I think the concept of this game is brilliant. The art style, all the assets and the UI that you put on the screen here all play together so well. I was never confused about what anything is or what it's doing. The sounds are great, they all make sense and make the game that much more enjoyable (I also love how the main menu track has, like, a sonar sound in it. Really great touch!).
The connection with the theme is a bit of a reach, but I can see what you were going for. My main concern, though, was the missiles. I guess there was this stigma in the back of my head that I shouldn't be turning the screen into a bullet hell, because ammo is precious and should be conserved. But the missiles are so dang small, I had to just let loose and let it rain to even get a couple. And in the beginning, I was seeing as many as 6 of them popping up in the screen in close succession to one another. By the time I reached the first supply crate, I'd have at least 3 lives taken off (if I hadn't died yet), and no lives replenished.
The idea of having these missiles coming at you as enemies is amazing, it just feels like a bit much as a first enemy type. I was hoping to have some slower, bigger enemies to start with so that I could get a feel of the controls first, like maybe some battleships or patrol boats. Then, when I upgrade my weapons a little bit, it makes dealing with the faster and smaller enemy types like missiles a bit more manageable! Also, as great of a mechanic as it is to see where enemies are coming from on a radar screen, it would be helpful to have an arrow or line in front of the gun I'm using to give an idea of where the shot will be directed. The gun is small and kinda blends in with the sea, so it's hard to see where it's aiming sometimes.
When all's said and done, though, this is one of the best looking games I've seen in this whole jam. I can't believe you guys did it in 3 days. And it already has all the mechanics to be an amazing game (like that upgrade system, so gosh darn cool!). I think it just needs a bit of playtesting to get that feel of easing the player into the game, and maybe some minor tweaks to certain aspects, and you guys have got yourself a real winner here 😄
Viewing post in C.W.I.S (Score Space #9 Game Jam) jam comments
Thx for playing! and some brilliant feedback xD here's my notes on what you've brought up:
I worked a lot on making the game simple while also challenging. The music/sfx were all assets I found online, I looked specifically for drums and just came across that soundtrack and felt it fettered perfectly for the menu.
The shooting was focused on short and steady bursts with good reactions, you'd get time to plan with the radar showing what was coming. I find that using the chafts as often as possible is great, and only shooting the cwis when they are about to hit. using your own missiles to hit a few out before they reach you when lot of missiles are on to you also helps xD I will admit, it did change the health from supply crates last minute, before it was way too easy xD you'd get health every other crate and a good player could easily stay alive forever, I made the change to make it harder, which has clearly worked!
I was planning on adding additional misisle types, but as I was working by myself and had some IRL commitments that weekend, I kept the scope of the game down so it was managable. I planned to have a misisle that needed two hits to take out as well as a nuke style warhead that could only be shot with missiles, as if shot with cwis it would still hurt the ship. I was also considering the sightline on the guns, once again, got cut due to the time I had left xD.
Now, I did use the chafts and I think that it was an effective way of getting yourself out of a tight spot. But because it seemed like such a last resort weapon, and the other ammo types are so limited, it felt silly to use it in the first 20 seconds of the game. It may be that it's rechargeable, but I was a little too worried to about everything else coming at me to really look into it. I also had some issues with getting them to actually set off, but I dunno if that was my mouse acting up or a bug (maybe because I was pressing it frantically?). When the missiles got really close, though, I couldn't get it to activate sometimes.
But the other part of that is that all these weapons seem like a lot to have all from the get-go. If I could just get the hang of how the main guns work first, then buy missiles or the chaft as an upgrade to help me cope when things get inevitably harder, then the progression would feel more natural.
But wow. I thought you might've had a full-blown team behind you getting this done. The fact that this is a one-person job, is freaking remarkable. And in 3 days, no less.😳
I wanted to leave a really detailed list of feedback because this game was so much fun to play, and it's easy to see the potential it has to be even more awesome than it already is! I've also seen you commenting really genuinely on other people's games, so that inspired me to do the same. ^^