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yeah we're in discussions about the camera, we're all considering continuing with the project. we went with this angle to try and find a middle ground that let you get closer to the models without sacrificing your awareness... but yeah there's a bunch here that hit the cutting room floor for the sake of time. thanks so much for your feedback!! c:

Great first entry, i'd advise you brighten your thumbnail, as i thought i'd already rated this game and almost glossed over it completely in the darkened "already rated" thumbnails.

Movement is a bit floaty, but the pixel art is solid solid work and the shooting felt great. I'd love to see you expand this and grow as a developer, great job c:

The design here is really interesting, but the walls of text make it hard to parse what exactly is happening or what i should be doing with my upgrades. I don't really know what a SYNTH is and my attention span isn't going to let me read the handbook to figure it out, you know? Upgrades were interesting, though i wish i could have picked up and moved or sold my towers, not sure if i could or not but i never figured out how. 

I could see me wasting a lot of time on a game like this, it's visually interesting with a good gameplay depth, great entry! i gotta take a star off for ai use personally, but this is strong and you should run with it c:

i agree with your design choice, i want to focus on that the game is designed around the player speed, in another game it would feel sluggish here it just made every movement feel deliberate, faster speed would have been harder to control and balance around, i think it was a good choice c:

the design of this really resonated with me. once i realized that the positive thoughts were bouncing back to hit me sometimes i really understood that this had a deeper understanding of mental health than it first appeared.

My critiques are mostly gameplay related, it isn't really explained that the bullets bounce back at you so a good few runs i died from full health for shooting a wall right in front of me, and if any piece of the negative thoughts reach the center it tends to cause the whole thing to freak out, which felt more like a glitch than an intended feature. if it was going to do that some kind of visual indicator for the center would have been nice, and also a bit more of a differentiation between bullets going away from me vs coming towards me, so that it was easier to see something was about to hit me.

Really awesome design! the upgrade system is fantastic and this was a lot of fun to play!

i like the concept! tho it feels like it needs more time in the oven. shooting felt good, and the asteroid enemy was well done, once i saw there was health pickups my gameplay style changed completely, and it became much easier to complete this.

The particles around the sun are a bit visually noisy, making it hard to tell exactly where it is, and the hit detection on the pickups is a bit low. I would be excited to see this concept expanded c:

Cool as hell design, tho waaaay too hard for me to get anywhere near the end before dying, there's a lot of visual noise that makes it impossible to follow every bullet for someone of lower skill such as me.

My game had a bug where the background seemed to be offset into the top corner the whole playthrough? which made it hard to see the area creases off the background.

The patterns are beautiful tho and the audio is great, i love rhythm based shmups like this, just not quite when they're so teeth grindingly hard hahaha good job c:

unfinished but fun! i didn't manage to beat the game before my health hit 0 but this was enjoyable, i'd love to see it if you guys decide to continue with the project c:

It doesn' thave to be long to be enjoyed c: This needed more time in the oven, but i love your design, and i want to see more c:

In all seriousness this game whips hard, first full 5 stars of the jam for me, i love meta elements, and this controlled snappy and fun, I have no real notes this was an amazing design and you should be really proud of this c:

but if you *had* just posted the end of game game as screenshots of it and built the game up like that's all you were going to get i would have been BLOWN A WAY. i know it would be a terrible idea and no one would click on it but oh my god a part of me wishes that was the way this game was marketted hahaha

seriously, really really great submission c:

Pretty rudimentary design frankly, and i encountered this huge pc breaking error when i loaded it up? you should make sure you optimize these errors out of your game first before you upload to jams like this, it's unprofessional.

i know it's a personal bias, just want to make sure i'm reviewing honestly, when entering a jam like this there's usually a discord you can use to talk with others, ask for help and form teams, if you're looking to up your skills it might be a good idea to look into is all. But that's just a suggestion ;P

I love this honestly! the upgrades after you die made death feel much less frustrating, and allowed me to tune my own difficulty and see farther than i might have if this were tuned for a higher difficulty. This was very re-playable, and i spent probably longer than i should have replaying over and over again. your music is a great backing track, your sfx are pretty much perfect, i only wish it was easier to identify at a glance what enemy type was which, when spawning into a new wave and i'm 2 feet from a slime unsure if they're going to immediately blast me in the face it felt a bit disorienting.

Also once i figured out that the shrink mechanic makes you invulnerable the game opened up a lot to me, i don't know if that was clearly indicated enough in the instructions.

Awesome entry! thanks for letting us play it c:

This is a cool concept and i love the idea of the bomb meter being your health, tho it feels very difficult to actually fill since i have to get so close to the enemies to get the chips, when they spawn in so quickly at the end of a wave, though i found myself falling into the gameplay pattern of never using the bomb, since i know it'll go off when i take damage anyway. Visually very interesting tho! the bomb wave is very satisfying.

This is a promising alpha! i think this will be a lot of fun with polish and backgrounds and spritework on everything c:

Cool concept and i love the aesthetic! Only a few critique i can muster, i ran into a bug with an amoeba that wouldn't die, it just chased me around the screen until it killed me, and the drone upgrades feel pretty weak, it feels like it would just be better to upgrade the auto canons and shields exclusively and not waste the points. Really cool idea tho that i could see being expanded upon! great design c:

Mechanically super interesting, though the sword hitbox is a little janky and feels kind of stilted to use, i found myself a bit frustrated by how my swings don't cover my body or go in the direction i want them to. 

I want to see more! this is a really cool idea! c:

I love survivorlikes like this one, tho i found random upgrades a bit frustrating (one of my runs i got nothing but health ups for the first wave, making it a very slow round) and i experienced a bug of enemies spawning outside the play area. The final boss proved too difficult for me, the wall of bullets protecting the smaller enemies became too hard to overcome, and there being no invulnerability frames upon taking damage meant i inevitably got cornered and lost all my health trying to dash out of the corner.

It was a fun play tho so thank you for letting us play it c:

Cool concept! i got a bit confused to start with as to whether i should be shooting the enemy or not, and i couldn't tell imediately that shrunk bullets weren't harmful at all anymore, so it added some to the visual noise. The art and sound are quite good tho! good job c:

What  a fresh aestetic! Shooting felt good and the unique designs had me engaged. c:

I find the first phase very chaotic, but also stagnant, it was in my best interest to simply find a corner and wait there for enemies to come to me, rather than the game compelling me to leave my little hole and interact with it, i think the obstacles contributed to that in someway, making it hard for me to shoot bullet spawning fruits from distance without falling into their line of sight. The amount of health i had also made me feel invincible, i almost wish we had a small amount that regenerated or something?

I experienced what i think was a glitch where the little square cereals in the boss arena would hit me from much farther away than it looked like they should have, around 4 or 5 player lengths.

good level of difficulty, fresh aestetic, i had fun c:

Your ui is remarkably clean! a competent execution of a bullet hell, though i would have liked more differentiation between enemy bullets and enemies, as it can be hard at a split second to determine which is which.

I found a glitch where if you just hug a wall enemies spawn outside of it, you can wait until all allowed enemies have spawned out there and then survive as long as you like, though you can still hug the wall to kill them. 

I'd be excited to see more from you! your ui work here is really clean i think you should look for programmers to collaborate with, as ai code leaves a bad taste in my mouth, otherwise great job c:

Simple solid piece that is built well around only 1 life and dodging in tight quarters, i quite enjoyed it! If i have any critique it's that the random bullet phases felt a bit like gambling. they were by far the hardest, once i was past them the rest is pretty much a cake walk, which is understandable since i think you made the right choice not to spring a difficult pattern on the player in such close quarters.

For a first submission this is quite good! why you're building in unreal is baffling to me, but that's as someone who's terrified of it hahaha. You probably don't need to have camera control tied to right mouse, as i ended up just holding it down the whole time. the shrink dash felt unnecessary too as jumping was a much more effective means of escaping damage. This was a fun little experience! great job c:

No nonsense straight to the point! the player felt slow, but it felt well designed around it, the only time i ever got frustrated was when the centimech would come up right on the back of the screen with no warning and instakill me, but the system for repicking up your powerups really helps aleviate the frustration of dying in a game like this. I played on normal, and that felt perfect for my skill level. The game is beautiful, the sfx are great, the gameplay was fun, this was a great time c:

I experienced a glitch in this in that i couldn't go backwards while i was shooting.
The concept here is amazing, i think it needs a bit more time in the oven, you move too fast as big wizard and zoom in too close as small wizard for me to feel comfortable in either form, i kinda had to just stay in small wizard form the whole time to avoid careening into bullets at top speed. The music is great tonally but doesn't loop correctly, which was noticable. The patterns were interesting and fun, though stage three required me to stay in big wizard form to see where i was going and controls to swap forms were just a bit too jarring for me to complete the phase. 

If this piece got sanded down i would be ecstatic to play it again c:

Clever play on the theme! I couldn't beat Ema's Trauma, but i think my skill level is below a hard shmup like this one. The green bullets in the boss fight don't seem to do any damage? they act like they are but her health number doesn't go down at all. I would have appreciated a lower difficulty setting, but it's irrelevant, this is a really competent execution of the theme and genre! if i have any critique the music gets a bit repetitive after a few restarts, but this was very fun to play and i found myself having to tear myself away from just giving it "one more try" good job c:

https://www.twitch.tv/wit_boudicca

for your viewing pleasure c:

It's been a long time since i've seen something with spore cell stage inspirations! This is an amazing concept, even if it's a bit buggy. I got softlocked inside a door and had to stop, but what i did play was really engaging and fun! my one critique is probably that eating enemies and pips is real finicky, and takes a long time after each wave to clean up.

This is really cool! i wanna see more! good job! c:

I only mention it to help provide perspective and critique for future development! you should be genuinely proud of this, it's a lot to get done in such a short time, and i had a lot of fun playing it c: I played it on stream if you actually wanna see it being played blind it's in the VoD, i don't mean it as a shill i just know a lot of developers really value seeing that c:

What a unique game idea! really really fun too, If i had one critique a way to heal would have been nice, losing when the boss had like 150 health left was very frustrating. It felt a little weird that the attack upgrade slowed down my attack speed, but this is such a fun and unique concept, i love games that play with meta elements like this, you did amazing here!

oh i hope i didn't come off harsh! i think what's in here is amazing! genuinely! you should be proud of what you've got, our team also did a 3d concept for this jam and the last one we did, so we are very familiar with bits hitting the cutting room floor for time, it's heartbreaking, but what you've made has a lot of merit even without it c: i'm excited to see the finished project if you intend to keep working on it!

Really cool concept! i was very excited to play a starfox like! if i have critique it's that the controls are a bit sluggish, the basic laser is hard to hit the enemies that come from behind, and the barrel roll is really short and feels kinda slow. What you've got in here was a treat to play, so thank you for the experience c:

This is a really strong submission! the artstyle is stylish and fun, the gameplay is strong. I only wish that either the dash was tied to the keyboard not the mouse, or the movement was tied to the mouse not the keyboard, cause as it stands it feels a little disjointed. The pillars boss can be a problem for anyone without a homing attack as a few of them hang out right on the bottom of the screen. 

Genuinely feels like a top contender to me, good job c:

Great little experience! i would say the only real critique i can give is that the particles on dead enemy add a lot to the game noise once the enemies really start spawning, making it hard to tell what's an enemy, a bullet, or a corpse. really impressive for the short time you had to make it c:

Considering the number of times i went back to try and beat my highscore i really can't give this anything less than full marks. you unlocked the inner tryhard by putting a leaderboard, so you bought my vote

i'll be back to beat you later kelpie.....

Strong submission! the art on this is fantastic, and the gameplay has solid feedback. It's a bit too hard for me, but i understand i'm not often the target audience for this genre. Yeah this is a really strong submission, great job c:

The models on this are beautiful! though i think the game is held back by a few things that i presume didn't make the cut. sound effects and music are non existent (besides the mine) and there's no real visual feedback on when i hit the mermaid (sometimes she does a hit animation but it's hard to tell where i hit that caused it, and the projectiles fly right through her without any kind of particle to show i hit) or when i pick up junk (i stood over the junk piles for a good while, unsure if i had successfully picked anything up for a while)

The concept is really fresh tho! i love this 3d platformer style of shmup, and dodging the bubbles was fun and tight, her move set was varied and interesting and engaging! i honestly think you guys have something here, and it just needs more time in the oven c: great work, i'd love to see more c:

What a treat to play something for the NES, very nostalgic! I'm not much of a toho player tho, so i don't really know what power is, or what half the pickups are doing for me, so i wish i had had that explained to me. When rats get behind me they can be a real pain, But otherwise the gameplay felt great! the first boss was super fun, and it really feels like a classic nes game, i'd love to see more c:

What a lovely and suscinct experience! The artwork on everything is beautiful, and the gameplay is tight! felt just right for a low/mid level shmup player such as myself c: I wish there was a title screen, and maybe some sound to help confirm that i was hitting enemies, but the damage sfx and the music were lovely! Great enemy variety and really cool implementation of the shrink mechanic. It feels a little unscalable as it limits my ability and desire to explore the screen, but it's really cool and i like it a lot anyway c:

Really great job here!

Really unique and quirky concept! i like it a lot, and it got a good chuckle out of me a couple times. The controls are competent, tho whatever the M powerup does isn't explained, and i, not being a toho player don't really know what focus is for or how to use it. Shooting felt good, wish there was more, i think an issue with the sprite work is that all the enemies are the same size and look very similar, making it hard to distinguish when someone coming on screen is going to start shooting a whole busy pattern all their own, or are just gonna shoot a simple spread of bullets for me to dodge. It would be nice if mid and final bosses were physically bigger to be easier to hit, allowing me to move around the space more while keeping up damage. Your first stage's music is amazing, the later tracks feel a little discordant even when they don't reset, and i wish i had more feedback in sfx, enemy death sounds, hit sounds, fire sounds, the like. Also tho we *mention* shrinking a lot, it feels more shoehorned in than designed around however :p

The old guy boss was especially funny, don't change anything i love him. This is a really unique submission c:

This is a genuinely great submission! wonderfully executed! its' a shame this has so few ratings because i think this is a gem! if i had to grasp for critique being able to remap the dash would be nice, and the damage area sometimes spawns mostly out of the map, or under the boss, being basically unreachable, leading to needless waiting.

But the controls are snappy and responsive! the dash is finely tuned and felt great, really did exactly as i expected it to, your audio design is, imo, flawless, snappy and responsive sfx, and the music is a great choice, bit slow on the reset with the main menu but otherwise i really can't think of much you could improve upon this design. well done c: