here we go! I made it to the 10-minute mark! I chose acceleration whenever possible, followed by increasing the pearls of wisdom. The triple cannon, especially when upgraded, is pretty awesome, even though you need to get the hang of turning around to face enemies at the right moment. All in all, a great time! I really loved it.
As explained in my reply to Jiminy Snicket, I think I've solved the entity stacking bug that causes instant acceleration. So if you ever feel like playing it again, it shouldn't be a problem ;D
I got sucked into this and played it for far longer than I expected I would! Overall I had a great time and from a dev perspective I'm amazed by what you managed to achieve in the time you had!
Unfortunately my running experience was one of minor frustrations, most of which stem from the starting speed. Game balance is a difficult art and as such this is somewhat my personal taste, but the slow speed + quantity of enemies spawned means it is near impossible to collect long-range experience orbs without the relevant upgrade. This means I lack upgrades and as such the number of enemies alive grows far faster than I can kill them.
In the end, what usually kills me is (I think) a physics bug: enemies partially stack up on each other as they turn to face the player, then explosively move away to ensure that they have their own space. The outcome for the player is that the basic enemies essentially start dashing towards the them, faster than the player can move. The only time I managed to reliably avoid this was by luck when I could stack Celerity 3 times.
I don't want your takeaway from my comments to be negative, or that I didn't have a good time - I spent the better part of 45 minutes playing, and for good reason! The upgrades are creative and I really like how distinct the starting weapons/powers are! It's a great game and with a few small tweaks I think could be absolutely fantastic fun!
Many thanks for playing and leaving such a detailed comment :)
First of all, regarding the bug you noticed, I think I understand what my mistake is, and it's one I've been making for a long time. Indeed, to prevent the enemies from piling up, I used to move them one pixel apart with each tick. And on my side, everything seemed to be going well. There was sometimes a slight acceleration of the enemies, but nothing abnormal. Then when I read your comment, it clicked! I tried my game with another framerate mode that doesn't limit ticks and I got the bug you mentioned. In short, I modified my code so that it only triggers every 0.06 seconds (which is equivalent to 60fps for everyone). Logically, if you play it again, it should be fixed (I hope!).
As for balancing, I'm well aware that it's a subtle and difficult art :) I've done my best on a style of game I have no particular knowledge of. I have the impression that the game is difficult but far from impossible (but maybe that's just an impression). Personally, I'm now able to finish it by trying a bit of every style of skill combination (I'm well aware that, as a dev of the game, I'm by no means a representative player). But perhaps you'll find the game less unfair and frustrating without the bug.
In short, your comments are very positive for me, and very enriching. And I'm glad you've spent some time playing, despite the bugs and frustrations you've encountered.
Comments
here we go! I made it to the 10-minute mark! I chose acceleration whenever possible, followed by increasing the pearls of wisdom. The triple cannon, especially when upgraded, is pretty awesome, even though you need to get the hang of turning around to face enemies at the right moment. All in all, a great time! I really loved it.
Thank you very much! The triple barrel is really not easy to use. So bravo for going all the way with it :)
I have the same frustration with the entity cramming and not being fast enough but overall still fun to try out all the weapons and upgrades :D
Thank you very much for your comment :)
As explained in my reply to Jiminy Snicket, I think I've solved the entity stacking bug that causes instant acceleration. So if you ever feel like playing it again, it shouldn't be a problem ;D
Oh yah its much nicer to play now :D I also noticed that the timer goes into the negative after reaching 0
I got sucked into this and played it for far longer than I expected I would! Overall I had a great time and from a dev perspective I'm amazed by what you managed to achieve in the time you had!
Unfortunately my running experience was one of minor frustrations, most of which stem from the starting speed. Game balance is a difficult art and as such this is somewhat my personal taste, but the slow speed + quantity of enemies spawned means it is near impossible to collect long-range experience orbs without the relevant upgrade. This means I lack upgrades and as such the number of enemies alive grows far faster than I can kill them.
In the end, what usually kills me is (I think) a physics bug: enemies partially stack up on each other as they turn to face the player, then explosively move away to ensure that they have their own space. The outcome for the player is that the basic enemies essentially start dashing towards the them, faster than the player can move. The only time I managed to reliably avoid this was by luck when I could stack Celerity 3 times.
I don't want your takeaway from my comments to be negative, or that I didn't have a good time - I spent the better part of 45 minutes playing, and for good reason! The upgrades are creative and I really like how distinct the starting weapons/powers are! It's a great game and with a few small tweaks I think could be absolutely fantastic fun!
Many thanks for playing and leaving such a detailed comment :)
First of all, regarding the bug you noticed, I think I understand what my mistake is, and it's one I've been making for a long time. Indeed, to prevent the enemies from piling up, I used to move them one pixel apart with each tick. And on my side, everything seemed to be going well. There was sometimes a slight acceleration of the enemies, but nothing abnormal. Then when I read your comment, it clicked! I tried my game with another framerate mode that doesn't limit ticks and I got the bug you mentioned. In short, I modified my code so that it only triggers every 0.06 seconds (which is equivalent to 60fps for everyone). Logically, if you play it again, it should be fixed (I hope!).
As for balancing, I'm well aware that it's a subtle and difficult art :) I've done my best on a style of game I have no particular knowledge of. I have the impression that the game is difficult but far from impossible (but maybe that's just an impression). Personally, I'm now able to finish it by trying a bit of every style of skill combination (I'm well aware that, as a dev of the game, I'm by no means a representative player). But perhaps you'll find the game less unfair and frustrating without the bug.
In short, your comments are very positive for me, and very enriching. And I'm glad you've spent some time playing, despite the bugs and frustrations you've encountered.
Thanks again :D
For a 7 hour dev time this game is actually insanely polished.
Good work Mr Douck
Thank you very much! I had a feeling I was going to go over 3 hours xD But i'm glad I was able to do it all in a reasonable amount of time :)