An extremely polished game that makes me want to see more of it, but with a steep entry barrier that I don't think I'm going to be able/willing to overcome.
A few things that could help:
- Unique thruster animation for going in reverse. My first two attempts at playing it, I legitimately thought both up and down propelled the ship forward because jets were coming from the rear of the ship.
- Current mission coordinates displayed on the screen, as the first handful of plays, I was so engulfed in trying to get the hang of the controls that I forgot the destination. (and after having twice previously experienced the lock-up mentioned on discord where I couldn't exit the mission briefing-only restart it with select, I definitely was not looking forward to sitting through the mission briefing text again.)
- Some way to prevent the player from getting too far away from the first destination (?)
I don't think the controls (input) are as big of an obstacle as the consequences of losing control are. Like, it's way too easy to be flying around space all willy nilly within seconds of playing, and far too difficult to reach the destinations (in terms of regaining control, dealing with other enemies/distractions, and even just psychologically seeing the coordinates, how far away I am from the destination, and how quickly I'm getting even further away). Unfortunately, I think these hurdles are going to cause a lot of players to bail pretty quickly and miss out on most of the game.
That said, there are some very cool things in the game. The big old claw that grabs you and the asteroid shower were both rad, and I'm very much looking forward to either where you take this game, or what you do next. :D