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Thanks!

Back then I think it was in early alpha/pre-alpha, and it's well into Beta now. Some more work and I think it'll be ready for Gold! :D

Thanks for the suggestions!

A lot of people have requested me to add more lore/story to the game, so I'll see what I can cook up, pun intended. I might also add a variation of the combat dialogue system from Aerostrike to bosses, so they talk briefly when they spawn and are defeated. Enemy patterns will also be looked at a bit on the upcoming patch, and more in-depth in following ones.

Thanks for the feedback! There is a fire button toggle in the game already. The Default keybinds are:

• Mouse: Middle Mouse Button/Scroll Wheel button, or Side Button 1
• Keyboard: "E", or "H"
• Gamepad: "Y"/Triangle/Face Button North

The keybinds can be changed at any time in Options > Controls.

Thanks! Did you manage to get used to the Mouse controls or did you end up switching to Keyboard/Controller?

Thank you! At the time of writing, Mission 2 is already built, all that's missing is adding the background music. It will be added in the next patch, which hopefully should be done before April 18th.

Feel free to let me know what you think about it once it's live!

Thanks for the feedback!

I didn't get the chance to add sounds before Feedback Quest 6. Partly for time reasons, and partly because I hadn't added the Options menu yet, so players wouldn't be able to adjust sound volume if it was too loud. Now that version 0.0.6 added the Options menu, I can start adding sounds without much issue.

As for the gameplay, yea it's not really trying to go too far out from the SHMUP standard, outside of the leveling system that was partially inspired by Bullet Heavens (I've even been pondering on the idea of a Bullet Heaven mode). Potatostrike is partially a project where I can test new systems to implement in a bigger project later down the line. The multi-layer background and UI are some of them.

Sorry for the delay, I just approved it.

Thank you! And thanks for setting up the bundle! :D

Thanks for the feedback!

Yes the turrets here are enviromental decorations with a touch of lethality. The Manager does tell you to not damage the prison's infrastructure, which includes them. I'll still add a text warning to save players a few trips back to the dock.

I'll also replace the Landing Pad on the Store room to a Docking Bay that'll let you swap ships after purchasing. I believe there was a reason I didn't do it already, but I forgot what it was. Unless I'm reminded of it, there should be no problems to implement this change.

Thanks for the feedback, and the video! I'll see if I can add a camera damping setting for the next patch.

For now, the game does include a few camera options you can try and play with. One of them controls the speed of the camera.

Thanks for the feedback!

The main differences between the ships of Rebel Ops and Hel's Fighters is the handling, health pool, weapons, and equipment. The Titan, for example, is really large and bulky, while the Hunter is more agile and has access to Seeker Missiles. There's also ships like the Siren with its absurd amount of speed, and the Stinger Mk2 with its laser knife weapon. The Aerostrike has the better overall handling.

The bosses do not regenerate shields based off a timer. After bosses take a certain amount of damage, they regenerate their shield and advance to the next phase of the battle. As for how to avoid the first Hel's Fighters boss's attacks, you can either try to dodge his bullets, or use nearby terrain for cover. Each corner of the boss arena has a wall you can use for that. If I do a rebalance pass on the game, I'll give it another look.

For the Campaign, I do have pending redoing the objective markers to better guide the player. That change will take some time to develop, though. As for the backgrounds, sadly I don't currently have an easy way to replace them. If I find one that isn't too time consuming or expensive, I might be able to try a few things.

Thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed the demo. :D

I just received a similar message as well. I sent a screenshot of it to the support address listed in the pinned reply.

I think you already posted the form here before.

Thanks for the feedback!

I am looking at options to add some detail to the background walls without making it too distracting to the player, or troublesome to implement. I can try a do another audio balancing sometime in the future as well. Were there any particular sounds that felt a little too loud, aside of the player weapons?

Thanks for the comments!

The story of the game is already written, so I guess you'll have to play through the Campaign to figure it out. There's quite a few characters between the Campaign and Rebel Ops, but Hel for sure was one of my favorites to write dialogue for.

Thanks for the feedback!

• The "press X - Y to switch weapons" text is shared with all weapons, but I've seen several get confused by it when acquiring the 23mm Cannon. I'll try a few options to address this and see which works better:
  
  • Make the weapon bar appear on the top of the UI if you try to switch weapons, but only have one. This already happens with Keyboard and Mouse when you press the button of the weapon you have equipped.
  • Change the wording if you only have one weapon. The 23mm Cannon replaces the Machine Gun you start with, so I can swap "Press to Switch" for "Replaces the Machine Gun". 
• I can look into potential wall decorations. Unfortunately I shot myself in the foot when designing the layer setup for rooms, as well as the background wall system, so I'll have to play around for a bit to find a reasonable way to decorate the base without adding extra layers everywhere. Or at least without adding more than one, which is what I tried out with the Rebel Ops mode.
  
• You can already adjust volume levels individually in the options menu. It's in the Volume submenu, at the top of the list. I have seen multiple players confuse it with the Audio submenu, so I'm considering combining them like I did for the Interface submenu:
  • The Audio submenu would include Volume Settings and Audio Settings, and can be further expanded in the future if needed.

PS: The full game is already released here on itch, and I'm actively working to get it out on Steam as well. You can find it as MF-01 Aerostrike over there.

Thanks for the feedback!

• There are already sounds for enemies spawning and explosions. Ship explosions are not very loud compared to weapon explosions since enemy ships blow up constantly, and often several at once. I'll try and see if I can improve on it.
• Hm, the music stopping suddenly sounds like a bug. The game should have music playing at all times, as it swaps between combat and exploration music. When did you find this issue? I want to try and replicate it to see what might have gone wrong.
• The player's shield was originally made sky blue to both fit the healthbar UI and to stay consistent with the way the enemy ship's shield works. I can try and tint it different colors to see how it looks, but I'm not sure if I'll stick with it.

Thank you for the comments! I'm glad you enjoyed the game.

Adding the improved weapon models after it was suggested last week really did help the spectacle of combat. I might try and add some more detail to explosive projectiles at some point too.

Heyo! I'm the Aerostrike developer. I was dropping by to let you know that the game was recently updated to version 1.3.9.

If possible, I'd recommend trying out the newer version, as it has new weapon models and some minor improvements. I'll try to join the stream too!

Right now the game takes place in an underground base. When you see the mountains, that's on one of the few corridors that actually have a view of the outside.

Unfortunately I can't move that corridor earlier in the game without redesigning major parts of the map. Especially the first area of the game, which houses the tutorial. Alternatively, I might have to break the established shape of the base to excuse an outdoors corridor several kilometers underground. I did think of improving the background of the starting room, but I would need more funds to do that change.

As far as enemy attacks go, there are a few enemies that do actually have some more distinct patterns or behaviors. The Spinner fires projectiles in a spiral, the Javelin fires projectiles that bounce off walls, the Knight fires projectiles that explode into smaller pellets, and the Stinger just rams into enemies with their Energy Spike. Most appear later in the game since they're more difficult to fight.

I actually do know Fiverr, it's where I found the artists that did the Title Screen art, the Ending Screen art, and most of the ship models. It's a fairly good platform, and I was planning to use it for the Steam achievement icons.

Thanks for the feedback, and thanks for the VOD link!

I'm not sure about a full Potato rebranding, but I can give it some thought. It is true that the Potatostrike alone has gained far more attention than the game ever did on its own, so it's worth looking into it. However, even just adding a full Potato mode will take a moderate amount of time, as I'd have to make unique models for all enemy ships in the game, and there's over 30 of them at this point.

I can look into replacing the projectile models for something more visually pleasing. I've actually looked into this a few times in the past, but never quite committed to doing it for a multitude of reasons. I'll try to have it ready for the next patch, 1.3.9, but it will most likely have to wait for the following one. Here's an early look of what I've got so far during testing:

The Campaign is not divided into stages, but the world has a total of 8 Areas you can explore. There's a total of 8 fully unique backgrounds, and 9 variations of those backgrounds. Each background is tinted with coding to fit the area you're in, and most variations add a large number to the background, indicating which area you're in. For example, Area 1 would be tinted green and display 0-1 on some rooms.

This was done mostly due to budget constraints; pixel artists often charge by size, and backgrounds by design are pretty large images. I've wanted to get new backgrounds for some time now, I even have contacted an artist on Mastodon about it, but without a way to cover the expenses there's not much I can do, unfortunately.

The game had a really fun introduction, but it seemed to hit a difficulty spike quite rapidly. As a person that deals with anger management issues, that had a major impact on my personal experience.

The first two levels went without a problem, I got 3 stars in both of them. However, after crossing the bridge I was only ever able to get a single star, and none on level 6. I'm not sure if the requirements were too high, if my skill was not good enough, or if the sheep were too difficult to control.

On that note, the sheep felt pretty erratic. It's hard to make them turn where you want them to, even when you're right on their side. Barking often just made things worse, scattering the herd all over the place, and making the sheep run faster than you. Even going slow was not helping enough.

Small gates were a massive hurdle, pun intended. Having two sheep clear the gap and one get stuck on the fence was a very common problem. There was no easy way to make the stray sheep turn around and try going through the gate again, and it would often scare the other two sheep into a bad position. Perhaps the gates need to be wider, or come later in the game.

One thing that would really improve the experience is to add a "Restart" button. Right now there's no way out of a level outside of completing it. It makes it frustrating when you're trying to get a star you missed, but you already messed up too much. I didn't make it past level 7 because of it.

I noticed a strange performance bug when I replayed level 6. The game seemed to lag quite noticeably. However, when I finished rounding up the sheep the lag vanished. It returned when I started level 7. If I had to guess, perhaps there was a memory leak with the sheep or the dog?

The few sounds I herd were nice and fitting, the menu car was fun despite controlling a little odd, and I liked the art style. The Sheep Facts were also an awesome touch. Now I know there's over 1000 different sheep, and they all have their own accents!

First up, I'm very biased in favor of tank games. There's not enough, we need more of them. A lot more.

Anyways, I was expecting a tank battle game, but it's surprisingly effective as an actual therapeutic, chill game too.

I ran out of enemies rather quickly, and just kept driving my little tank around. Going up the tiny hills and ramping off them was nice and fun. I ended up wanting a giant desert map or a city where I could just roam around aimlessly with my little blue tank.

Gamepad controls felt good for the most part, but the tank seems to aim a little off-center. It made shooting a little tricky, as the projectiles go off to the side, then drift towards my aim point. Making the tank actually shoot where I aim would improve the combat.

The tank's stats were confusing. It took me a while to figure out which number was which. I'm guessing Charge is the tank's fuel, as it slowly dropped while driving around. I found some energy orbs, but they barely charged the tank back up. Increasing their charge value up to 200 or even 300 would make them more meaningful.

At the start the music didn't quite fit what I had in mind (tank battles), but it's great for roaming around in my tank. Adding engine noises and cannon/shell booms would, funnily enough, really turn it into Tank ASMR Therapy, in the best way possible.

The tanks and turrets looked good. At the start I wanted more enemies to shoot at, but after a while I just wanted more terrain and hills to drive on. I want to go on an adventure with my little blue tank!

There is some potential here, but it needs some work. Especially in the controls and UI.

The mouse controls felt a little odd. Having to click on the tiles instead of the characters lead to a lot of misclicks and unintended actions. Being able to select characters by clicking on their models would be a big improvement, especially when trying to attack enemies.

Moving the camera with middle mouse button worked okay, but I think it would be better to use the right mouse button. It doesn't seem to be assigned to anything else at the moment. It's more natural and easier to do than holding down the scroll wheel.

The equipment UI felt strange to use. I had to click on attack options multiple times to select the correct one. I'm not sure if I was accidentally selecting and deselecting things. Perhaps making the button change colors or stick out/push in would help.

The Trooper's remaining AP is easy to miss. I didn't notice it until I was messing around with the equipment UI trying to select an attack option. Removing the  movement icon next to it and just having "AP x[number]" would be preferable.

Line-of-sight for attacks seems a little off. I put a Trooper on a window, but couldn't attack the enemy standing slightly to the side. I'm not sure if I did something wrong or not, as characters could clearly shoot diagonally outside the house.

Enemies feel like they have way too much health. It took four 3-round bursts to down a single enemy; that's the entire turn of the Trooper. I stopped using single shots after I learned that. Adding enemy health bars would also be a welcome change.

Enemies teleporting around made it kind of difficult to keep track of their actions. I understand it's an early build and running animations are not done yet, but I would move it higher in the priority list. Even having them slide around would give the player a proper idea of what's happening.

Sounds were a little loud, and there seems to be a bug that causes the Trooper movement sound to get louder each time. It would appear to be playing the same sound several times at once. Otherwise, having different sound for different things was a very good idea and improved the experience a lot.

The low-poly art style looks good, but the fog-of-war needs some work. It wasn't always clear where I could see inside a house, and moving around only made it more confusing. Having noticeably darker tiles might work better than 3D blocks. The characters and enviroment itself looked fine.

Finally, I think there needs to be a visible enemy counter. Either it could be present at all times, or when there's 2 or 3 enemies left on the map. I walked around for a good 5 minutes, unsure if there was an enemy left alive or if I broke the game somehow. Eventually the last enemy walked into my full squad and paid the price, ending the mission.

With some more time and changes, this could be a nice turn-based tactics game!

It was a nice little experience. It was pretty clear what to do, nothing felt visually confusing. A few fake doors here and there, but that was to be expected from the title. Controls worked better than I thought too!

My biggest problem was the lack of music and sound after the initial section. It felt a little awkward, and made me try to get past the game faster than I otherwise would. Nor sure if that was intended, but even then some extra audio work could probably leave a bigger impact on the player.

Some eerie music or ambiental background noise would fit quite well. Even just adding footsteps or sounds when switching rooms would be a major improvement.

Thanks for the feedback! I have a few ideas for a challenge reward notification, I'll try them out and see which works best.

The Forward Shield does help a lot when you get the hang of it. It throws me off whenever I have to do a test run and don't have it anymore.

That's awesome, congratulations! While the event officially starts on May 1st, it's still pretty cool to see you've taken on and beaten the challenge, especially on Trial by Fire.

Any particular strategy you used for the final battle?

Thanks for the feedback!

I'll work on adding more UI scaling, as well as room transition animations, after the next patch.

Also, the game is technically already released on itch, buuuuuut seeing how that went I'll keep you posted on the Steam release!

Thanks for the feedback on the game! c:

That last fight you had trouble with was an Ambush. Enemies lock the doors to trap you inside, and attack you in waves. Defeating all the enemies unlocks the doors, allowing you to continue with your quest.

I'm glad you hear you still had fun with the game! If you want a few tips in the future, I'd be happy to share some.

Thank you! :D

Thank you for the comment!

Thank you! I'll see what I can do, as an even easier mode may require some major adjustents due to a lack of foresight on my part.

Thanks for the feedback, I'm glad you enjoyed the game!

On the topic of getting stuck, you can always ask A.R.I.A. for help. She'll give you hints on how to proceed.

You can talk to her from the Pause menu, or by pressing F1 on the Keyboard or Select on your Gamepad/Controller. It's the same button for answering Transmissions and reviewing new equipment.

Alternatively, I can give you a hint myself if you wish. I'll also review that section to make sure that the game itself didn't break on accident.

Right now the game spawns the enemies at the available spawn point furthest away from the player (all of which are manually placed). It does this for several reasons:

- To avoid spawning enemies right beside the player. It's no fun having a Titan materialize within slapping distance, and it looks weird too.
- To add a little breathing room between the enemy dying and a new one replacing it. Some battles also have a longer delay between enemy spawns for this same reason.
- To give the enemies an opportunity to flank the player, preventing them from just sitting in one place. The game doesn't try to spawn them right behind you, instead enemies may try different routes to reach you as the battle goes on.

Unfortunately I can't really change the spawning system as the whole game was already balanced around how it currently works. However, if I ever get the chance to make a sequel I do plan on trying different new spawning systems, including a more traditional wave setup. In fact, Rebel Ops already played a bit with this idea in a few missions.

Thanks for the tip!

I'll look into what I can do about it. On-screen indicators might not be the best, as some rooms can have over 10 enemies at once, leading to too much clutter. I'm thinking of adding a subtle enemy spawn sound instead and see how it works.

https://lmg3864.itch.io/attrition