Post by Valonad in Touhou Nuclear Madness jam comments

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Tried both the jam version and the post jam version. The game is fun but also pretty stressful. Also there is no quit button in the downloadable version so the only way to quit the game is alt tabbing or alt f4-ing.

I played the post jam version first but strangely i found the jam version to be more fun, even if harder. It's possibly because of the sprites being the actual characters. I suggest that you try to draw sprites for the characters even if you're not that good at pixel art. It gives a more charming feeling than the coloured blobs in v2. The other visual elements of the game are pretty good though. I like how the endings of the game are conveyed through the bunbunmaru newspaper. It's really funny.

For utsuho's fight, the jam version took me a lot of tries but i eventually beat it, and honestly the hardest part of it is that there is no i-frames when getting hit so if you get hit you're likely to lose 3 lives because all the bullets are clumped together. My strategy to beating her was to just hug the bottom of the screen and ocassionally go up to deal damage. That was the same strat i used when i replayed the v2 version except there was more leeway due to bombs and i-frames. I think the player movement speed is too slow compared to the speed of the bullets utsuho throws. Hugging the bottom of the screen isn't very exciting but if the player was fast enough to dodge out of the bullets if they were at the same height it would make the fight a lot more enjoyable. Along with that is that i think the hitbox should be smaller since there are small gaps between the bullets but the hitbox is too big to feasibly dodge between these gaps.

Sagume's fight is a lot better than utsuho since there are actual patterns that you can learn and dodge from. Though i immediately died to the jam version so i cant comment on that one. I like how she says the names of the attacks.

One final thing is that i think you should add indicators to the boss' height on the player's side of the screen, similar to how touhou games from 7 onwards show the position of the boss on the bottom of the screen. This would make it far easier to focus on dodging while still being able to damage the boss.

Finally, a main menu would be nice that lets you choose which fight to fight after finishing the game.

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Stash256 days ago(+1)

> Tried both the jam version and the post jam version.

Wow. Thank you for giving them both a try. I had imagined very few people would play both versions.

> Also there is no quit button in the downloadable version so the only way to quit the game is alt tabbing or alt f4-ing.

Yes because I didn't want to let you leave :3

> I played the post jam version first but strangely i found the jam version to be more fun. It's possibly because of the sprites being the actual characters.

I agree wholeheartedly.

For context, we removed the sprites because we got them from spriters-resource, and the original source's developer had not given permission for ripping. So we had to get rid of them.

My artist teammate had other affairs to take care of, so he couldn't work on the project for now, which is why I had to use my (well-developed) art skills, and bring to you the blobs.

(Nevertheless, you have encouraged me into trying my hand at the sprites, and I shall do that :) )

(Also, as a player, I kind of agree with the jam version being more fun, because I thought the Utsuho fight became a little easy in the post-jam version)

> Hugging the bottom of the screen isn't very exciting but if the player was fast enough to dodge out of the bullets if they were at the same height it would make the fight a lot more enjoyable.

I understand. I see what you mean, because the player would get to maneuver around a lot more, rather than stand still and wait. I think I will release another round of balance changes where I try to make the fight more oriented toward this.

> Sagume's fight is a lot better than utsuho since there are actual patterns that you can learn and dodge from.

I'm happy to hear that someone who played the post-jam version actually learnt and dodged the attacks. From other player's feedback, it seemed that all patterns were unfair and players would just cheese the fight.

> Though I immediately died to the jam version, so i cant comment on that one.

Hehe it is, honestly, complete garbage. I pretty much replaced all the patterns from that version.

> One final thing is that i think you should add indicators to the boss' height on the player's side of the screen, similar to how touhou games from 7 onwards show the position of the boss on the bottom of the screen.

I had no idea this existed. This sounds like a very nice QOL change. I will definitely do that.

> Finally, a main menu would be nice that lets you choose which fight to fight after finishing the game.

Haha, perma-death in a bullet hell may not have been the smartest move. I'll take this into account, too

Again, thank you for trying out both versions of the game, and giving such elaborate and extensive feedback on each. It really, really helps me, and I will soon deliver a new version with improvements.

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