I thought this game was well-done. I liked the conceit of having to switch characters to get both items. One bug I noticed, however, was that, if you switch your equipped item and then switch a character, the character won't have the new item equipped, even though the item display shows the new item equipped.
Also, I ran into some bugs at the end of the game. By the text, I was sure if I'd run into a win state, a loss state, or a this-is-bad-but-intended-to-progress-in-the-story state. When I started a new game hoping to continue, there was no character onscreen to play.
All in all, a good experience, though! I like the monochromatic color scheme for each character.
I really like the idea of turn- and grid-based combat! I'd like to focus on a high-level design concern for my feedback. It seems like the order in which people get to move will confer in inordinate advantage. My recommendation going forward is to add gameplay which allows for defensive or reactive play, i.e., using a turn to place an unseen counter, which anticipates a later player's attack and deals damage to the attacker instead.
I want to try this game, but the Mac application is apparently damaged. Looks cool, though. From what I can see in the preview images, the use of dithering with the lighting is really nice.
I thought the sound and visuals were pretty strong. My one bit of feedback would be to break up the pages of text a little more at the beginning. I felt it was more comfortable to read once the dialogue choice came in; maybe adding a 'continue' button about every paragraph or two could be good.
My one suggestion is to make the transition between rounds more streamlined. I think you could do just to have the upgrade selection screen come up only between rounds, since it's almost never advantageous to stop at the table when the round is under way. Then, you can simply have a button that closes the upgrade window and transitions to the next round.
First of all. The assets are very well done. I really like the starry background and the detail on the ships. Really looks great!
The shooting sound effect was good but it was peaking a lot. Maybe some background music could help the mix.
As far as I could tell from playing, the movement is tethered to shooting. I really like this as an idea! Once I got used it, it was fun to sail around by shooting in the reverse direction. In the future, I could see this mechanic opening up a lot of interesting puzzle/combat scenarios.
That said, the spawning and placement of enemies feels a little unintentional at the moment. There is a dense cluster of enemies at the beginning where it's hard to strategize around, and then a lot of empty space on the margins. I guess that's kinda like space itself in a way! Still, I think it would do you to spend more time placing enemies carefully, either procedurally or by hand, to give the player a sense of pacing (which doesn't have to be linear or whatever else).
What you have here is impressive and has potential! I think all my criticisms here are just a part of having limited time.
