I got a around 2K on my second bootup here which I'm sure isn't amazing but I had fun! some more thoughts on the controller.
why not just go the full 360? I mean, I'm sure you tried it in dev but the more I play, the more I want it.
I often miss the chess pieces due to the distortion. this is basically fine and kinda sorta not really a feature--as a player I can (and did) certainly correct for it. might be useful to modulate the distance requirement for pickup based on the vector between the player and the item (to 'account' for distortion).
there's a weird sort of gap between seeing a cloud of heads at 3 o clock or whatever and not being able to shoot at it, because you're managing some other cloud at 10 o clock. again, the game is already fun and it's certainly conventional to aim and shoot in one direction, so it's OK. but I almost wish I could crowd control in such a way that I could manage multiple groups at once. perhaps this is due to the transience of the bullets--as artifacts they have a very short lifetime. if they did some kind of persistent damage, or took longer to reach their target, or something, it might work. but that would mess with the classic mob management shooter feel you have. the solution might be as simple as adding tons of pushback and/or sleep/freeze to enemy hits, to emphasize groups and how you control them in space. yeah.
I love the style, but I can't help but think this would work really well diegetically as a sort of hulking vehicle-on-a-soundstage huge map thing with the full english done on HUD ui and target tracking, and a compass spanning the full footer of the screen.