Judge feedback

Judge feedback is anonymous and shown in a random order.

• Nicely implemented art style, the default camera remains problematic when geometry is introduced which can obscure the player.  Death FX for the enemies would help with emotional feedback - currently just disappearing is somewhat underwhelming.  Saw bug where player respawned with the money, scoring mechanism is less than obvious.

• Great stuff. Love the music. The game reminds me of Hotline Miami. 
  Love the different abilities you did.

  It's a little hard :) Maybe awarding score per kill (remove that score on death) might help with hitting the goal.

• While the game production was well executed I struggled a bit to play this game. This is partially because I'm not good at twitch games, but here's a tip - it's very easy for a game to end up too hard because the developer plays it all the time and gets used to it; at the end of the day a professional game must attract as many players as possible, so difficulty must be balanced to a wider audience. Of course a difficulty option is the usual solution to this. Here's a few specific points that could aid the playability balance  …

  The one shot death is OK in principle, but when AI attack you simultaneously from multiple directions it can seem unfair. This is especially so when the AI are nearly 100% accurate. This game needed the AI spawning phased better and some randomisation in the AI aiming. Seeing a bullet just missing is a good cue to the player to dodge. I used the shield but it never seemed long enough for me, and I did try dodging, but that made aiming more difficult so I'd still get overwhelmed.  Also when I do play this type of fast paced game I tend to rely on learning patterns - a lot of games do not use random spawning but always use the same pattern so that the player can slowly learn how to get through each level. Controlling the spawning precisely also gives you a tool to balance the game by controlling how and when you encounter the AI. I also felt a better camera would have helped - on some occasions I felt I had been shot by an AI that was actually off the top or side of the screen, so either offset the camera a bit (although this can get tricky to do once you start turning your player) or ensure the AI are visible for a few seconds before they can fire. 

  Simon Tomlinson, Independent Consultant.
  

• Good game generally, liked the use of primative graphics. Main issue was really just not enough contextualization as to what you were meant to do with the collect and bring back mechanic.
  

• It's nice that you can choose a special ability but they seem pretty unbalanced. I didn't find jump or dash particularly useful, but shield made the game a lot easier. Speaking about difficulty, the game is quite unforgiving, the player may have more fun if it's harder for him to die. Many games nowadays are going back to 80's style difficulty it's quite hard to pull it off. Especially in game like this where you're not overcoming short difficult challenges (like Super Meat Boy), so many players will just get frustrated because they die every 10 seconds and never advance.

  With regards to the camera, I feel it would be more comfortable if the player was closer to the bottom of the screen since enemies seem to come mostly from the top. Also, for further development you may want to use something like Cinemachine to a more cinematic effect to the camera movement instead of moving exactly like the player. The game Age Of Zombies is a good reference for that.