Took me a while to take down that first ship, but once I did, man did it feel good! I know for certain that I'd have played the heck out of a full version of this back when flash games were at their peak! This is such a clever concept, and the vibes and execution were just impeccable - absolutely stellar stuff!
Also, after beating the final boss, I found my starter ship not too far off screen (somehow it had survived everything else). So naturally I nuked it from orbit :P
Thank you! I'm glad that the effects I was going for payed off. I tried to make the combat feel as polished as I could (the parallax, the background particles, the animated thrusters, the bullets exploding on hit, the different sounds for hitting the hull and the subsystems, the muzzle flashes, the slightly animated health bars, etc.) rather than adding more fights, and I definitely think that was the right decision.
Destroying your previous ships was exactly what I wanted people to do when playing. It plays into the lore of an AI unhappy with their tiny spaceship body. I like to image the Toy Story "I don't want to play with you anymore meme" for it.
