I learned throughout the years that the more you embrace change and keep yourself flexible, the more fun you'll have building fun stuff and the better you'll get, so hopefully I'm doing an okay job at that LOL. A lot of the great points you wrote about were already in the back of my mind, but it's great to actually hear it from others. I've already begun writing down all of the ideas and feedback I've been given by you and others that have checked out this revamped version! I already wasn't like loving the old aesthetic and the other issues with gameplay balance and stuff weren't helping, but now it's way more fun to work on, glad I made changes!
Optimization is something I'm gonna try to get work on after I reach out to some peeps that know Unreal Engine really well cuz I dunno why this little game runs so poorly on a lot of hardware, so hopefully I can get that fixed up down the line! There may be something unused but active that's CPU/GPU intensive so I'll have to do my research on that, can't beat up baddies at 10FPS LOL.
Options menu is comin', just been bit busy doing tons of work on the gameplay, I can make a quick menu that at least lets you adjust the graphics and I'll add a restart button too.
The metal is capped at 200 but I can easily release that cap, when I get to work on this project again I can send you some test builds to try and see what's the best way to increase the metal after 200! Same with the buildable turrets I'll be overhauling their balance. I think what I could do is increase the speed the knife blocks put out knife piles and raise the amount of piles that can be out at once per block.
I'll keep in mind the idea that you can "let go" the controls and let all 3 Appliances use their passive attacks, I dig the idea of the risk/reward possibilities with that. Maybe there's like a slight firing rate increase buff or something? I can also add in a switch delay so players can't switch between the Appliances as quickly!
Custom mouse cursor and keeping it locked in the game are comin'!
I'll keep in touch when I get the chance to put out some test builds, your feedback has been crazy helpful, thanks for playing!!