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The Arena's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Creativity | #14 | 4.226 | 4.226 |
| Theme | #48 | 3.742 | 3.742 |
| Overall | #72 | 3.548 | 3.548 |
| Approachability | #82 | 3.581 | 3.581 |
| Audio | #86 | 3.290 | 3.290 |
| Fun | #92 | 3.387 | 3.387 |
| Visuals | #150 | 2.903 | 2.903 |
Ranked from 31 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
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Comments
I really enjoyed the combination of puzzle and bullet hell, really interesting. Nice Job!
Thanks :) Glar you enjoyed it!
i enjoy the mix of genre! really nice concept, i think the shape of the shield made it alittle hard to judge how the bullets where gonna reflect off of it, however it was a nice little game!
Hmm a square shield perhaps, Or a single flat surface that's rotatable.
Would open things up control wise for the puzzles and the player.
Thanks for the feedback, appreciate your thoughts! :)
Really really good idea to mix bullet hell and puzzle!
I really enjoyed what you did here :)
The red and blue mechanic are also great, it reminds me of Ikaruga haha
nice job! keep it up :D
Thanks! I'm glad you enjoyed it :). And I appreciate the feedback!
I'll check out Ikaruga :).
Had fun with this one, creative concept :)
Thanks a lot :), glad you enjoyed!
Very interesting concept, got fun playing this one.
Although I think that the lifes mechanic is unnecessary. Besides that, nice entry!
hmm interesting take having he invincible shields never end. No ship death. Might have pushed things to be seen higher skilled solutions to puzzles required. Used the Shield system to put some time pressure on the player to try their solutions. Kept the recharge time quite quick to avoid waiting around in between.
Appreciate the feedback, will give it some thought :).
Thanks!
Amazing game! So good, nice graphics, concept and gameplay! Congratulations!
Thanks! I really glad you enjoyed it :)
Very creative take on the genre, you did a good job, well done!
Thanks a lot! Glad you enjoyed it, and thanks for the feedback
Really cool game! Although the tutorial had way too much text, it was rather intuitive! The controls are rather finnicky, I would have prefferednif you could have held the mouse button to move… The sound design is very well made and the visuals are really cool! An interesting concept, well done. :D
Happily taking suggestions on improved controls :). Been contemplating keyboard, but held mouse button sounds quite good to.
Thanks for playing and the feedback!
No problem :D
Cool take on a bullet hell game, combining it with the puzzle genre. Tutorial had a lot of text was a bit overwhelming at first, but unique idea that could go an extra mile!
Thanks for playing :)
First go at making a tutorial, and yeah, I may have squeezed in to much. :)
Glad you enjoyed!
I really quite like this game. I like how the bullets bouncing becomes a puzzle to figure out where to place the player. I do think that maybe using WASD or arrow keys would have been a better choice for the movement, clicking to move is kinda hard to position into just the right spot. Other than that, fantastic job!
My own fault for trying to keep it playable on mobile (foolishly)
Thanks for playing! Appreciate it, and the review :).
Loving this! The visuals and music compliment each other really well and it runs very smoothly for that amount of particles.
Thanks. Appreciate it :).
I like it, very creative!! Could be more challenging tho, It's really straight forward how to beat the levels, gameplay is very methodic. But overall it's very creative, a different way to look at a bullet hell game. nice :)
That's fair, may have made the shield a touch to long. Room to improve and expand :).
Thanks for the feedback, much appreciated.
sure thing, great job!! :D
Super unique puzzle-bullet hell concept! My only complaint is that it’s hard to make finer movements by clicking, and would prefer if you could use the keyboard to move.
fair comment on the controls. Was trying to keep it vaguely mobile playable as well :) (foolishy :P) and agree that something like keyboard controls could have fine tuned placement more.
Thanks for playing and the feedback, and congrats on Escaping The Arena! :)
cool concept, nice art, the low res arena was a bit offputting though. Good game!
as in the floor itself? or the Arena round wall as well?
Thanks for playing, I appreciate the feedback!
just the wall
great concept and execution. proof that not all bullet hells are the same :)
Thanks :). Tried to keep things like, a LOT of bullets :), and patterns being created (in the streams the bullets made), and danger in the spray of bullets bouncing off your shield as the timer counted down,.. but mixed into a puzzle environment.
Hope it came together as a fun game to play. Thanks for playing and rating!
The ship's control could be more precise. Great puzzle.
Thanks for playing and the feedback.
It does go exactly where you click, but I think its more to do with the player loosing the location of the mouse, and how that relates to the ship. Perhaps a more keyboard control with arrow keys would have given more control on tweaking the position just right. Something in there on that from that needs improvement.
Hope you enjoyed the rest of it :)
Nice idea ! Nice interpretation of theme ! Well done !
Thanks for playing and reviewing! :)
Wow. This was a super refreshing idea for a bullet-hell! I developed a chaotic stress-fest and this was relaxing. Super cool to see the different point of views. High overall rating. Would be cool to see a bit more sound design but the sound track was awesome, but I'm very understanding of that. Good job!
What's missing from the sound design?
I did debate adding in gun shooting, and shield reflection noises, but felt with so many bullets, it'd become to much, and you'd miss more important sound effects from the Teleport and shield.
But be really interested to know what you'd do different on that front
thanks for playing and reviewing :)
Wow. This was a super refreshing idea for a bullet-hell! I developed a chaotic stress-fest and this was relaxing. Super cool to see the different point of views. High overall rating. Would be cool to see a bit more sound design but the sound track was awesome, but I'm very understanding of that. Good job!
The creativity takes the cake on this one to me!
Because of the static nature of the enemies, the game doesn't have that sense of constant danger that bullet hells tend to have. In fact, this played more like a puzzle to me - which was a nice surprise, in fact!
Art and audio aren't great but that's understandable given this is a solo game that uses asset pack stuff. Everything felt well implemented, though, particularly in the transitions - both visually and in audio, the game start and the teleport transitions are pretty smooth and work pretty well.
The Arena looked like a Petri dish to me for some reason, so going in I expected this to be a game about bacteria or nanobots! Nonetheless, the circular arena does a nice job of making the player feel confined particularly due to the reflective walls and how those interact with the bullet paths.
In fact, random spray from moving in and out of bullet paths was the one thing that really gave me danger since in some cases the bullets can spread around very chaotically and still be around when your shield depletes. However, patience and careful thinking got me through the game safely!
Thanks for playing, and for the review! :).
Hoped the danger element comes from when the shields running low, and the bullets are bouncing :). Things can get a bit more tough by the end, but perhaps some more balancing on difficulty needed really.