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A jam submission

Zodiac Ranger IIIView game page

Submitted by PikonParadox, J_Ontiveros, lesflaya (@lesflaya) — 1 day, 21 hours before the deadline
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Zodiac Ranger III's itch.io page

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Comments

Submitted

Great game ! Fluid gameplay, nice graphics and sound !
I like the concept, and the idea of using gravity to help navigate space - this is also sort of what adds to the difficulty though, controlling the ship is hard, and it feels like luck to not collide with things (for me anyway)
Holding space did do a burst of shots, but true continuous fire would help me a lot :)
Thanks for cheats, or I would have never beaten this game !

Developer

Thanks a lot for playing and for the feedback! I'll keep in mind to make things less challenging for future!

For better movement use thrust rarely instead of holding the button down continuously. Anyway, I'm glad cheats came in handy!

Submitted

Good game with a bit of challenge!

Gravity works nicely, it forced me to think differently and I could see different approaches to the level. Giving momentum from the start was quite clever BTW.

I don't have much negative things to say. 

Maybe the shooting part was a bit weird? Once I realized I could shoot continuously it felt like shooting all the time was a good strategy (but should it be?), but before that it felt a bit too hard to target the enemies.

Developer

Thank you for playing and for the feedback!

At present, continuous shooting is the best strategy. The little ammo reload gap helps reduce spam to an extent. I chose to go this way since aiming is hard (flying too) and I haven't seriously worked on shooting games before.

I'll try to think of a way to improve aiming and balance shooting too.

Submitted

Nice game! I specially liked the gameplay, simple but effective. The sound design is also very good, well done

Developer

Thank you for playing and the feedback! Did you find anything difficult? What do you think could be changed for a more enjoyable experience?

Submitted (1 edit)

Hi! I would say the  difficulty was medium, reminded me of old arcade games (I guess that was the intention actually).  Not too hard but neither too easy. The goal to master the game is clear, you just have to get there.

Reg. what to improve, of course variety of enemies can always be increased, right? or different enemy patterns, or an extra layer of enemies further away. 

But I honestly find that kind of cheap feedback, so I can also suggest you to add an extra mechanic to give the player a second chance. 

Controls are hard to master because changing the direction requires some time, it is not immediate. So if you are heading an enemy, it is hard to not die. That the key of the game I would say, so all good there. But, you could add a mechanic to be a bit more forgiving with mistakes. 

For example, you could slightly slow down the time right before colliding with an enemy, so the player has a bit more of buffer time to react. The feeling of saving the day right at the last sec is awesome and could spice up the gameplay! 

Or you could add a "parry" mechanic, so the player can press a key right before colliding an enemy, so instead of dying, they would bounce back from the enemy and has now a bit of time to react and change direction. 

Just random ideas :) I hope it helps, in general very good game! 

Developer

That's really great feedback and suggestions. 

The key to better movement is to use thruster occasionally to adjust direction rather than constantly thrusting "forward."  This allows you to rely on gravity/inertia for primary movement.

I'll keep your input in mind for future and try and implement better mechanics. Thanks a lot <3 really appreciate it.

Submitted(+1)

Cool game! Very compulsive and I like that you can jump back in as soon as you die. I would have preferred being able to shoot instantly, but only because I kept losing 😂

Developer

Thank you for playing and the feedback!

What did you mean by being able to shoot instantly? Increased missile speed or...?

Submitted

No that was actually a typo 😂 I meant to say infinitely because I kept dying as I was reloading, but as I say that may just be a skill issue on my part

Developer (1 edit) (+1)

That makes sense. I'll try to come up with ways to make it feel less difficult. Thanks a lot for sharing.

Submitted(+1)

I like the the sfx and orbiting around the star, the dificulty was almost not being able to move forward without being dragged back in and killed, maybe making the enemy hitbox bigger or adding aim assist or removeingthe reload time would help. I tried for a while and wasnt even close to beat it, congratulations for the game.

Developer(+1)

Thank you for playing and the feedback!

The trick is to move around the star using gravity assist (inertia) rather than staying in one region for long.

I'll try to think of a way to balance aiming and shooting some more!

Submitted(+1)

I think I'm starting to get the controls. I still can't beat the first level though. Awesome game

Developer

Thank you for playing and the feedback!

I'll try to balance the difficulty level some more.

Developer

Some of you may be visited by Wohn in Credits page. Do not be alarmed. He's just passing by.

Submitted(+1)

This game feels fantastic to play! It controls so well and the hit feedback is super satisfying. The orbital positioning of the enemies combined with the circle in the middle gives it a really good aesthetic flow, this is a really nice game to look at

Developer(+1)

Thank you for playing the game and for the feedback! I hope movement did not feel too challenging.

Submitted

It was honestly a little bit difficult to get used to at first but once I got used to it it was very smooth sailing

Developer(+1)

Awesome. Thank you for letting me know!