Controls and UI: Movement works well. When I crash into a bullet I know that it’s my fault and not an issue with the controls (I’m thinking of how some games have acceleration that makes it hard to start and stop moving, making it hard to make precise movements, and this game doesn’t have that problem).
But if you press z on the main menu to start the game, it fires a shot after the dialogue. Not a big issue, but maybe something you want to make sure it doesn’t affect players trying to beat the game without shooting.
And another silly thing: if you use the arrow keys while typing your name after getting a highscore, it doesn’t quite behave like using arrow keys in a text entry normally would. But backspace does work as intended.
And just one other issue: when I was playing the game and taking notes to remember what to write here, I used alt-tab to switch to the text editor window, and that started the game. Apparently the alt key is used for skipping cutscenes, and I don’t even think I saw anything about that when checking the controls.
The UI fits both the 90’s theme of the jam and the hacking theme of the game. And the font is stylized but remains readable. I also notice that long bits of text (like the speech), are easier to read than short ones (like the top place on the leaderboard). I think it’s good that the longer texts are easy to read, and it’s not a big problem that there’s a bit less contrast on some shorter bits of text, especially when it stays on screen until the player presses a key.
Art and music: Also really good and they fit the 32-bit theme and the hacking theme. There’s also fun things like the character on the title screen with a slipper on one foot but not on the other, which make it more interesting. And the chiptune music sounds interesting.
Fun: The dialogue (that I got to read, I didn’t make it very far into the game, just to the second green sword guy) was fun to read. It meant that when I saw the different enemies I wondered which had which names (well, I guess Cerberus must be the three-headed dogs, since I assume those are named after the mythological creature that some real world security thing also happens to be named after).
And one thing I really like is that it keeps track of highscores: when I’m not beating the game but I’m slowly getting better at it, it’s nice to be able to see which scores I’m getting and which scores I’ve got other times so I can see I’m actually improving. And as someone who likes replaying games after I beat them, a highscore table is also encouraging that. And so are the optional challenges that I see mentioned on the game’s page. Although I realize that when I play just with the arrow keys, I get a lower score so the score doesn’t get saved so it’s a bit more difficult to see how much I’m getting better over time. It does seem like doing some shotless practise between the normal practises might make me better at getting better scores when I do use the Z and X keys.