Hi,
I've played the game, it's pretty good, I think it has potential. Here's some feedback:
0. Music is nice
1. At the intro screen when the red text is typing there's some jumpyness. Like when one line ends the word at the end of the
line suddenly jumps to the next line, so it's hard to keep up with the text. IMO it's better to keep the letters where they were
2. DOS-like setup screen is nice, but i would add some artificial delay and a black screen with command
prompt before and after it, i.e. to make an impression that one program exited and then another started from the DOS shell
3. At the "select system" screen I can't really select anything, only "culina inferni". Those other systems
are typed in red - means they're locked ? That's not very obvious, m.b. a lock icon over them would be better...
4. In the game itself, the background and foreground objects are of the same tone, so it's hard to distinguish
them. It's better to make background objects less saturated. I never played stargunner, but after looking at youtube
video here -
I see that background objects there a bit less saturated, perhaps
you should do the same.
5. I managed to reach the first boss (from 4th or 5th try on normal skill) and beat him, but when the boss died he somehow
killed me and there was "game over" for me. I'm not sure what it was and why i died, m.b. because of the boss's explosion.
IMO boss death sequence shouldn't harm the player, i.e. I already won, right
Why killing me afterwards ?
6. When the ship dies its exhaust effect continues to fly, is it a bug ?
7. When the ship flies on a mission there's a small cutscene. In the background there're some kind of boxes, I'm not sure I understand what they are... m.b. just remove them or change them to something else...
8. Regarding ship control, the ship has pretty low velocity damping, so that when I move down I can't immediately go up, because of that
it's pretty hard to dodge enemy projectiles. In general, I feel like I'm slow and my enemies are faster than me, m.b. it should be vice versa.
9. When my ship died and the pilot was flying there in open space it somehow managed to turn back into a ship after some time.
I didn't understand why that happened. But after playing some more I realised that it was because of a checkpoint, i.e. when the
pilot hits a checkpoint it turns back into a ship. m.b. make it more obvious somehow...
10. The pilot is even harder to control, it has less velocity damping than the ship, basically when your ship
is destroyed and you're in pilot mode - this means death in a few seconds, unless there's a checkpoint nearby
11. After 8th attempt I've beaten the first boss and that took me to the shop screen. IMO the same shop screen is
needed at the start of the game, i.e. I need to be able to shop before the first level as well.
12. It was a bit hard to shop, I had to click the item several times to buy it. Sometimes the
item that I bought only appeared in the slot after I pressed arrow keys.
13. The second level. I liked the second level more that the 1st one, it looks better.
14. The blue walls - I thought it was a background, so I hit them and lost some health. These need to be less saturated, see comments above.
15. The second boss dies easy and fast, but his attacks are pretty random and undodgeable, I would have probably died if it wasn't for
powerups that I bought
16. 3rd level is even nicer, I liked the waterfalls and stuff.
17. Enemies don't collide with walls, so when enemy dies powerup is left inside a wall.
18. 3rd level boss - much nicer, there's a way to dodge his attacks. I've actually defeated him without loosing much life. He only got me
with his red bullets a few times.
19. 4th level is hard, i died there right at the start, too many enemies and too many projectiles were flying at me, hard to dodge.
And when I wanted to replay it it turned out that I had to start from level 1. m.b. it's better to keep the progress...
20. I think that the game would benefit from post-processing, i.e. it has old-school style, so m.b. try some scanline pixel shaders or
something like that
21. No way to exit to main menu while playing, I had to kill the game process to exit.
22. Ship's secondary attack - I didn't quite use it, I don't know why. There has to be a way
to make the player use it, but I can't think of it right now...
So, that's my feedback
Hope it helps. Good luck with your game!
Developer
