Ogre3D so not sure how useful the article will be, but perhaps some concepts apply to UE too)

Not having to deal with performance and behind the scenes coding stuff is probably the main reason I prefer no-code engines like SC or RPG Maker, props to you for using a big gun like Unreal! ...which I heard is pretty hard to use for 2d, and off the top of my hat I can't remember any shmups or bullet hells made with it. I'm sure it's not impossible though ^^'

As for Rotschwert, I'm really happy you noticed the music timing bit - when I first started doing that it quickly turned into an addiction and now I have to actively stop myself from spending hours to time it perfectly lol. And I'm happy you enjoy the patterns - they're not as elaborate as in Rotschwert's parent game, Nullschwert, since I wanted to focus more on combat and quick repositioning rather than tight dodging, but I'm glad to hear they were still sufficient ^^

And yes, I'll definitely finish the game after the jam, the scope and structure of the game were already set in stone during development, just didn't have enough time to implement the rest of the levels. I'm not sure when it will be released since I still need to work on the main project, but unless a cellular alien infestation wipes out humanity - it will be completed. Thank you again for the kind words and feedback!

The game ran really poorly for me, with drunk aim, enemies not moving, and increasingly bad performance throughout. It's unfortunate that you didn't have time to finish it, but I do like the aesthetics and the music. Don't give up!

Wow, just wow - even though the game worked a bit weirdly on my end (maybe I should have disabled the itch app sandbox option for teleco), the way it plays really spoke to me, essentially presenting the whole game as a sum of small parts where the end goal lies outside of any particular part. It really felt like you're dealing with a ghost of lost media!

It's a shame you didn't have much time for the dialogue system - I think the writing itself turned out well but not being input-based slightly hurts the setting I think, taking control away from the player - the channeler who needs to be in control while dealing with ghosts. Although to be fair, I'm only bitter about it because I got distracted during play and missed a good chunk of dialogue because of that ;-;

My only 'complaint' is that it felt really short for how much stuff is happening - I really enjoyed the game world but couldn't immerse fully as it ended so quickly (and also because of the distraction and missing the dialogue :c). Of course, short playtime is completely fine for a jam game, it's clear you were putting quality before quantity, and that's a good thing ^^

If you intend to continue working on the game - will it be a linear experience or have multiple paths/branches? And are you planning on adding any new "types" of gameplay or keep expanding on the rhythm puzzle one? I'm curious, as I think the current gameplay hints at a potentially quite deep, immersive experience in the future.

TLDR -  perfect score across the board, digital-themed experiences are my favorite so I'm biased, but I think the game turned out really well anyway. Congratulations!

P.S. Just want to put a word of appreciation for having the player be a "professional channeler" in a game about TV screens, nice one!

The end screen with its "CONGRATULATIONS, YOU GOT D" cracked me up a little for some reason, I think the pacing of it turned out unintentionally perfect haha

Speaking as a player who played a lot of bullet hell shmups (and bullet hell not-shmups) and a dev who worked/is working on 4 bullet hell games - unfortunately, as far as the gameplay of CellShocked goes, there are many things that could be done better.

Starting with the huge hitboxes for the ship and bullets - for a bullet hell, this is definitely not the right way. It takes away player's options, making micrododging and risky plays impossible, and also heavily restricts the game designer by forcing them to use simpler (read: boring-er) bullet patterns with fewer bullets and more spacing. Bullet hell fans won't hesitate to burn you at the stake for using big and weird hitboxes - a lesson I learned the hard way with my own first game.

Player movement - overall, controlling the ship didn't feel very responsive, especially due to the lower framerate, and there seemed to be some inertia to its movement. Bullet hells with ship inertia exist but it's really not received all that well either. I'm not sure if CellShocked ship inertia is by design or if there is a bug/issue that causes it, either way I don't think it adds any value and only makes controls harder for no reason. Ship slowdown with spacebar (focus) - felt too slow for me, but it could also be due to having to mind the inertia and the huge hitboxes. Maybe try setting focus speed to 1/2 or 1/3 of the ship speed and see if it feels better?

Enemies - player firepower was fairly low, especially for having a narrow, focused attack, and most enemies felt too tanky. As a result, +due to not so much pattern variation, dealing with waves felt repetitive. Enemy bullets felt on the slow side but it's a matter of personal taste, and kinda necessary with the hitboxes. Again, if the hitboxes weren't so huge there'd be a lot more room for more bullets, bullet pattern variety, and also variable bullet speeds (I really want to emphasize the overgrown hitboxes as much as possible).

Lastly, there was no fps counter so not sure what the framerate was, but on a 1920x1080, 144hz monitor playing a bullet hell with less than 60 fps feels pretty jarring. The 600+ mb size download also didn't feel quite right, perhaps some assets could be optimized and compressed to reach a smaller size (improving performance in the process).

Excuse the wall of text, I only hope the feedback will be of use. Bullet hells are my favorite genre so I'm always happy to see players and devs try their hand at it. Congrats on finishing the jam!

Got to the end! I liked how the theme implementation was tied to the aesthetics and atmosphere and not just gameplay, and really liked the tone shift and "nasty surprise" towards the end. Made me think of Omori for some reason.

I really liked the game aesthetically. Gameplay-wise, I do have some pet peeves - the hitboxes of things felt really hard to get used to, there were many times where I died and thought "should I have really died there?" due to how large the hitboxes are and how precisely you need to navigate through certain parts of the levels. More annoying however were levels where you needed to hide inside flowers - somewhat often I tried to get into a flower bud but didn't, and instead kind of clipped out of it, which usually led to death. Sometimes I'd also get stuck between 2 flower buds at an angle, though that's probably just a bug. Maybe increase the flower's "grab" zone so that if a player is standing on the same tile as the flower, they can always get into the bud?

About level 7 - maybe the puzzle is too tough to be introduced so suddenly. It's not difficult - I figured there's some kind of intended solution with how the right side is shorter than the left, but with how there were 4 very fast enemies you had to manage, thinking about it before having a concrete grasp over the flower bud mechanic felt overwhelming so I simply bruteforced it. It's a neat puzzle imo, just I'd suggest to leave it for later, and first introduce a similar kind of level with only 2-3 enemies to manage so the player can properly figure out the flower bud mechanic. Maybe also use slower enemies so it's easier to figure out their movement

Hope the feedback will be of use. I'm curious to see how the game will improve and expand after the jam!

I'll try to remember, though if you follow me you should get an email notification when I update the game and make a blogpost about it ^^ Just followed you and Michael Grieshofer myself, would love to replay Lu if/when an update drops

I'm at a loss for words, dam :O
I can't believe you guys enjoyed my game so much, thank you for playing!!
(If I could, I'd make 2 clones of myself and make them play and rate Lu because it really deserves love too!)