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got the download version, gave it a go, had fun. the enemies with the lasers between them are a clever mechanic and the game makes nice use of it with some of these dudes trying to wrap you around them and push you off to the border.

i didn't like the control scheme, aiming is kind of imprecise and sluggish. as enemies come up your face, it feels like the controls are yet another obstacle you have to battle instead of being a tool to use against the foes. i think the game would feel much better to play if it was possible to lock on a shooting direction at least. doesn't help that the game didn't pick my xinput controller up aside from vibrations, but i have some weird drivers on that one, so maybe it's something on my side.

upgrading feels good, some of these pare pretty much game changers while others barely useful in comparison. i pretty much never used dash until i got the laser phasing and enemy destroying upgrades, since it didn't seem worth the risk of having to readjust the shooting direction, then it became central to my playstyle, even more so after nabbing the double dash perk. at this point the difficulty curve didn't quite catch up, so i ended up killing myself at phase 25, as i've seen most stuff the game has to offer anyway. either way, the phase formula with the game feeding you upgrades to keep you going is a classic, there's a nice rhythm to the game even if latter phases sometimes drag on.

the graphics are effective, game looks nice, everything pops and is shiny. it's nice to watch, it's polished, the camera tilts are a great touch. great showpiece for that operagx stuff yoyogames is peddling nowadays.

so yeah, you've done a good job with this little arcade spiel, would recommend giving it a try.

(+2)

Thanks for the good input! I deliberately avoided going the twin-stick route which would've been an obvious choice. Perhaps I'll add an option to enable "strafing" that locks your firing direction while the <shoot> button is held.

It propably isn't clear, but you can dash through the enemy beams even without any upgrades to get out of tight spots. But it's good that you found one of the central points of the upgrade system, that you can go all-in on your abilities: be it the dash, bombs, gun or something else.

You're propably right about the difficulty, I couldn't figure out quite how to ramp it up effectively (wanted to keep the scope small so didn't go all out on enemy types). I also intended for most players to die before phase 15...

As for the controller input, I've been using DS4windows so it propably skews things a bit, I'll look into it...


Thanks for the review!