Game's Take on the Theme
All the bosses either spin or require you to spin around them. See descriptions for each of the bosses in the game page.
Did your team make the majority of the art and music during the jam?
Yes
If not, please link to any asset packs or resources used here.
VFX are mostly from Cartoon Coffee, other minor assets used listed in the game description.
Hey There! :)
I wanted to take a closer look at every game, but unfortunately, time is running out - there's only O N E hour left. So I'll mainly be rating based on graphics and concept - and what I see looks awesome! Hopefully, these "few" stars will help in some way, and it gives me a good feeling to be able to rate every game!
Wishing you all the best! ;)
Ps.: really love this graphic style, great visuals and animations!
Nicely polished game! I like how the dash is designed to require actual planning and avoid spamming. The only thing that frustrated me was the mouse aim, I did not like how the mouse followed the ship movements and it was the only thing that kept messing me up. Otherwise, game was good.
Really cool game design! I had trouble with the controls and the difficulty of the bosses, I didn't get far, but I liked the art and sounds! Congrats on submission. Feel free to try our game if you like!
A very cool game! I really liked how you implemented the tutorial—it was very intuitive! The boss fights are fun, and the game is challenging but fair (which is great). Excellent work!
Nice one with polished visuals and sounds. However there's something that bothers me is that if i move the character it moves the cursor also. After you make a mouse movement you can get the controls back. This looks like a parent child object issue but overall the game is good. Well done.
The cursor movement was an intentional decision. The cursor is not a child of the player and there are a couple tweaks to clamp it away from the window borders. The main goal was to make it work properly with the dash mechanic as it ensures that you are still pointing the same way your were before dashing, otherwise often you’d get flipped around. I overlooked the impact on shooting and I may need to rethink that going forward. Thanks for your comments, these give us great motivation to continue improving the game.
I like a lot the visuals, the perspective feels really nice, the graphics show this sci fi air and all the lore gives us a lot more. The mechanic to move and shoot is really effective and the bars on top of enemy and barriers are really helping. I rate graphics, fun and control on top but all is nice really, also, if you have some time, please, rate my game too, thanks!!!
I liked it, the dash mechanic was different and cool, the boss fight was fun. If you want to, you can rate my game back!
I really liked this unique dash! I wish I'd been better at using it! Only against the snake do I think I made good use of it!
As for the aiming, I had mixed feelings. The fact that the aiming cursor follows our mouse but also moves with our character makes ranged attacks more complicated than they appear. You can't simply place your cursor on your opponent and spam him with mouse clicks. And that's a good thing! But I spent a lot of time looking for my aiming cursor!
Also, our life gauge is really small. Admittedly, death doesn't really affect us, except in terms of our best time. But the last boss really gave me a hard time and, towards the end of the fight, I was dying literally every five seconds, which was a bit irritating.
The reason I'm giving you this feedback is that the game frustrated me at times, even though it has real potential! Especially as the bosses are all very different, and the universe is really very interesting. Anyway, congratulations on all your hard work :D
It is very rough, in many aspects. I'll probably follow this with a bombardment, but I do believe it says something that despite all the roughness, I didn't feel frustrated or bored to the point I didn't want to finish it. Perhaps it'd be more adequate to consider it semi-polished, rather than very rough, as truly rough experiences I can't get to the end even if you pay me to.
Starting with your character:
CONTROLS: I don't think giving me 360° controls is a wise idea in any way, it is terrible to control the game like that. Personally, I'm not a fan of Y axis in shoot'em ups even, but I may be an extremist. Shoot forwards and backwards, that is all you need. And thus you design enemies which may 360° around the player, but they're still only oriented on the X, forward or backwards. Your most vertical battle, the saw thing, was the best battle because it was faux-vertical.
GIMMICK: Your fun thing is the teleport, but 1) using it deals so much damage it looks like I'm cheesing the boss and it isn't the intended way to play. At the same time, using the teleport is awful, due to the excess of freedom, mobility of the enemy and ceaseless but not highlighted enemy fire. Shooting the ship isn't that fun or engaging, but teleporting is, I think you should bank on that to develop the game further. It is in a way a dash function conceptually, but with how must it needs to charge, it doesn't work as such effectively. A tap for a quick teleport and a hold for a long one could be desirable.
BOSS DESIGN: It is with a heavy heart I must say they got gradually worse. The first one was simple, and already kind of messy. I like the idea of a boss with long arms changing the shape of the arena you can fight him, but the enemy attacks are so quick (in that theres no build up and they move fast) and so little flashy that you'll die to them without noticing they came out, and also not feel anything. There's no room for "i should have dodged that" or "i totally dodged that," as it doesnt register as a dodgeable attack before or after it happens. This works as a test build, as the infinite lives makes you not feel frustrated, but if it ever to become an arcade experience with limited continues/lives, it'd be impossible to tank.
The second boss while worse due to being duo-axis, is a very good tutorial on how to fight a boss with your teleport mechanic, and if you decide to make the game more centered on that, it is a good starting boss to get the player learning on how to fight by teleporting.
The snake is a terrible boss because the longer the battle goes, more a pinpoint place you have to hit with your awkward aiming. Thanks to the infinite respawns, I just camped where it comes from to hit the final layers, but then the head couldn't be teleported through nor camped, so i had to follow it and it was a true test of patience.
The final thing is very awkwardly designed. The idea of a boss with hittable parts that open in intervals itself isn't weird, but destroying a part to damage the boss' total health, then it immediately returns at full health and continues shooting and the cycle of shielded part continues isn't very good conceptually. Personally I'd rather it not come back, but you can also make it become a weak point, an opening that doesn't shoot anymore, or just give it a few minutes of regen, and it is back to being active once it replenishes its entire health. Also sad that teleporting has no function against it, but maybe you noticed that and to force a teleport, the player spawns behind a laser wall, which is honestly terrible and kills the rhythm of the fight. Every death having me respawn in a cell I need to break out of (and the hitbox is bugged in a part I think, you try to teleport through it and die). There's a lot going on, but at the same there's little going in this fight, since it's more like everything is hidden behind so many walls you just can't stretch out. It's a small chore, not the climax, the relief you feel when it's over is because work is done.
BOSS DESIGN 2: Alien civilization made these to keep THEM in, but I kept wondering what are these to begin with? What function do they have, what are they fighting with? A giant with saw hands, a crab, a snake and a coral reef don't quite communicate to me a shared function, a goal as weapons of containment. As bosses for your game, I can see them as just the boss thats a worm/snake, the boss with long range, the boss with many parts, the boss with a shield, but in your narrative, I can't put together what they are for, why they were made this way. The saw boss I could see as being a lumberjack for this society, the others are a total mystery. Designing along with the story you're making can make the world and the machines more memorable to players, and I recommend tackling them with these two things in mind if you can.
HOMEWORK: Consider playing Zero Ranger and Zone of the EndersAnubis/Second Runner. ZoE 2 has this teleporting mechanic that is really good, serves as movement and as an attack, and you also find bosses designed around you having that skill when you get it. Zero Ranger is 2D and can show you how to work on the X axis, ZoE is 3D and can help you with thinking quantum movement mechanics in 3D environments.
Best of luck, thank you for asking me to be thorough in my feedback, it's a pleasure!
Hey, thanks so much for such detailed feedback. I’d take any constructive feedback over positive platitudes any time.
There are many points in your feedback that were contentious discussions among the team members (firing was at one point upwards, the crab was the first boss, the last boss didn’t respawn parts once destroyed,…). It is great to confirm these from player feedback instead of our own biases and we can easily bring some of those in an update after the judging ends.
The story was written in parallel to the game development and we intentionally wanted to leave it on a cliffhanger. I see why it can feel a little disconnected from the game. I hope we can onboard a writer to the team for a future update.
Zone of the Enders added to my watchlist. Zero Ranger I’ve already played to an obsessive extend, even recording my playthrough to study it frame by frame.
Thanks again!
Game is unplayable on browser for me, a real shame because looks really really nice.
The boss mechanics are well thought out and the art and sfx are great.
I would make the ship movement a tad faster and the shooting feel more "weighty".
With the timer on the screen I wanted to stay in the action instead of fight, read,
fight, read, but my game has that issue too lol.
Other than that I think the theme was executed well and I had a lot of fun!
Great job!
The timer is stopped during cutscenes, and each stage has its own individual timer (I had planned on showing per-boss times, they are stored, I just need to bring them up). I’ll look into adding some more juice to the shooting. I really wanted to emphasize the dashing and I may have overlooked the namesake of the genere :|
i struggled seeing the enemy projectiles while shooting myself on first boss. i tried to use the same shader for the water in my game and it was lagging it out alot. so i experienced low fps here aswell. i think adjusting / replacing it will increase performance in browser immensely. thanx for sharing. im definitely taking some ideas from your boss mechanics! :)
i struggled seeing the enemy projectiles while shooting myself on first boss. i tried to use the same shader for the water in my game and it was lagging it out alot. so i experienced low fps here aswell. i think adjusting / replacing it will increase performance in browser immensely. thanx for sharing. im definitely taking some ideas from your boss mechanics! :)
I really liked the boss designs. They all felt and looked very unique. Having to target different parts of the boss at different stages is a nice feature. SFX and Music fit well with the rest of the game too.
For improvements, I had a lot of problems with the controls. I don't know if this is a bug, but my cursor moved when the ship moved. It was a constant battle between moving the ship and moving my mouse to keep the cursor in any one place. I'd also say the final boss is a bit too spammy. maybe lower the number of projectiles for that one.
Cool game concept though, good job!
Nice fun game, though last boss a bit too spammy with his projectiles, can't really use RMB there, cuz it requires too much time to charge the shield, unless I missed something
Very fun game. The look of the game is great and fighting each of these bosses felt very good. I especially love the dashing in this game, it’s very satisfying and fun to do. Good job!
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