I win!

That art is great, Starflier. My first thought was it was the OP doing concept art and "making it look old". I was like, "NOOOOO.. it looks great before!".

So, I should have put some explaination into my post I guess... These are just the character avatars (For dialogue I'm guessing? I still haven't played the game yet) On the left are my concepts, on the right, the finished project. I tried to stay true to the visual feel of the game; all the colours were taken directly from screen shots, (Except the King's white) and the characters are built out of squares.

Spaceship... O.O

The levels are looking... um, Boss! Yes I think "Boss" is the appropriate adjective for how the levels look ^^

Are you going to be able to plug in elements from your previous stabs at this concept or are you having to start right back at the proverbial stone age?

Thinking maybe I should darken that background a bit :/

I win!

I had a good bit of fun playing this one, I especially like the little surprises - like the heart taking a life - and the fact that it keeps track of everything one could possibly keep track of.

I really appreciate how open you've made the game's inner workings. It takes me back to the mid-90s, when my brother and I would tweak and skin every shareware game that would let us. Actually, the game itself just has that awesome 90s "1000-Games-In-One" CD-ROM feel to it. (I mean that in a good way, really)

...or maybe aim for a healthy integration, not using both at the same time but switching between memory and platforming difficulty?

Well, or make the platforming difficulty come out of the memory challenge. The thing is... There's a LOT of platformers out there. I'm pretty sure just about everything you could call a jumping puzzle has been done. You have a relatively unique concept here, and I feel like it would be best served if the focus were put onto your gimmick mechanic, rather than the ones we've all played before.

That said, putting some basic jumping puzzles early on, in levels that don't require much color inversion - just to give the player time to gain a feel for the character - would be a nice way to ease players in.

I read this set of articles recently, they might be of some interest: How are puzzle games designed?

As much as I like the compliments on my art style, I honestly wanted to know more what people thought on the side of the background-color-changing concept.

I like that there's a memory element, in that things you can't see are still there, so you need to remember where they are or die. If you focus on that as the source of difficulty, rather than platforming challenge this could be a very fun game. Having to remember where everything is AND make a next-to-impossible Super Meatboy jump could turn out to be annoying.

[27/6/2011 update]

27/6/2011 update

I've added a sort of reverse-collectible. As you explore the asteroid explored areas are marked with a little cross. I feel this encourages exploration and aids localisation in an otherwise featureless environment.

Let me know what you think. As ever, I will continue to ponder the future of this project. I am growing to love its non-game-ness.

The crosses certainly help keep oriented, the only other thing that would be nice would be some co-ordinates in the corner so that players could talk about areas that they found in different asteroids. Noctis did this on a somewhat larger scale, but similar concept.

Also, have you seen this game? Space Game : Mujakwi It's like you both started with the same concept, then took it completely different directions...

I'd say stick with it, though if you do, please make the wall jump a little easier to handle

I like that the difficulty adjusts to your ability, but the game maintains the feeling of a merciless arcade game. This is up there with Super Crate Box in the "pick up and play for 15 minutes now-and-then catagory"

I really like this one. I was kind of skeptical about this line: "Sen is a musical puzzle game that allows you to compose songs in a way that no game really has before" But the mechanic is a fairly unique one, and the way it works with the music is perfect.

I couldn't rush into this one, I had to slow down and figure out what I was trying to do, what all the parts did. I think you achieve what you're aiming for in that regard.

Beautiful game overall <3

I'm with the school that says it's beautiful as it is. I did find myself wanting to collect things, But it doesn't seem like an experience that should be "completed" or "won" so I don't know. Maybe if the generation script made crystal formations or space-plants, things that could be "discovered" rather than "collected".

Some nice atmospheric musical sound cues would do wonders here too.

This is really pretty looking. You've done a good job of making it "Not Minecraft" which I suppose isn't hugely important, but it's always nice to be distinctive.

It looks like it should be a show on Treehouse. But in a good way. 

It all feels really good so far. The way the mouse movement works either by either clicking at the end point, or clicking and dragging is especially effective for darting under cover, which is basically all you're doing movement-wise. I also like that when an alien is close behind you as you run away, you automatically turn around to shoot at it. Elegant as that is however, it brings up the first issue I had:

I get the whole shift of focus, and the pool-style gameplay is a lot of fun. But as it stands, there's nothing to keep you from getting an alien to chase you, then shooting it 'till it dies. In other words, you could win the game without ever using the core mechanic. I think you'd be better off removing the machine guns altogether, and just give each character an assortment of weapons and special items that use the grenade mechanic, with actually encountering the aliens being something to avoid at all costs. (Maybe you kill them when you run into them, but it damages you as well)

There's so many cool variations on weapons that can use that grenade mechanic... Cluster bombs, seekers, Mines, Sticky bombs, Flame throwers. You could even make a more powerful machine gun with limited ammo, so, like, you run into a room full of baddies and start pegging them off. A shotgun and a sniper rifle would be cool too. Even non-weapons, like electric walls, an area scanner (For letting you see what type of alien those blips are), or portable wormholes, could be thrown in a similar manner.

If you do end up getting rid of the standard machine gun, the right mouse button should be deligated to a passive power, like invisibility, or Red's old jump ability. Something that will make it easier to run away from murderous aliens, but only has one or two uses.

Oh, and the new set-up makes this one of the easiest to play with a laptop touchpad games I've ever played. Just so you know

This seems to have a lot of potential. It's fun as-is, I love how chaotic it gets after a while.

Right now it's really easy to just stay near the planet and dart out for rocks, then back in to cash them. There's not any real reason to fly any further into space. Maybe have the aliens drop different kinds of items that need to be cashed in at different planets? Or maybe one planet gives you points, one gives you health, and one gives you weapon powerups, or something.

As for alien powers, I don't think they should shoot anything, it's already enough like a bullet hell without any bullets. But if you gave them different movements, (one moves faster the closer you are to it, one will suddenly stop, then dart towards you, One darts around in circles) And maybe give some of them extra armor, or make them effect you somehow on collision, (slow you down, make you unable to fire, reverse your controls)

Played through to Floor 25, couldn't find a ladder. COULD walk off the edge of the level into some serious "Nothing out here" blacky stuff.

The game is a hoot though. I like that the puzzles give some leeway, most Sokoban games don't let you screw up at all, this one gives you a couple pushes to realize that you're doing something wrong. Some kind of undo button would be nice anyway, There's a couple floors that required several steps, and I had to restart because I accidentally pushed a rock the wrong way.

The purple things in "Three Rooms" got me thinking: When/if you implement background music, it would be neat to take into consideration the fact that everything has a rhythm already, in the way they move, and try to make the music work with those rhythms.

"Inside a Star Filled Sky" did this by giving each enemy its own piece of music, that together with the other enemies on screen made a constantly changing sound scape.

Even if each enemy had a string of notes and played one with each step, that would be interesting.

Very nice. This is the sort of space shooter that just makes me all fuzzy inside ^^
I didn't go very far, because I need to sleep, but I could have played for another several hours anyway. I love the rock-throwing and cloning bosses!

Okay, so played a little more, and actually have some of the feedback you asked for. But first: Are the mission types and spawners coming back? I miss them

Here's some ideas I had for items that each character could have in his arsenal:
Yellow (Artillery):
Grenade - Current special
Mine - Pretty self-explanatory
Heavy Turret - Can't move once placed. Yellow must be guarding close to it for it to work.
Shot Power boost - Increases the strength of all character's bullets for a time. Wears off faster when Yellow moves.

Blue (Trapper):
Machete - Current special
Walls - Two nodes are placed, and as long as Blue is on one of them, an electric wall is powered up between them. The wall slowly fades after Blue leaves (Maybe wall electrocutes aliens rather than just stopping them)
Alien Bait - Calls all the aliens in the level (Or an area of effect) towards Blue
Stealth Field - As long as Blue doesn't move, Aliens can't see him. (wears off over time)

Red (Physicist)
C-Jump - Current special
Portal Generator - Drop two nodes and portals are created on both. Walk through one to come out the other. (Maybe Red needs to be guarding nearby for it to work?)
Tesla Coil - Light, chain-forming damage on nearby enemies. Red needs to be guarding nearby for this to work
Tractor Beam - Pick up and throw enemies or guarding characters
Reload Boost - Increases reload speed of all characters. Wears off over time, more quickly if Red is moving

Green (Chronomancer)
Bullet Time - Current special, but fades more quickly when green moves
Time Clones - "ghost" team that follows your team's actions, starting at the beginning of the level
Freeze Ray - Stops anything hit by the beam, wears off eventually
Speed Trap - Slows down anything in it's area of effect. More effective the closer Green is to it.

AUGH!

That was so epic! I got to the boss, and we were down to a hitpoint each, then I lost.

This game reminds me of Scott Pilgrim and Dragon Ball Z for some reason.

Also: The portal gun. lol