What I liked:
- The interpretation of the theme is really cool. The game is really challenging so no one will probably beat it with the first attempts so the player almost has to die at some point and come back stronger to win.
- Respawning with new abilities also works well as a mechanic. Because of the abilities the game constantly gets easier so anyone who just plays long enough should win eventually which balances the game for different skill levels. The action was super fast but that was probably how it was intended. Generally, the difficulty level felt really good.
- Replayablity value of the game is good. There is a lot of variation in the enemy types and attacks so the game will not get boring while playing. After beating the game for the first time the player is encouraged to try beating it with lower restarts by showing the leaderboard and all the used power-ups. The game will also be a bit different with each attempt as the abilities are given randomly. This means that in the next game the player might have totally different set of abilities. The fact that it is theoretically possible to beat the game without upgrades will also drive certain type of players to play game like this for hours and hours just to beat it with one attempt.
- Music fits the game well. Also the game visuals are good looking and mostly clear.
Improvement suggestions:
- The biggest issue with the game is that the player and enemy health indicators are so small that they are barely even visible. During my first playthrough I did not even notice that the health of the player is shown and I was not sure what the function of the top bar is (player health, enemy health, progress?). If I would have to say one top important change to make the game more enjoyable it would be to fix this issue. The most easy solution would just be to scale the current images larger but I'm even wondering would there be even a better way to show the health points of the characters than the current one. For now I don't have any ideas/suggestions for that but this could be something for you think about. Having the health clearly visible without having to lose focus of the main action is super important for a fast paced game like this.
- One specific enemy type that I had much troubles with was the spiders that follow the player. I felt the attack creating these was too strong compared to the other attacks as the spiders won't disappear until either hitting the player or being shot at (which is super difficult). Because I almost always got hit by at least one of them, I just ended up trying to hit all of them very quickly to only lose heart instead of potentially multiple. I would suggest to either debuff the attack by only spawning less spiders at a time (1 or 2 at most if they start following the player!) or debuffing the spiders so they will lose interest and go away after certain amount of time if have not caught the player.
- The UI buttons are super small in Start screen and after finishing the game. You might want to make the larger for better readability. Also, you good add a title or some graphics to these screens too.
- The leaderboards is not working. It is not showing my name in the list after finishing the game. After finishing the game twice it shows the same abilities for both attempts even though I used less restarts on the second attempt.
- There is no restart button! After saying how good the replayability of the game is, it should definitely have an easy way to start again for the players who wants to play another round.
- To add value for the hardcore and competitive players the game could track time also in addition to number of upgrades and use it as another measure of success.
Questions:
- How many different abilities? What happens if they player dies after already gaining all of them?
- How many different attack the boss has? How many different types of enemies there is?
Overall really good game for a jam game and clearly fits the game well! This my favorite game so in this jam so far.
If you have time, I would very much appreciate if you would try out my jam submission and give some feedback based on what you feel about the game. Both positive and constructive feedback are welcome. I would love to know what you think about it.