We all loved the visuals. One of our favorite title screens. It was a lot of fun but we ran into the same problem oyog did with one player camping the bottom of the screen.
After some experimenting we realized that the higher player gets the advantage in collisions, but this didn't seem to be enough to "retake" the bottom. To ram the enemy you have to try to land on them which makes you an easy target. Also it takes some time to get down there which gives the lower player some chances to shoot you.
We all agreed something needs to entice the players enough to stay in the middle of the arena. King of the Hill style gameplay isn't bad, but it's no fun to have the "top of the hill" near the margins of the map... always bouncing off the bottom of the screen -- it's much cooler to be up near the floating platforms.
So.. how do we keep players there? The repair pickup didn't seem to be enough. Maybe if players could attack below them, the bottom of the screen would loose its advantage and players would stay near the platforms -- using them as obstacles to hide behind?
Maybe the cannon could aim in a 180° arc in front of the player instead of just the top 90°? Or there could be an alternate kind of attack. Depth charges?
Or, there could be other things the players have to collect around the platforms. Maybe they have to pickup ammo, or something that increases their score?
Other thoughts:
- We liked the slower pace/longer rounds. But we thought the rounds might be a little too long.
- We didn't have any technical problems the other day, but I just tried the game on my computer and everything is going much too fast! Could the game be frame rate dependent? Or maybe it's just a bug.
- Score text could be a little bigger. We played on a TV/couch and it was a little difficult to read the scores.
- Could be my personal favorite visuals of the whole compo.
Thanks!