Ok, this one is really fun. Things I loved about this:
- The music/sound effects. Holding down space, the music and sound effects of you firing sync up and join together. The destruction you unleash becomes part of the music. Extremely satisfying.
- The tradeoff between firepower and ship size. Easier to kill, harder to avoid damage.
- The strategic choice for power-up placement. Placement matters as much as whether or not to grab it.
- The health system: The way each individual component has it's own recharging health gives the player interesting choices to make. Do you attempt to dodge, or intentionally taking the hit to spread the damage out across fresh modules?
I played through twice. First time I got obliterated by the boss laser, second time I was whittled down to just my original ship and had to slog it out with the boss, which brings me to the only downside.
- The boss fight gets boring if you're almost dead. With only one module left, I don't have the damage to kill the boss in a timely manner, but can also easily dodge incoming fire. Killing the boss becomes a route exercise. I'm not really in any danger, and just slowly watch his health chip away. I think adding some powerups to the boss fight would improve it greatly as:
- It increases the difficulty, making it harder to avoid damage.
- Lets you kill the boss quicker without nerfing the boss's health.
- It gives the player hope to get back into the fight after taking a heavy hit.
Also props for good sound design, pixel art, tight controls, power up variety, and enemy types. Well done.