This design is so elegant! The concept is really well thought, and served with some amazing juiciness! It just provides incredible sensation.
I thought I would be forever stuck on the last level (triangle), but eventually achieved to beat it with the bonus attack. The game becomes quickly difficult, which I guess is by choice. And most of the time the challenge is actually really satisfying! However, it comes with some frustration too. Many time I had the impression that I failed not because I didn't reacted fast enough (although it did also happen), but because I took a bad decisions 1 or 2 seconds ago that brought me in a situation where I couldn't win. And this didn't feel really great. There are even some obstacles that I couldn't find how to reasonably avoid, other than with cheer luck (mostly when it involved aiming missiles, or too many "rockets" coming from the center with no readable order).
Still I enjoyed completing it, and playing with the two alternative controls! It's an intense and unforgivable game, but that can quickly become addictive. I found displaying the remaining health on defeat is a clever choice, often giving a little hint that beating the level might be actually reachable. This demo was already quite fun, i'm curious to see the final game!
I love that game but I wish there was like a phase shift ability or something that makes me continue in the zone because I love when the game speeds up but I have to tap because levels are design not to reach that high speed. I think you could add a phase shift ability that make the player phase through the red areas but the ability runs for like 1 second or something and need to cool down but also if you successfully phase through something, you get right away. I wish the game allow high skilled player to have combos and make the main character run on high speed with max damage.
Hey! Im not sure how much of the game you played but if you defeat all three of the bosses in the cluster around level 4 you should unlock an ability like that :)
Good game to play for those who are looking for reaction time challenges.
My recommendation is that:
There should be indicators on where the player should move the spacecraft on the map in the beginning levels of the game. I got confused by the "What?" and "Start" squares. As a new player, I thought that the Start square was the beginning of the level so I tried hovering towards the left to see the other levels.
Also, there should be an indicator in choosing the upgrades. I suggest changing the colors or other creative methods for the color-blind people to determine if the upgrades worked or not.
It is a fun and challenging game with a few tweaks it is going to be a huge hit. 5/5
Hey! Thank you very much for the feedback and your ideas! We will definitely take those into account, and we will definitely think of how to best tackle color-blindness for the final release
I dig how much mileage you got out of such a simple premise! The mechanic of increasing fire rate if you go in one direction for a long enough time is great.
I sometimes go to the itch.io "latest games", and I just play whatever free game I happen to see. I normally find some pretty bad games, some are slightly better than bad, but I have not found a good game. This is great!
First things first, my complaints I don't like the way the attacks look when they overlap while they are not dealing damage(i call that anticipating). You are changing the alpha, which by itself is fine, but when the attacks overlap, it doesn't look very good imo. My solution would be to change its color instead or maybe apply some dithering. There aren't many indicators. When an attack is about to spin, please have an indicator of which direction it is going. The attacks still hit, even when they aren't there. When the attacks fade away, even though they are nearly invisible I would still get hit. I get that there is an outline, but that is not what I'm paying attention to when I'm trying to survive. As soon as something starts fading away, it shouldn't do damage anymore. Also, sometimes an anticipating block would stop on me, and immediately start attacking. I had no time to react to it... Finally, the instant kill attack is cheap.
Now for things I like! I love the way the enemy colors contrast the player's colors, that is a nice touch. These particles look so great! The way the background particles move away from the boss emphasizes the circle. I'm really happy with how forgiving the player's hitbox is. Most people just make it as large as possible lol I like the way the game slows down when you change direction, and speeds up the less you turn. It helps new players trying to stay in one place, and for more experienced players, they will try to hold a direction as long as possible to beat the boss faster! I love the way the music is timed with the first attack. It teaches you how attacks and damage work, in just a second.
4/5, very well done, I can't wait to see what comes out of this.
Edit New complaint: I beat the game and unlocked dashing, but I can't go back to normal. :/
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3rd one is pretty hard but you get better when your used to it
anyways great game!
For some weird reason i felt the last level easier than the square level, anyways, this is a hard and fun game :D
is is a great game, good job!
This design is so elegant! The concept is really well thought, and served with some amazing juiciness! It just provides incredible sensation.
I thought I would be forever stuck on the last level (triangle), but eventually achieved to beat it with the bonus attack. The game becomes quickly difficult, which I guess is by choice. And most of the time the challenge is actually really satisfying! However, it comes with some frustration too. Many time I had the impression that I failed not because I didn't reacted fast enough (although it did also happen), but because I took a bad decisions 1 or 2 seconds ago that brought me in a situation where I couldn't win. And this didn't feel really great. There are even some obstacles that I couldn't find how to reasonably avoid, other than with cheer luck (mostly when it involved aiming missiles, or too many "rockets" coming from the center with no readable order).
Still I enjoyed completing it, and playing with the two alternative controls! It's an intense and unforgivable game, but that can quickly become addictive. I found displaying the remaining health on defeat is a clever choice, often giving a little hint that beating the level might be actually reachable. This demo was already quite fun, i'm curious to see the final game!
This is incredibly insightful, thank you very much for posting it! <3
We will definitely keep an eye out for making the game feel as fair as possible!
also yes, 1 bug that when u died you cant restart
Last level sucks
I love that game but I wish there was like a phase shift ability or something that makes me continue in the zone because I love when the game speeds up but I have to tap because levels are design not to reach that high speed. I think you could add a phase shift ability that make the player phase through the red areas but the ability runs for like 1 second or something and need to cool down but also if you successfully phase through something, you get right away. I wish the game allow high skilled player to have combos and make the main character run on high speed with max damage.
overall, great game :)
Hey! Im not sure how much of the game you played but if you defeat all three of the bosses in the cluster around level 4 you should unlock an ability like that :)
I might have missed that :( because it gets so hard before reaching that level
Fun game I have high hopes for when it comes out as a full game
That's awesome to hear! Thank you <3
Good game to play for those who are looking for reaction time challenges.
My recommendation is that:
There should be indicators on where the player should move the spacecraft on the map in the beginning levels of the game. I got confused by the "What?" and "Start" squares. As a new player, I thought that the Start square was the beginning of the level so I tried hovering towards the left to see the other levels.
Also, there should be an indicator in choosing the upgrades. I suggest changing the colors or other creative methods for the color-blind people to determine if the upgrades worked or not.
It is a fun and challenging game with a few tweaks it is going to be a huge hit. 5/5
Hey! Thank you very much for the feedback and your ideas! We will definitely take those into account, and we will definitely think of how to best tackle color-blindness for the final release
Cool Game Dont know how to change the equempint do they have to be blue to equip it?
They should appear as dark blue if you have unlocked them! A small black bar will appear to the left side of the ability you have selected :)
cool game I feel like there should be an arrow pointing to the rotating square saying "this is you" as I was a little confused at the start
This would be the perfect mobile game!
Amazing graphics, simple but fun gameplay, just overall good :)
Edit:
Also the dash is so cool
Nice!!
Nice 1st place on "the obstacle" (level 3)! Brilliant game that I am maybe only partially biased towards due to my ranking
It's incredible
Super fun! This game reminds me that simple is hard :)
Lessss Goooooo #1 on first lvl!
hdfhf
A fun fun and simple game; But there should be a direction indicator on the obstacles so I'm not playing a guessing game.
Great that you can create such an interesting and challenging game with just one player input. Fun!
Fun!
Very good! A little hard but very good!
NOICE!
Top notch game! Well done.
This is surprisingly hard
Interesting concept, well-executed, though if i had to gripe, i wish there was a way to tell which way objects move once they spawn in
hey! we have a version on newgrounds that's a lot newer and implements a lot of feedback we got on this one. you can try it here: https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/793986
As a UX designer, I love everything about this.
the game got a lot easier once I realized you shoot faster if you stop switching directions. Very cool mechanic
great game! love the risk vs reward gameplay. absolutely wonderful.
+
The rotating bars attack is impossible to predict.
I dig how much mileage you got out of such a simple premise! The mechanic of increasing fire rate if you go in one direction for a long enough time is great.
My best time is 39.39
Make that 34.36
Alright review time
----
I sometimes go to the itch.io "latest games", and I just play whatever free game I happen to see. I normally find some pretty bad games, some are slightly better than bad, but I have not found a good game.
This is great!
First things first, my complaints
I don't like the way the attacks look when they overlap while they are not dealing damage(i call that anticipating). You are changing the alpha, which by itself is fine, but when the attacks overlap, it doesn't look very good imo. My solution would be to change its color instead or maybe apply some dithering.
There aren't many indicators. When an attack is about to spin, please have an indicator of which direction it is going.
The attacks still hit, even when they aren't there. When the attacks fade away, even though they are nearly invisible I would still get hit. I get that there is an outline, but that is not what I'm paying attention to when I'm trying to survive. As soon as something starts fading away, it shouldn't do damage anymore. Also, sometimes an anticipating block would stop on me, and immediately start attacking. I had no time to react to it...
Finally, the instant kill attack is cheap.
Now for things I like!
I love the way the enemy colors contrast the player's colors, that is a nice touch.
These particles look so great! The way the background particles move away from the boss emphasizes the circle.
I'm really happy with how forgiving the player's hitbox is. Most people just make it as large as possible lol
I like the way the game slows down when you change direction, and speeds up the less you turn. It helps new players trying to stay in one place, and for more experienced players, they will try to hold a direction as long as possible to beat the boss faster!
I love the way the music is timed with the first attack. It teaches you how attacks and damage work, in just a second.
4/5, very well done, I can't wait to see what comes out of this.
Edit
New complaint: I beat the game and unlocked dashing, but I can't go back to normal. :/