itch.io

Rotschwert is a fast-paced Slash ’em Up / Bullet Hell where you guide a lost Rabbit through a strange, forgotten realm - https://wingedfox.itch.io/rotschwert

“You will never reach the Dream you seek. All that awaits you on this path is heartbreak.”

Red Blade in hand, the Blue Rabbit begins her hazy crusade. Destroy enemies in melee with automatic attacks, or use ranged abilities depending on situation. With scarlet apparitions at Blue’s side - nothing will stand in her way.

As the realm shifts, your choices and aggression carve a path. Some parts may change drastically depending on your actions, revealing unfamiliar places. Surely it will start making sense at some point.

Features 4 modes of play for experienced and newbie Visitors alike, each with its own finale. Enter Relaxed Reverie - a calmer environment where it’s difficult to die, or challenge Vivid Nightmare - a merciless mode where every blunder has a price. And for the brave and foolish - there is always AlterEgo…

Welcome to a realm of vague recollections. Trust your instincts, hold no regrets. And if that doesn’t work… Well…

Just go to sleep.

It’s not likely that I’ll expand on the game anytime soon (having 2 more games to finish/release in 2024 certainly doesn’t help hehe). Really want to go back to the idea someday though, or at least finish the jam-planned content and add some much needed polish.

Thank you for playing and the kind words!

Sadly, of the 3 planned dates (each with a VN segment and an ACTION segment) I only had time to implement the first one, as well as the action part of the second. Scenarios for them are finished though, I'll get to implementing it all properly someday.

Thank you for playing and the helpful feedback!

Thanks for the heads up, I've added the "for windows" label so it should be installable with itch.io app now. Thank you for playing and the feedback!

Praise the Sun ☀️
Glad it worked on Linux, very valuable to know. Thanks a lot!

Oh hey, a fellow Visual Novel entry for a Bullet Hell jam 👀

Having to dodge and read at the same time reminds me of one of the entries to Bullet Hell Jam 2022: https://raccoon-formality.itch.io/escape-the-date

While your game is clearly undercooked, and it's hard to me of think of proper feedback because of it, I think the idea is worth exploring. Though, since dodging bullets and reading are two very different mechanics, I think it'd be very challenging to make the game fun while making sure the bullets and dodging are a storytelling element, rather than a distraction or a mere gimmick.

That's partially the reason why I separated the two in our own visual novel bullet hell entry - the visual novel portion describes the story and gives you choices, and the bullet hell segment tries to convey emotion, energy and dynamics of the date as it's happening while reflecting your choices to some extent. Perhaps you may find some insights and things to think about with our entry as I have with yours.

Overall - a worthwhile idea to pursue. Can't really imagine how the game will end up to be considering its current state, but am curious to see how the concept evolves. Congrats on finishing the jam!

Thank you for the bug report - both the bombs and level skips were last minute additions, so I forgot to account for bomb usage on the first date. Sorry about that. Thank you for playing and the kind words!

The artistic presentation is nothing short of insane - incredible level of polish and expression. Honestly impressive work in that regard. The degree of artistic freedom and posing mechanic reminds me of one of the last year jam's submissions: https://specium.itch.io/jojos-bizarre-hyperdodge-hell

The gameplay itself is pretty simple, with a relatively low number of bull... err, rockets..? Projectiles, yes. Not really my kind of game, a bit too simple and the posing mechanic felt awkward because you can't just use up/down to change to any pose. But it's not bad, and by simplifying the gameplay you've been able to focus on the visual aspect instead.

Nothing to complain about, really, and I've already listed the nitpicks. Though, it's kinda funny how much more swearing there is in the English subtitles compared to the Russian ones, in fact they sounded pretty polite in comparison and didn't use a single swear word.

Overall - it feels like this game had a very clear design and artistic direction, and was presented extremely well as a result. Even some small touches - like how you can move into projectiles without taking damage (and cause a small spark as a result). Great work!

6 endings in a 10 day jam game????? This is nuts

I've enjoyed it - lots of room for strategizing, until the last minute of play I've been discovering new optimizations for nut collection. Slight degree of exploration, too - I always like to buy passive items with interesting effects in games.

Pretty solid game all in all. The perspective and the healing bullets made me think of Furi.

Perspective felt a bit unusual, but didn't take long to get used to. Player and bullet hitboxes felt very comfortable. Only one real complaint:

- Special move just copies the behavior of green bullets, sending shots back at the boss and healing you. Felt a bit detrimental to use - has a delay before activating, and you have to let go of the shot button which reduces your DPS. Why not let it reflect purples too, to make it more distinct and practical?

The rest are nitpicks:
- Using J/K/L for abilities wasn't very comfortable. I wish there was a way to use Z/X/C/V, either as an alternate control scheme or by letting the player remap keys.
- Final pattern of the boss can be cheesed by walking to the empty space to the left/right, you won't have to dodge any purple bullets at the cost of some (easily replenishable) health. I suggest making it shoot to the sides in addition to the middle.
- Not seeing the boss' health kind of diminished from the bullet reflection mechanic of greens and special, I didn't even realize those bullets deal damage until after my first play. I would suggest adding a boss bar for this reason.

Not much else to add really. Solid level of quality for a 10 day game. Congrats on finishing the jam!

Heh, well, that's one way to implement the theme :p I suppose with this playstyle it's necessary to wait until all targeted enemies spawn in fully, meaning they get to make a few shots before you can attack. A fair risk/reward payoff.

I think there's some potential with this design, with more dev time and a deeper boons system it may get really flexible as a roguelite. Will definitely revisit your game if you decide to work on it further.

I enjoyed it - fluid follow-mouse movement, an attack system that's hard to get used to but feels powerful, and a special move which is also hard to use but feels good when you manage to combo it together with the main attack.

The roguelite system of choosing powers/curses was okay, though none of the powers (except time burst charge count increase) felt immediately impactful. I've gotten maybe 20-30 waves in before dying, and didn't notice the movement, time burst duration or bullet time efficiency buffs at all. Maybe write down the % increases for powers/curses in their tooltip? (this would at least add a psychological effect that you're actually getting stronger in that particular area)

The attack system is simple but has some depth, which was fun to explore. For example - if you keep tapping the LMB and killing enemies to replenish your charge, the bullets will essentially stay in slowmo until you run out, and you'll have a brief moment when you can deal damage whenever you let go. It's very, very satisfying to take down many enemies at once while all this happens (either by dodging bullets gracefully or using time burst).

The only real complaint is how long enemies take to become vulnerable upon spawn - I guess it's necessary to prevent cheesy spawnkilling, but it kind of discourages aggressive playstyles. Maybe make them vulnerable a bit sooner?

Overall - really solid effort, considering you only spent 3 days. Shame you didn't spend all 10 though, I think the result would have been glorious. Congrats on finishing the jam!

Finished with a 408k score. Great presentation, smooth gameplay, no rough edges. Not that I expected anything less considering the quality of your previous jam games.

I didn't find the steal mechanic particularly impactful (rather it felt like an extra step to getting a power up), and the player character felt on the slow side. I'd have appreciated a somewhat faster speed, maybe with a focus/slowdown button? Either way, neither of these things affected my enjoyment much.

Only complaint is that some hitboxes felt off. Either certain bullet hitboxes felt too big, or I couldn't get used to player char's hitbox (which I think could pop off more, it wasn't very easy to see). For example, the rotating atom-like bullet - the one on your first gif - is it just the middle that can hit you or also the rotating bits?

Overall - very polished, pleasant to play. Didn't really notice the theme being used because I always powered up anyways. Not much else to add. Congrats on finishing the jam!

Beat it after setting lives to 8.
The game is presented really well - polished visuals, great soundtrack (which made me dance with my mouse sometimes). Player ship controls well, following the crosshair at its own speed works really nicely to keep things fluid.

The main issue is just how tanky the enemies are. They take a really long time to kill, even when you're in their face with the strongest shot. Frustratingly long, because I wanted to play aggressively and had to wait until an enemy dies instead. Especially those tiny circular enemies - they look like popcorn, why don't they pop like one? All in all, the game's pace is significantly slowed down as a result, to a pace that doesn't gel well with the intense soundtrack, the swift stream of player shots and the ship speed.

I also think the time stop mechanic, while really cool on paper, needs a redesign. It's way too strong as a survival tool since you can warp without a cooldown and delete nearby bullets, and is not suited as an offensive tool at all due to reduced shot power after warp. Combine this with the stupidly tanky enemies - and you get a mechanic that keeps you alive but never lets you advance. This has really sapped the fun from the game for me. As a suggestion - why not disable time stop when player power is 0, and create a damaging, bullet cancelling explosion (visually like the ones that play when you launch the game executable) of scaling power and radius depending on player power?

Overall - great presentation, great potential. Did not find it fun, but it's fixable. Solid effort for a jam game. Congrats on finishing!

Gave it a try because the rhythm concept and some elements feel similar to our entry.

While I enjoyed the aesthetics as well as your choice of music, unfortunately the gameplay has been crippled severely by elements that work against it. Slow character, input delay, large hitboxes, low fire rate of 1 shot per second while there are dozens of enemies on screen at a time, taking hits from blocky/wavy lines when you shouldn't due to a bug of some kind, enemy shots that block your own shots without giving score... The final nail was being unable to move diagonally while shooting.

The player feels weak and powerless, which just wasn't fun. You're supposed to combat MALEVOLENT INTERNET ENTITIES yet your peashooter can barely deal any damage, you can only shoot straight, AND you get swarmed by ads from all sides and you can't shoot them back? That's very anticlimactic considering how many words in game title and game description are in ALL CAPS and ITALIC. The player should have much better tools and be able to dispatch most of the enemies on-screen - so either give player a much faster, powerful shot which can reach multiple angles, or reduce enemy counts so you're not just dodging ads when you're supposed to block them.

Overall - I don't think the game is fun at all, but it's fixable. Adjust the player hitbox, fix the input delay, redesign the shooting so player can take down most of the enemies, add extra options for dealing with enemies your shot can't reach, and lastly I'd suggest to adjust how patterns are synced to the music. It wasn't bad, yet was barely perceptible because I was looking at the playing area while the amount of enemies didn't match the rhythm.

Good effort for having only 5 days of work available. Congrats on finishing the jam!

8.9mil clear on first try. Didn't feel particularly difficult, though the last enemy's patterns were pleasantly tight and made me take the most hits out of the rest of the game.

Very polished, clean and pleasant to play, no rough edges whatsoever. Clearly made with LOVE. Very natural ship hitbox size for the amount of bullets, every point of damage I took felt fair. No first-time kills, no patterns that have to be memorized, ample opportunity for pointblanking. Lots of things I personally love in a shmup have been converged into this one.

Now, I should probably mention something worth improving, but since the game is so small-scoped and barely manages to miss with anything, I've only got a few nitpicks:

- I don't really understand the scoring. I guess the point is to kill as many enemies as possible and collect their crystals, and then there's this weird mechanic of reinforcements that only come when you kill an enemy with the blade attack for some reason? But why specifically the blade..? (People who can't read will never figure this out and may think it's random. I suggest to change reinforcement conditon to "kill green enemy in close range" at least, regardless of weapon used)
- For the final cutscene, I think the animation is too slow and doesn't look so great compared to how fluid the gameplay was (especially at 144fps). Feels like a cut for time, understandable if true.
- When I took hits my ship would jump away somewhere? Or was it some kind of speed-up? Didn't really understand what it was or its purpose.
- Theme implementation felt on the weaker side, a minor mechanic (and kinda obscure due to first nitpick) that didn't feel important during play. Not a dealbreaker, though.

Overall - great accomplishment for a 10 day jam game. Really not sure what else to add, very clean game throughout. Well done!

Enjoyed the game a lot, and probably biased because you're combining 2 of my favorite genres into one. Simple, yet with sufficient depth, good enemy variety. Graphics and character made me think of Momodora (though judging by one of your inspirations, it's probably Rusted Moss instead).

It's really great how much room for tactics there is - with player positioning affecting certain enemies' positioning, bullets converging at good spots if you time your moves well, staggering to change the attack timings of enemies, using knives to delete/stagger nuisances... Playing everything through in my head was a blast.

Only one thing to mention. The player hitbox, some enemy movement patterns, enemies' shot angles while you're moving - they didn't feel very clear. I think the game could use a forecast system, maybe something like in YOMI Hustle, which lets you see how enemies will act before you make your turn - showing where they're going to move, where they'll shoot (especially for times when the player moves), and letting you know if you're going to get hit if you step into a specific tile. This way a newer player with a weaker grasp of mechanics will have to make fewer guesses, and it could also streamline the tutorial a bit, making it shorter and more intuitive.

Otherwise - I don't think the theme was really incorporated into the game (facing consequences for bad moves is kind of the strategy games' whole schtick...), but it's not a problem for me. I've enjoyed the game a lot still, might replay it for a no-hit run later.

Great presentation, very fun, been dreaming of playing a bullet hell strategy game for some years now. Hope to see more. Congrats on finishing the jam!

(And a suggestion: maybe make the knife throw instant, and not take a turn? Or maybe an alternative special move with that property. Since you can already throw the knife anywhere it may give the player more control over bullet patterns and just feel more powerful, especially when you introduce thicker and more complicated patterns later on)

Got all achievements in 2 tries (and 1 quick restart). Usually not a fan of biological settings, but this game's visual aesthetic was appealing to me.

Really polished and controls well. Didn't find much reason to not use both shots at once but not complaining, player felt quite powerful despite the tanky enemies. Enemy spawns were well-designed - I like that when host cells first appear with enemies, they don't obstruct them completely yet send the message that you should expect that to escalate soon.

Only two real complaints. First, the thin laser bullet seemed really small compared to the large player ship and player shots, it wasn't very easy to see. I would consider increasing its size.

Second, the theme implementation seemed cool on paper, yet in gameplay it just felt like a second HP gauge. The patient condition didn't seem to affect anything and it also seems that 6% is the lowest patient condition you can reach, which takes away from host cells' importance, turning them into little more than revenge bullet bombs. I think it would feel very natural for there to be a rank system of sorts - lower condition means more enemies, bullets, perhaps spawning host cells that attack you (similar to Misunderstoodman, another jam game). Seemed like a missed opportunity, or a cut for time. Not a big deal for a jam game though.

The rest are nitpicks. Pointblanking is a bit awkward because of the first enemy type that shoots a quick thin laser at you. Better visibility should fix it, and I would maybe add an extra 0.2-0.3s of delay before it fires. Tutorial was okay, though could do with a way to advance dialogue faster.

Overall - solid gameplay and presentation, fun to play, controls well. Interesting aesthetics and some small touches. Congrats on finishing the jam!

Distinctly presented, the hand-drawn artstyle made me think of some old Flash shmups in the same aesthetic, and the goofy enemy designs reminded me of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

It seems that the game was designed with Easy difficulty in mind - higher difficulties were very punishing, dying once meant losing a lot of power with little opportunity to get it back, and would quickly snowball into being unable to kill anything. At the same time - avoiding civilians required a degree of precision that is difficult to achieve with how large and relatively slow the player is, while killing everything in sight would snowball into being completely swarmed by army forces with little to no breathing room.

Among other things - random civilian spawns killing the player with collisions felt unfair, and strongly discouraged claiming space to the right. I would suggest removing collisions with humans at least (or make them die on contact instead of you) - they will still jump in front of your shots, but at least they won't prevent aggressive positioning.

In general, seeing the enemies together with civilians/cat/structures felt a little off - aliens are everywhere, civilians are everywhere, yet they do not interact with each other at all (as if they are allies). For example - wouldn't it make sense for the godzilla miniboss, instead of walking next to buildings gracefully, to walk among rubble of said buildings?

On a positive note, I think the presentation and the ton of variety with enemies/civilians works really well for the game's setting. Lets your imagination run wild - are you a hero? Are you a villain? Are you just passing by, or tripping balls, or are you just so badly misunderstood that everyone is trying to kill you..?

Solid amount of content with a healthy dose of imagination. Not regretting giving it as much time as I did. Congrats on finishing the jam!

Great work, Agent o7 (and keep in mind that sunscreen is not covered by your insurance)

Anyone can dodge rain these days, but can they dodge the SUN? :p
Thank you for playing!

Right now you can hold the Cancel button (X on keyboard, B on gamepad by default) for 2 seconds on any level to skip to the next action one, though you won't get to make any choices as a consequence (lol). Good feedback though. Thank you for playing!

Too much work due to engine limitations.

Thank you for the explanation ^^ I agree that reviewing/rating a game is subjective no matter what, and as long as the rater applies same logic to every game they play, there's no problem with that imo. Personally, I base my ratings off of "expected quality for the jam" and rate higher/lower depending on if there are issues or a game performs a lot better in a category to the point it feels like part of a full game. I think our rating styles are similar for this reason, I just apply it to each criterion individually and don't take other jam games into account.

By "equal playing field" I didn't mean that "every single game can win" but rather "exactly 1 game can win, but everyone has a chance regardless of how good/bad the game performs in a specific category", hence the multiple voting criteria. A game could generally be rated 1 star in art for instance, but 5 stars in everything else, and it wouldn't disqualify it from winning. No offense taken, just wanted to understand your point of view and share mine. Thank you again!

I don't really understand what "Top tiers" and "B tier" means in the context of this jam, so "scaled the ratings accordingly" sounds like it implies that the jam's games are not all on an equal playing field. Oh well, ultimately your ratings are up to you. Glad you enjoyed the game and thank you for the detailed feedback!

Okay, you sold me - I'm definitely hiring Mortilla to chop trees, slay demons, and bring world peace with minimum violence. Do you think they've got a spot in their schedule for me?

I tried playing again, this time managed to beat 2 loops (not cheesing the boar with the bug) before dying. I've been meaning to write how the jump doesn't feel like a true alternative to dodge rolling, because of how long you spend in the air and how little player control you have while airborne. Then I rolled the axe which turned out to be a gun? and you can spam it in the air to stay airborne forever?? and it turned out to be the most fun thing ever???? ...I guess my gripe now is "why did other weapons feel inferior to the point that beating a boss - without being a facetanking jackass - takes forever?"

I suppose it's a matter of being used to one type of gameplay or the other. 3d Souls-likes never resonated with me, but similar action games like Ninja Gaiden Sigma, Metal Gear Rising and Furi I enjoyed a lot. All of them give you either a dodge ability with invulnerability frames, a type of parry, or both, along with other special attacks and moves. Rather than limit the player's abilities (I tried dark souls once and it felt like the player was a lead balloon), they keep the degree of freedom high while making enemies and bosses harder and less predictable to compensate. With Aku no Mori, it felt like you had to know always when you can be around the boss and when you cannot.  The jumps' timing and required force (for the boar fight) are precise. Jump too soon or too low and the boar will hit you before you can charge another jump. Jump too late and too high - you'll miss the opportunity to strike efficiently, so you'll either have to deal less damage and run away asap, or stay and endure one of its instant attacks. For the fly, it depends on your weapon (and gets really awkward with a melee one), but as you'll either have to use an accurate mid-air attack or a ground attack with wind-up that has enough reach, it really comes down to knowledge once again. There weren't many times when there was an attack coming at me which I didn't expect, and I had enough time to use my abilities to evade while still being able to damage the boss. Again, I assume it's the default for souls games where you have to know what the boss does firsthand and make precise inputs based on specific telegraphs, rather than be able to experiment and trust your gut.

Oh, and you've mentioned the bone's flame attack so I tried it against the fly. It worked, despite me losing most of hp in the process. Crossbow - I've managed to beat Boar with it without cheese, aiming still awkward but it's not terrible (and I never noticed the heal off of trees mechanic lol, idk if it matters since you stay away from the boar and never take damage anyhow). Didn't use it against the second boss, but if neither shooting it on the ground nor the sweeping attack hit the fly then it's going to be way too painful to fight. So yeah, it's not skill issue that led me to all the feedback so far, I hope!

(really sleepy so dunno how readable or objective this WoT is, but I couldn't stand to delete it all either. Anyway, as with other such texts, take what feedback you need and discard the rest)

The devil deal death is kinda supposed to jumpscare you with the dark background, red text and eerie sounds, without any warning. I guess it didn't really have an effect because you, me and Magna were talking about stuff when the screen appeared lol. Russian Roulette is an interesting suggestion, albeit it may remove that element of surprise I think. Worth considering for other chance-based elements though 👀

Well presented and original, with a degree of attention to detail that I'm already coming to expect out of Boneyard Productions™

Aesthetically - the game is designed well. Starting with a blood rain that gives an eerie intro befitting the plot, and the environment gives off a special atmosphere as well. It feels like you're lost somewhere dangerous. Even death animation has you "return to the soil" (I wonder if the forest was alive?). The boss track is short and loops quickly, but turned out oddly addictive.

Gameplay-wise - it didn't resonate with me so strongly.  For the first boss in particular - limited camera angles and slower than the boss speed for the player (even with dash) made it really awkward to anticipate the boar's moves. It felt like you either had to facetank to deal damage at a swift pace (trying not to get yeeted in the process), or chip away very slowly and keep running/jumping around to avoid taking hits. Lack of immediate defensive/movement abilities encouraged running away from bosses rather than proactively seeking opportunities to attack.

For both bosses, I couldn't utilize some of the weapons fully - the crossbow was really awkward to aim, and the sweeping attack of the Bone™ couldn't hit the second boss while grounded. The long wind-ups of some weapons also made it impossible to deal hits while being able to dodge the quick fly demons. All in all, both bosses turned into battles of attrition for me, so I didn't enjoy the combat aspect much.

It's a shame that you've had to spend so much time dealing with IRL stuff. I think the game could turn a lot more fun with more development time, more player responsiveness, and perhaps some extra abilties beyond walk, run, attack and jump. With how the player can climb and jump off of trees I assume there were thoughts to incorporate it into combat somehow? Or maybe there's already some kind of mechanic/game changing strategy I didn't discover?

Overall - solid foundation for an atmospheric deforestation and de-demonization sim. I'd totally hire Mortilla to chop some trees and demon limbs. Combat system may need more attention. Oh, and a crouch button please, so I can feel a sense of accomplishment after beating a difficult boss.

Thank you, and noted!

Warning Forever was great! And now that you mentioned it, Exaltator Nil really looks similar to it in many ways, even though I didn't really think about it during development... Almost uncanny.

The weird labeling was a result of time trouble, I didn't have enough time to edit the defaults. Glad you enjoyed regardless, and thank you for playing!

Beat it after a couple tries - there were a few issues with controls and general ability to parse the 3d environment, which took some getting used to but didn't stop me from completion ^^ The lore and bosses remind me of Rival Megagun, which also has you participate in a space TV show to the death.

Despite seeming very "unity-like" with the way the assets look, I think it turned out well aesthetically, with some nice details and touches, like how Corvette derps out into spins during its second attack. I also liked the bullets - great visibility while pleasing to the eye. The sounds were somewhat too loud, but overall fitting together with the music.

The gameplay - I think it turned out alright as well, the boss attack design is varied enough, player and enemy bullet hitboxes aren't too big. Though to note, ship movement inertia was something I disliked about it, and it didn't feel like it adds anything here - the small and lightweight mobile ship sliding in space like on ice as if it's throwing around a lot of weight, makes little sense to me. It's not that bad since the game doesn't require micrododging - still, I'd really consider removing that mechanic, and if it makes the game too easy - adjust boss patterns to compensate. With how well made your patterns were, the inertia is only going to limit your design options in the long run.

Some smaller things to note, including bugs:
- Corvette boss fight, parsing the boss and player location was difficult due to how the 3d perspective worked. I couldn't hit my shots much of the time, which was especially painful after picking up the exchange power up. Some kind of aim marker, like a laser pointer, would have been nice

- For the same reason, Corvette's artillery attack was hard to parse as well. I figured the best way to dodge is to stay at the very top and move horizontally from the smallest-looking bullets, yet sometimes they'd get obscured by the bigger-looking ones that were closer to the camera. Would be great to have some kind of telegraph, like target marks on the field, showing where the bullets are going to land

- Holding spacebar and using arrow keys made it impossible to move diagonally. Probably a problem with my keyboard, either way it made dodging a lot harder. Being able to remap the shot button to somewhere else, like Z, could have let me fix it, consider adding that option if possible

- When trying to play through itch client, I got an error: "Unable to parse Build/usb.framework.js.gz! This can happen if build compression was enabled but web server hosting the content was misconfigured to not serve the file with HTTP Response Header "Content-Encoding: gzip" present". Because of it I had to play in a browser instead. The game is quite heavy and takes a while to load, so having a downloadable version would have been handy, including for better performance

Overall - good jam game. Has room to improve. And I think you have the skills and sense to make it better, whether it be an updated version of USB or a future shoot em up/bullet hell game. Hope the feedback will be of use, and congrats on finishing the jam!

P.S. - Since you like bullet hells, consider trying our game, Exaltator Nil. It may be up your alley ^^

Yeah this one is really annoying >.< Sadly it's an engine-related bug that I can't consistently fix on my own. Glad you enjoyed the game regardless ^^

Fun concept! A bit glitchy (which is fine for jam a game) and took some time to get used to controls, but it didn't stop me from completion.

I already gave you some feedback about camera and platforms disappearing after you jump off of them, and to elaborate - it felt like I couldn't see enough of the arena with how the camera was zoomed in. In addition, the camera movement while jumping around felt a bit disorienting. Maybe try a static camera with full arena view during boss fights, like in War in Heaven?

As for platforms - because they just turned gray(?) after jumping off, I couldn't immediately read it as "you can't jump back on it anymore". I would suggest to turn them maybe to 10% transparency after jumping off, gradually going back to maybe 60% transparency, before immediately becoming opaque. This way I think it'd easier to read the states of "you just jumped off of it and can't jump back", "you still can't jump back but it's getting closer", and "you can jump back now" without confusing one for the other.

There were a couple more issues/nitpicks, but they all stem from the two I've described. And could also be plain skill issue on my part. I'd just add that Nattland Interactive's comment about color language is spot on, as are Bad Piggy's comments about overall gameplay experience. Last but not least, I want to point out that the artstyle really turned out just fine and not bland at all. The Blade Rush powerup in particular adds personality, and boss attacks are fairly varied and feel distinct from one another. Well implemented minimalist/geometrical styles tend to leave a lot to the player's imagination, so I think if you focus on a solid gameplay foundation and add smaller things to give it life, the resulting experience will be quite worthwhile, whether it's with or without googly eyes for the boss ^^

Hope the feedback will be of use. Congrats on finishing the jam!

Thank you for your kind and detailed comments, and welcome back to the Slam ^^ Cursor visibility and uncomfortable aiming are common points of feedback, and I would like to fix them when SHMUP Creator gets more updates.

(and yeah it was very naive of me to think that going to the final boss early, with a weapon that the boss was tested with in the first place, is a penalty lmao, makes me wonder how many people miss the superweapons you can get after beating Boss 16...)

There was a plan to implement dynamic difficulty - boss attacks would become more intense as Alert level goes up, as well as after taking certain Overclocks. The logic is in place, but I didn't have time to finish the extra attacks and test them. I agree the difficulty turned out a bit too easy as a result, and more inclined towards absolute beginners.

Thank you for playing!

A solid tribute to Void Stranger while still distinct and mostly its own thing.

The atmosphere and vibes are on point, the mood felt very consistent. Complemented well by the music (which didn't play for the first dozen or so levels, not sure if that's intentional or a bug).

Gameplay took some getting used to - the large player hitbox was manageable by itself, but shooting an enemy sometimes pushed it back in unpredictable ways. Not a biggie, as there weren't any solutions that required pixel perfect movement or very precise inputs.

The plot and lore didn't feel very fleshed out and some aspects didn't make much sense, as I don't think there were enough rules and concepts of the game world exposed (e.g. defeating the warden by aggroing his ramiels and solving a puzzle..?). Of course, it makes sense given the jam time limit, and there was still some neat attention to detail at times, such as unique background elements on some levels and the guitar part.

Overall - a moody, interesting piece, well worth the time I spent playing it. Void Stranger influences were quite apparent throughout, and I'm curious how it's going to transition into a full game.

TL;DR - If you appreciate games with personality, and also like shmups, stgs, bullet hells etc, give Danmaku Gladiator a try. There is no trailer so here's a video playthrough:

bnuuy

Thank you very much for playing and the kind words ^^ if all goes well the full version should go live before February

Actually I just checked your vods and you've literally been at it for 4 hours straight holy hell, what a legend