The controls are confusing exactly because you have a excessive amount of weapons, and it is unclear what they do, and the controls change between them.
I mean, why 1, 2, 3 select some weapons, but not others?
What is the purpose of the other special weapons? The tutorial only said to me what buttons trigger them.
And the controls are bad because it is a excessive amount of buttons...
Contrast that to Radiant Silvergun, although it had 7 weapons, you could trigger any weapon you wished with only 3 buttons (mind you, it was designed for Sega controllers, that were guaranteed to have at least 3 face buttons).
In fact, I think most other ship shooters I know never have more than 3 buttons...
Hello,
Thank you for taking the time to post!
There is a difference between special abilities (the Needle Launcher), secondary weapons (Shift and Ctrl) and primary weapons. Primary weapons have no ammo limit but they overheat while secondary weapons have an ammo limit.
There are only 3 main weapons (the ones that can overheat), and 1, 2, and 3 switches between them as well as the scroll wheel. And you have Shift and Ctrl for the secondary weapons (the ones that have an energy meter).
The purpose for the secondary weapons is to put more firepower on the enemy when needed (like bosses). Also they are used in some challenges and some enemies (that are not in the demo) are more vulnerable to thous weapons.
It was a design decision I made in early development so that
the player can fire 2 or more weapons at the same time... You can shoot the primary weapon (1, 2 or 3) AND the secondary weapons (Shift or Ctrl)
at the same time.
I could have easily put the weapons from 1 to 5 but then how could you use two or more weapons at once? Also I would have scrapped the energy drops from the enemies that recharge the secondary weapons.
I don't know why you are under the impression there are too many buttons, they all fit on an Xbox360 controller.
The game does have more buttons that your standard ship shooter... but why is that a bad thing? Why should I copy other games? I provided players with the ability to activate their shield whenever they want, slow down time whenever they want, use drones whenever they want... you need buttons for these things, also you can play the game without using secondary weapons or shields or slow down time... I don't use everything myself, I just gave players options to play how they want.
Hope I provided relevant information. If you have any other questions or feedback please feel free to submit it. I'll do my best to answer.
Cheers!
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