Wow, this is cool. From the way you described it I thought it was going to be something like another twitch-reflex style Canabalt-like game (but IN SPAAAACE!!), but the gameplay video really caught my attention.
Glad you liked it! The gameplay description does come across as far more interesting when I show it. It's fun (and more fun now that I added some left/right movement to asteroids/blocks).
* Why does the speed counter go to 800? Why not just make it go to 1000 (so after 999 it's MAX)? Not a big deal, but some people may find it irritating. Granted, these are the same people who get irritated that guitar amps go to 11, but still... (and also, a >>>>> kind of bar would look sweet in the speed counter)
The general idea was that when you complete all waves, the max speed goes up. Though as I've added more waves, completing all waves has also become more difficult and many people will never see this increase. I may just end up increasing max speed a little each wave instead. Then the max speed will vary and 800 will be more acceptable.
* One thing that would be really cool would be to have obstacles that, once shot, would deflect on an alternate path instead of being destroyed.
I like that idea. I don't think I want to do that for all objects, but for a select few it would be cool.
* On that note, it might be cool to have a separate multiplayer mode where each player gets one life, and when he dies, the other player has to collect a certain number of coins to revive the other player, and with each death the cost increases. Could be cool, and fair for scoring...
Based on this feedback and some other feedback I've received, I'm going to consider some new modes of play. I think this would be a good one (collect X number of coins to respawn dead players, game ends if everyone is dead).
* The music is fantastic, no doubt about that. However, one thing that caught my ear is that very few actual retro arcade games actually use a chip-like kind of sound. Galaxian, Xevious, 1942, and pretty much every Namco shmup used a
very distinct organ-ish sound. But then again, those games really didn't have much music at all, so what you have is definitely more than an improvement. Just something to think about in case you consider expanding the soundtrack.
Glad you like the music, I have a very good musician that does this work for me (I use him for most of my game music). I probably won't be adding new music to this game, but if I did, I would want to keep in the current style.
* I personally like the graphics, but that's just personal preference.
Thanks! I'm sure some do, some don't. Hopefully more do, and people seem to like them better in motion than static screenshots.
* Three words: "KAIZO MODE UNLOCKED". Like, the "WAVE 1" sign will kill you. Yeah. ;-)
I've had a few suggestions on the "Wave 1" signs... killing the player isn't probably fair, but perhaps hitting into them and exploding would be okay or maybe shooting them.
I'm really looking forward to seeing how this turns out. From what I've seen, it's gonna be epic...
Thanks! I hope it will be epic! I'm aiming for a July release so I've still got time to cram in a few extra things. I've never been adverse to taking extra time on a release too in order to improve it (my last game for instance was supposed to take 3-4 months and it took 8 ) .