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[DarkWanderer]

I like the idea of the shorter blast. It will give players more reason to approach enemies and situations rather than just running and gunning the whole time.

This. It'll change the entire pacing of the game & I feel could only contribute to exploration & feeling of desolation. It'd make it more unique, & the player would have to be far more agile & flexible in the midst of combat. I think this could set it apart from other run-of-the-mill-run-&-gun types. Plus it's not like the player will be entirely crippled, there's still the dash attack & other things in store in the game.

[Hempuli‽]

Thanks for the feedback! Glad to see that the burst idea seems good to you.

I'd rather have to press the button every time to shoot than rapidfire through. Also have you tried changing the sound effects? I mean megaman and metroid, as far as I know, they feel good mostly cause of the sound effects.

I think with this burst weapon, I'd disable the rapidfire due to it no longer being required, as the burst would hopefully be and feel 'powerful' enough to not require spamminess.

[rubna]

What I often do to make a "burst" weapon feel more powerful is add knockback! Just a tiny jump and kickback will do the trick.
This is also a good solution to spamminess as it stops you if you fire while moving, so people won't want to use it too often. I'm not sure if this is what you want for your game though, but it's worth to give a try I bet!

[JobLeonard]

Depending on how you do knockback it could also be potentially exploitable, like that gun in Cave Story that had so much kickback you could use it to boost you up by shooting down.

[DarkWanderer]

Depending on how you do knockback it could also be potentially exploitable, like that gun in Cave Story that had so much kickback you could use it to boost you up by shooting down.

I'm not entirely opposed to small jump boosts from that. I'd imagine the gun would have enough of a cool down after each shot to prevent you from flying with it. Blast propelled height boosts could be pretty awesome.

[Hempuli‽]

Early testing of the new gun:


I'm going to have to implement invincibility frames for the enemies for this to work properly; hopefully it's not going to be that big of a hassle (we'll see...)

[DarkWanderer]

Love it already. By far more visually appealing than the prior attack pattern as well 

[TNERB]

It looks like it has much more force behind it just from the screencap alone.

[coah]

That gif looks seriously fun. The game has always looked good, but that gif really makes me want to be doing that.

[Cevo70]

Just came to say, this thread is somehow my first exposure to the game - and it looks amazing. I gotta dig through all the content now.   

[Whiteclaws]

Just came to say, this thread is somehow my first exposure to the game - and it looks amazing. I gotta dig through all the content now.   

May I say that you are stepping on a goldmine ? because I just did!

[Hempuli‽]

Thanks for the compliments!

Today I've been implementing some small changes here and there while also building the second-to-last area. The new burst gun is almost finished!
 I changed some of the very first areas to feel more desolate and ruined; initially the very second room of the game already had standard enemies. I felt it didn't really convey abandonment, so I changed that up a bit while still trying to allow the player to try out the controls and such.
 There's a whole bunch of robotic enemies that are inactivated at the beginning of the game, and only start roaming the areas after certain conditions are met. The penultimate area is basically a robotic command center, so I started thinking of possibly allowing the player to visit that area before the robots are activated. It might add a lot to the atmosphere! Maybe there's an item to be fetched from there? Thinking about it!
 I'm also going to implement a portrait system for the dialogue box; even though the player itself doesn't talk at all, there are some entities who do, and a simple portrait system might make this a bit clearer.

All in all, I've made more progress in the past 1½ weeks than in several months before, so I'd say things are looking goooood!

[DarkWanderer]

I think I love you Hempuli The design choices you just described sound terrific. I was getting visions of the abandoned Crateria Samus first traverses in Super Metroid before the entire environment comes to life. Small design things like that could, would, & will greatly affect the over all atmosphere & feeling of desolation in the game. I love it

Also Portraits could be good. I'm picturing cold & detached mugs, ominous & mysterious, a foreboding sense of uncertainty & not knowing just what exactly is addressing you. But that's my take on it, I can't wait to see your's

[JobLeonard]

Love the "oomph" of the new gun design - flavour-wise it's definitely a keeper.

[Hempuli‽]

The portraits could also be used to display information; the player starts reading a log made by some scientist and there might be some neat pictures to visualize whatever the log says.

I added some little moving bits!

[ugabuga]

That gif looks so good I want to eat it. Black and red colors look yummy.

[DarkWanderer]

It always amazes me how much mood you capture with so little. Ambient environments are more interesting than static ones as well 

[SnakeCoiler]

That looks REALLY good! Love the colors and the super metroid flakes falling. Very atmospheric!

[eigenbom]

Yeah thats supernice hempuli!

[Leon Fook]

Sorry for compare it to other game but this theme come to mind when i look at the gif. Nice work.