The strafe mechanic was great and well appreciated in a game like this. Wished there was more variety in damage ranking among weapons as some enemies tended to feel like sponges.
This is wonderful. As color is introduced in the enemy behavior it feels like a real delight contrasted with the stark backgrounds. While I would have liked to hear some music here, the music-less soundscape DOES work with the aesthetic 1-bit of the gameplay and manages to create an early arcade vibe reminding me specifically of Atari's Firetruck. A very cool vibe to borrow from.
Great style, leaning into the black box fonts, arcade HUD and simple textures works very well. I didn't recognize the super jump until I looked further at the Itch page, with hidden input functions I tend to prefer to see that in-game somehow. An attract mode, or pre game splash screen. With all the chaos of sorting out which block is coming and what does what, it would be nice to be armed with the info of how the controls work before the chaos starts.
I do really appreciate the mash-up of platforming and falling blocks.
I loved the player sprite and colorful environments. The gated progression was quite confusing but definitely inspired me want to explore, which is what the purpose of a demo is so I can barely fault it for that. However, I wouldn't have included unfinished areas in the screen shots, that confused me quite a bit.
The sound was especially well done and matched the theme and character of the game nicely. I love those pitch bends in the melody channel. Good sound design overall.
The title screen, while good, lacked the same polish that the rest of the games visual's possessed. The bookshelf motif is wonderful and works well for the game, but the logo lacked the same charm when rendered as simple line art. I had trouble remembering the name of this entry , which could be due to the logo, or the poorly named rom file submitted (acronyms don't work in a big list of roms, hint hint).
These criticisms are only meant to be helpful, I am highly impressed with the casual world building on display here and I really hope you continue development. This is a wonderful game.
This game looks/sounds amazing and I love the idea of the mechanic but the difficulty was a major issue for me. I struggled a lot my first several sessions with it, before managing to absorb some of the key mechanics. Once I understood some things I did enjoy the difficulty, so I guess I am echoing the other comments about early ramping.
I think the monochromatic color palette is a real triumph. It leans into the limitations of the system to create something that would look good on any platform (timeless). Congrats on that achievement.
One minor visual criticism is that I had trouble recognizing the Wind tiles at first as an active background element, rather as arrows trying to guide me in a certain direction. I struggled with that first wind puzzle for a long time until I figured that out. Since you're using limited palettes, maybe a slight palette cycle on the wind tiles could have a big impact. Highlighting it as an 'active' element in the puzzle.
I really enjoyed this game. I feel like the presentation worked better as a two player game with the two fields of play. The one player mode felt a bit spartan with all the unused screen space. Some simple background texture added to the 1 player mode would make it more exciting when playing alone perhaps. Otherwise, lots of fun.
The gameplay loop is very simple, but the way you've bundled it with comedy makes the whole thing really compelling. Definitely the type of game I'd be giddy to show my friends at a party.
I had some confusion at first figuring out that A and B were separate pies and how deal with the mice on the rooftops. The instructions on the main Itch page were helpful to me understanding. Perhaps that gameplay information is something that could be included in a simple attract mode?
Once I understood how it worked, I really enjoyed the gameplay and the mid-80's arcade aesthetic of the visuals and sounds. It reminded me of the humor of Atari's Food Fight.
I had a lot of fun chasing my score. If I saw this in an arcade, I would certainly play it :)
Oh! I was unaware this game had mouse support. I will make a point to try that.
I did not intend to sound harsh, I really love what this game is offering and am happy to hear that you are continuing to work on it. I will certainly be following along, this is a game I would like to put on my shelf :)
I played the first mission again and managed to complete the objective and get the power up. I will put in more effort
I would second the co-op aspect here, Maybe even player collisions bumping each other around. It would really add a lot of replay value and be ideally suited for a VS. cab.
There are so many aspects of this game that are so great, But I can't get the hang of the controls no matter how many times I try. I play a lot of Asteroids on 7800, and Space War and Gravitar on 2600, so I am used to these types of controls, but the coordinates just go whizzing by, and by the time I get my bearings I am absolutely swarmed with enemies.
I've tried at least a dozen times and haven't been able to improve my performance enough to pass the first objective. I found it a little frustrating that in order to jump back into the action it seems you have to sit through the lengthy mission objective again, there might be a better UI solution for this. Additionally, it would be nice to be able to refer to the objective coordinates again once they pass.. like in a pause screen or something. I often forgot where I was heading once I would get swarmed. I thought the space station themselves were awesome and I thought the destructible tiles were a great idea.
I really love the concept here, but I am not good enough at the controls to progress in any meaningful way.
I found myself appreciating the finer details of this game more than anything. From the dusty footprint animations to the flashing routine when the player gets hurt, to the slight blue flash when the text is drawn during the dialogue screens. There is a lot to learn from this game on how to take a familiar concept and apply a new shine to it in order to make something new.
I love the black backgrounds, it looks incredibly striking in an adventure game. The little weapon sprites are adorable and highly legible.
It is missing the concept of the dungeon from the zelda-like, but I don't really miss it here, the lock and key challenges are dispersed evenly enough throughout the overworld, gating progress at an even enough pace to feel satisfying.
Super cool cute-em-up! I really like these types of games. The bullet hell aspect of this game felt challenging but fair. Really liked the boss fight and the sprite animations. The art style is great, but I had a little trouble with the backgrounds, the consistent laneway the forest creates makes me think those tiles are solid, restricting all my movement to the middle of the screen. You might be able to break this perception by having the trees cross over the player's path a few times, but am not sure how you're restricted by memory space for that.
The music is awesome, but without sound effects, it doesn't quite feel as satisfying as it deserves. Part of my appreciation for shmups stems from all the juicy SFXs creating that interactive pew-pew soundscape. I only offer this as constructive feedback because that music is legitimately perfect for the game.
Hoping development continues on this, I'd love to play through more levels.
Loved the concept from the start, Ifound I loved it more as the concept progressed through the game. I was a little underwhelmed by the tile work at first, but once some of the interiors started being introduced, I found the art to be incredibly charming and created a cohesive vibe overall that linked each area together. It feels intentionally reminiscent of the 87-88 period of NES games as an aesthetic, which I find pretty cool. I especially enjoyed the enemy sprite work, I thought they were fun and creative. The jokes were funny and the references were well done.
I had a really good time with this game. I love seeing games embracing public-domain IP like this. I could see it being a whole series of games based on famous literary figures where entire novels played out like mini-games.
Very happy with this entry. Great idea, Great work.
I was overwhelmed by this game at first, I could not make heads or tails of what was happening. However, I came back to it a couple of weeks later and left with a deep appreciation for it. I took the time to look through the menu options, and appreciate the interesting palette-swapping options available. I really enjoyed the varied boss fights and the sheer amount of sprites on-screen without CPU slowdown. I'm really happy I gave it a second look, the type of unique personality this game expresses is what I find interesting in Nes homebrew overall. Solid work, very weird, definitely cool.
It took me a while to recognize how the brake mechanic worked directly into the timing of the gameplay. Once I figured out how to manipulate the brake to get around the timings of the enemy patterns I made quick progress with the game and had a lot of fun. The Single screen arcade game is one of my favorite idioms, this is a unique mechanic to that genre. Fun idea, fun game.
