I don't know if it's intentional or a bug, but your cooldown for you laser drops (the same amount as when you fire a shot) every few seconds, making it very hard to cool down your guns. Only with a ton of gun upgrades was I able to play without waiting a good 30 seconds between killing each badguy.

Other than that though, great game, love the art and the mechanics. Plus you get 5 star in community for the whole XNA Reach thing (had no idea).

It's a bullet-fest where even the bullets shoot bullets. I especially liked the upgrade system and thought it worked well. Nicely done for a 48 hour code concerto.

I realize now I didn't explain the energy mechanic. Your shields use energy to recharge, so that's what you're seeing. This creates a direct penalty to taking shield damage as it really messes with your ROF at lower reactor levels. Get it up to 4 or 5 and you can spam all day in armor.

Wow, really enjoyed this! Especially liked the replicating bullet bosses. The ending was unexpected too.

some notes while I play:

the energy mechanic is cool
can I improve the rate shields generate at? as it is I just alt-tab and do something else to let them fill up
I don't think you can describe this as a platformer in any way
the fact that enemies respawn makes it feel like I have no impact on anything
there was one enemy that I couldn't kill because of how the blocks around it were positioned, that bothers me for some reason
I'm lost because I died and I have no idea where the room I respawned in is in relation to where I died
figured it out, I respawned before the bosses that I'd already beaten
level design is quite strange, it feels like you just scribbled randomly and made it into a room (quite possible, this IS LD after all)
oh dammit, when I was nearing the ending (the not-exit one) I entered a room and got stuck in a wall, moved downward, then the game crashed (System.IndexOutOfRangeException, probably caused by my moving out of the level and therefore out of the array, I'm sure)
don't really feel like doing that again, so I guess I don't get to see the ending - that said, your game has bullets that shoot bullets. I am satisfied. also, the upgrade mechanic is neat

Awesome game! The upgrade system was what made it fun and addictive. Music was also good and engaging. The ending was really funny. The software really became free to do what it wanted! My OS didn't seem to like that, heh heh.

Liked the game alot, but at a certain point I began dying too quickly ( I kinda suck at these bullet hells). Also good job on the music.

Being able to shoot horizontally seemed like a rather big issue when the enemies have directional fire.

Solid gameplay and implementation, I like it. Too bad I suck at this kind of games, so I didn't play it through. Also, I don't like respawning enemies ...
A little bit more variety would be nice.

this might be the last game i rate but it is awesome

Definitely one of the best games this LD. I'm going to disagree with Andrew, as the forced use of horizontal fire is what made this game challenging. The upgrade system was a nice addition.