Ok, (I hope) I've played enough of this game to form an opinion of it (although I didn't even come to the final boss so feel free to tell me if there's more going on than I already know) and I'd like to give a feedback if you don't mind.

I'll start with what I like in this game's design: Although I have many things to say about what could be done better (IMO), the most important thing that overweights any issue is that I LOVE it's straight-forward style. No aiming, no "spell cards" known from other bullet hells, no bombs. 90% is pure avoidance which I really appreciate. As long as you keep more or less this style It'll unlikely get boring for me.

Now about the things (again, IMO) could be better:

0. What really annoys me is that if I do not focus on a certain enemy it may stay outside the box making it impossible for me to proceed or retry. It's actually rather a bug, but I'd like to have an option to kill myself, e.g. by pressing k, anyway.

1. The biggest thing I wish for the game is that the coloring becomes less stylized and more functional. For example I like UNDERTALE's combat system which you can take a look at on my YT channel (It's the only validate reference of course ;-)

It uses only simple colors: white for hurting, green for healing, blue for not moving when touching it and orange for absolutely having to move. I'd like Waker to be colored just as simple and functional (pls don't misinterpret this and actually implement what I've described about blue and red attacks).

For example what would fit my imagination is that borders and bullets are white, the enemies are white and 50% transparent so one can see their attacks if you're too close to them, the focus thingy should be e.g. red (or maybe orange to not cause more stress than needed) and then turn green when it's focused. This is of course only a suggestion, I don't mind if you decide to make the attacks green and the enemies pink :)

2. As you probably figured out already I'm here because I had a very nice introduction into bullet hell by UNDERTALE. But it's not only the unique battle system (for an RPG) which made me love it. Besides the fact that I've always appreciated gameplay where the player has to show skill instead of hoping for the lower damage, which is unfortunately in the most RPGs the case, it's important for me that a game has a good story and storytelling (MOST IMPORTANT THING EVER!), good music and character design.

Okay, I don't mind this game does not improve the characters since it barely has any. To the other two points, for the story I think it would be amazing if there was a linear mode you can chose where you can't shoot = have only to not get hit, which is the same every time, and where you get passwords at the end (which I've also thought how it could fit in the story). Probably (if you want to) we should discuss the story in another thread, I already have plenty of ideas. BTW, I could design a video for the intro ant the outro. As for the music I can try to make some sfx and bg mus if you want me to, but I can't promise that I'll be able to make anything that fits the visual setting.

3. When I started playing Waker I was pretty confused, because in the first time (and sometimes still) the font is barely readable and that's why I haven't noticed why I can or can not shoot. To "avoid" this problem in the future I'd suggest to make two "enemies" at the beginning the tutorial so one is forced to see the focus, giving the time to understand that the spinning thing is NOT a part of the standard animation. Perhaps what I've described above (colors) will help there as well.

4. One last thing I'd like to point out is that the algorithm responsible for the attacks should be optimized - I had once a boss which I couldn't beat at all: the first two attacks were pretty easy, but the last one... one wave had two window-filling rows - one very tight attack which was homing on me and like 3px later a very tight normal one.

For the first one I HAD to keep moving and for the second one I HAD to stay where I were. Maybe, just maybe it was technically beatable but this was SO hard to dodge that when I tried it about 50 times I didn't manage to get past the first row even once. I might still have a video feed of it in case you wanna see.

Welp, It became like, uh, 5x more than I've actually planned to write but now at least that's pretty much everything I've got to say. I hope this could give you an overview of what I, as my guess is, an average player am feeling about it and that you even might let me work together with you on this project.

Thx for the patience,

Lookin' forward for your response,

Mr. Heating.

Thank you very much for your opinions, Mr. Heating! They will be valuable to the development of the game.

I added bombs into the game - a reward for combos (destroying multiple enemies at once). If your meter fills up and you get hit, all bullets get cleared without the level restarting.

0. I've tweaked enemies a little to prevent them from waiting outside the box, but something random might happen. In the future you can hit ESC to go back to the level select screen.

1. Right now the CGA palette is being used like this: 

• white for player
• pink for player attacks
• cyan for danger

I'm working on a color palette system so I can easily change the colors and test out what could be better.

2. I'm thinking of journals and logs - completing levels grant access to these bits and pieces of backstory, and some additional power-ups to your arsenal (since you conquered another program, maybe assimilating it into your code?).

3. This is a very great idea! I'll be sure to put it in as soon as I can :)

4. There is a bug for the first attack - bosses always (for some reason I'm still finding out) spew out extra bullets during their first attack. I think I'm close to the source of the problem and will be able to fix it soon. Homing bullets are also toned down.

I hope I will be able to make the next release an even enjoyable experience for players like you, so feedback is crucial! Once again, thank you for your response.

- akirassasin

Good, it doesn't seem like my 5 TB of raw text data annoyed you (too much). ;-)

-1: Bombs: Do they destroy bullets, enemies or both? In the last two cases what about the bosses? Anyway as up until this point that game has been very skill based, however, I fear that if there will be bombs they'll make the game too easy. To resolve this conflict maybe there could be another shooting mechanic? I have in mind like 5s to charge, shoot a laser which one-hits every enemy and has exactly the same time which you need to go from one side to the other, BUT (probably you made it this way already while changing the screen shake, but in case not) even while shooting the bullets do kill you. Or one may  also have a meter for that which requires 5-10s to charge but can be used at any moment, just less amount of time. For the boss battles you're allowed to shoot the whole time but of course you're still required to be underneath it in order to aim at it.

If you decide to keep it the way it is I'd appreciate it if there was a special power up or sth. if one manages to get to the boss by shooting only once. BTW, I'm not sure anyway about the way it's done yet. I'm not shooting if I don't absolutely have to, because otherwise one has to dodge like 3 bullets until the boss battle.

0: Good thing to know, maybe also something that could be told in the tutorial?

1: My point is not that it doesn't look cool, it totally does, although some more contrast would be good, since e.g. on my laptop's screen everything's clear but on my external FHD screen I can barely see the difference. That's where my point of the palette being cool but not "useful". I'd rather like to be able to realize at any moment what's going on than enjoy good graphics. Ppl don't realize gfx while concentrating on the gameplay anyway.

2: Maybe we'll start another topic about how the story should progress and how it affects the game (pls)? To avoid spoilers I'd even delete it for you when everything is clear.

3: Cool!

4: LOL, I actually thought it was an addition, but in the case I've described the afterwards attacks looked just as difficult. I can show you the video, you just have to ask.

What are you planning about the audio part of the game?

Don't be so strict to yourself, your game is already the 2nd best bullet hell I've ever played, with it's hard yet fair patterns.

Here, I did a test trailer/intro for the game. NOTE that I took only 20 mins for that and the pictures show what would be in the picture, not how it'd look like.

Thanks for following up!

-1: Bombs are a risk-reward mechanic. If you go out of your way to destroy enemies, make combos and risk dying in the process, you gain a shield. This shield will defend you from a single bullet hit and clears all bullets on screen so you don't get hit multiple times. It will not make the game easier by much, but it will favor those that have more active playstyles. I'm also thinking of weapon loadouts but they won't be in the next update.

0: It will definitely be explained to the player :)

1: This may have something to do with the old rendering system. Waker will be using a new rendering system soon, that is more solid and consistent with colors. More vibrant and flexible too!

2: My priority is on the gameplay - however, the story part is also very important. I have a plan in mind to merge these two components together, so I won't spoil your discovery of it :)

For audio i'm thinking of something to the style of Teleglitch - ambient machine noise punctuated by beeps and boops. Bosses may have erratic BGM though.

Thanks for your kind comment! As of yet the procedural generation is quite fickle, so hard yet fair patterns may just be you (and me) being lucky. This will be the first game I'm selling commercially so I want to be sure it's something I can be proud of.

Have fun!

- akirassasin

Well, at first, I'll be straight-forward with you. While I might be completely wrong, it feels almost like you're trying to not answer the questions, if you feel that the answers could make me upset. In that case - as long as you give me any answer, like that you want to be the only one working on this project or that you need more time considering things like that. Of course I'm even more totally fine if you'll say that you could let me take part ;-). Every answer is more appreciated than none.

-1: Then I don't think that "bomb" fits the description, but rather sth. like "(power)shield"

Thinking of actual bombs I had an idea of a mechanic with bombs which one throws upwards, is detonated by the player at any point they wish but the explosion which covers about 50% of the field which has to be avoided.

4: for some reason I didn't see it recently...

I'm sorry my reply came across as that meaning. I just wanted to try out the writing myself since I've never done narrative in-game before :) I may have missed a few questions too.

-1: True! I have not come up with a name for it yet but I think Shield would be an intuitive name. Not too keen on the actual bomb idea however - I think it'll be a bit too different from the original combat.

" 😱 NOOOOOOO! YOU'VE DESTROYED ALL OF MY HOPES AND DREAMS! JK, but how is it actually possible? "

Err I don't quite get what you mean haha :)

Oh, I didn't mean to drop the last one here.

Ok, to be sure now: you want to do the story all by yourself, right?

TL;DR of my other questions: is there anything else I can contribute to the project with (mus, sfx, imgs, vids)?

The game is still very early in development, so I'll need playtesters. You can contribute to the project by playing every update and record footage of it. Kind of like Let's Plays - each update will add vast new things so you won't be tired of it :) Keep the opinions going, they are very insightful!

I would like to work on other aspects of the game, however. It's unmapped territory for me so I would like to venture in myself :P

Okay, glad that's cleared, but do you really want us to only record it or maybe do sth. else with it, idk - upload it to raise game's popularity, send it to you so you can see how well ppl r doing?

That'll be great!

Okay, looks like my reply wasn't posted for some reason >:-(

What'll be great? I gave two possibilities of what we could do => 3 possible connections and you just reply with yes. does that mean that you want us to do both?

It'll be nice of you to do both :) don't worry about it if you are busy with other things though!

It's okay, how do you want it to be called?

It's up to you! Just send me a link of the video if you made one!

Oh yes, your no hit videos are amazing - reminds me of stuff that I had forgotten to, or could add into boss behaviours :) Keep it up!