Great concept, reminds me of some levels in Alpha Mission II and Cobra Command arcades which had giant motherships you could destory parts of, but allowing the player freedom to tackle it in any order. Very cool.
Finally beat it. Some tips for those like me who found it tough:
- The big eyes which give the power ups - the first one straight ahead in the middle is a good starting point.
- The bigger the eye, the bigger its bullets - so sometimes "weakening" an eye even if you can't kill it yet can be helpful.
- I maxed out multiple first (I think 3x) then 1x power, then focused on rate with the occasional power, then focused on power. I found 1x speed upgrade was enough.
- Too much speed upgrades can potentially be more dangerous than good given the limited field of view.
- There appears to be enough upgrades to max everything and get some extra shields.
- My favoured route was start in the inner-middle for the first eye then the two eyes in the room, then the first part of the top, then first part of the bottom.
- I generally avoided the bullets by just flying away completely, but occasionally it was better to sit still and try to weave through the bullet hell than try to fly away, as that would lead to flying blind and crashing into something.
- The cost of an upgrade for 1x shield is probably not worth it if you take too many hits early on, in such case its better to restart. Only if I was into a decent run did I "waste" upgrades on shields.
Cool game. My only feedback is based on the final point - sacrificing one upgrade for just 1 shield feels a bit costly, especially early on. Perhaps at first "shield x 3", then next time "shield x 2" then the rest "shield x 1" as normal, would make it a better trade off and make early mistakes less dooming?