Fun game! Love the particle effects. Nice work!

There's a lot of great stuff here. It looks amazing, really nice sprites, animations and effects but it also plays really well too. The roar is the perfect secondary ability, really coming in handy with how chaotic it can get at times. Think the upgrades are really good too and I appreciate how quickly they come through, means you're constantly being rewarded. Great job with this one!

Awesome game! The art and sound design was awesome and made the game feel really high-energy.

Since you got the same upgrades every time, the combination felt a bit samey on future runs -- it would be cool if there was some variation there, maybe you could only get certain upgrades on certain runs, or big unique upgrades you could choose between every X levels, or something like that.

The upgrades were fun, though! I kept clicking "reopen the rift" to keep playing with them :-)

Loved the sound, loved the music, loved the graphics, loved the animation. Was a really polished experience. Only problem I had was sometimes the little orbs would spawn right on the edge of the map and they're a little hard to see.

Good entry ! The time slowing down is cool, and the card system is nice. Having more sound effects would have added to the juice.

Nice game! I like the variety of upgrades, they add to the replayability. One thing that I find frustrating is that since I'm constantly mashing left mouse, I'll often select an upgrade by accident. It might be a good idea to have the keyboard be used to select an upgrade instead. Some autofire functionality would be nice as well since mashing the button all the time is really tiring out my hand. Also since my right hand is so busy shooting it's difficult to use the roar.

@yumahey @vgel Yeah, I really wanted to add more, but we totally ran out of time, haha!

@$162477 Have you tried holding down the left mouse button?

PLEASE RELEASE THIS GAME ON STEAM!

Very nice entry. Its amazing how much fun a Twin-Stick shooter can be. And this one is especially well done. I really could see this as a serious release.

really fun! the music was great too. I hope there was a bit more juicyness and sound fx but "it's ludum dare baby!"

I love me good bullet hell game and it's such a nice addition to let us overpower our character by constantly respawning. I suggest that in the full game you put it as a new game+ option. Great work!

Great little roguelike! Good sprites and the combat feels pretty balanced. More feedback on getting hit/shooting/hitting enemies would really increase the overall feel. I can't wait to see your full version!

We created something similar to your game. I love the art and the music. Felt like a really polished game to me.

@j0ye @nikolavuk @cobgoblin We're giving it some serious thought to develop this out into a full release. Annoyingly, we can't use as much of this game's assets as it may seem. Heavy development pressure leads to some bad compromises when writing code, and I'm sure as hell not going to unravel all that spaghetti, haha.

The main thing holding us back right now is that the Leveling system is super fun, but it interrupts gameplay pretty badly. We also aren't sure how to keep this game fresh for more and more play-throughs, other than just unlocking new upgrades/characters. Definitely want to juice this game to the max, adding little collision animations and sounds, more little knockback effects, all that good stuff.

If there's actually serious interest in a full release, I'd really appreciate having a little group to get more feedback and ideas from. Might have to convert our little dev server to a public one :slight_smile:

https://discord.gg/azHCpkCm5q

The game is pretty good and leveling up the character is the thing which really makes fun. Boosting your weapon so that countless projectiles swarming in the level and killing the bigger enemies took me busy for half an hour.

Liked the game and I think it is also ver polished.

Awesome game! Controls feel nice, gameplay is interesting and the music is so good. Great job!

Really enjoyed this game! The atmosphere and mood are spot on and the music/art compliments it really well. I love stacking powerups on the weapon. I liked the movement speed vs fire rate trade off as well when moving and shooting. My only complaints are that I wish the feedback had more juice to it; it can be hard to tell when I am taking damage or if I have damaged an enemy. Too much of this is also bad (too much camera shake) but this game could use some more imo. Other than that I really enjoyed this game, excellent job! And good looks on the continue mechanic since its a game jam game after all.

@lvl99chicken Yeah totally wanted to add more juice, but it was either working overtime or getting normal sleep. I chose sleep, obviously, haha

Nice game! I really liked combining different power ups, but I suspect that taking too much chain backfired on me, because projectiles stopped splitting after hitting enemies. :(

I think this has potential, would love to see some interaction with the darkness around (shrinking, effects while inside of it, etc.)

Damn nice game! It's like a crimsonland, but it's essential to not forget to get blue thing! I forgot it many times =)

@tentaclemax Thanks for that reference! If we're to further develop this game, having that as something to compare it to will be super helpful

Wow, such a sweet ride! I must say the music is quite excellent! It gives the perfect beat to the killing of eldritch spawns from beyond the rift! Great feel to the gameplay, and the upgrade system gives it that extra pinch of seasoning that makes you want to get further! Absolutely great entry!

Chainsaw Cheerz!

This game is beyond awesome! Where can I start? The music? It's just so cool! Is it dynamically adapting to menu and gameplay states? The visuals? Totally awesome! Love the character design and enemy design. Maybe attach the gun to the player sprite for the final game?
One thing, the smol aliens can get too close and be behind the gun. So they damage you and when you attack, you shoot right over them. And sometimes the cards appear too quickly, maybe some kind of animation or confirm button?
But that's just a minor thing, the game is great as is!

@tosmaster I actually kinda like the gun being detached and spinning around, although that does indeed cause some trouble with little enemies. If we were to ever develop this further, I think I'd have to find some alternative to those cards. They were a little too intrusive I think

Funny little game. I like the limited space and the speed. The diversity and number of adds could be challenging. BUT what is a game without challenges? The music is very haunting - this beat goes through the whole body.

The cards are helpful to get better in each round. I agree @tosmaster with the idea of a confirm button or animation.

All in all: Great job! I had lots of fun.

1. It's fun
2. Green little bulbs are killing me
3. Upgrades are randomly poked (causes sadness)
.
Fresh, delicious, interesting and dynamic. What was missing was a deeper involvement in the jam theme.
.
All the creators did a great job! Hug them who are nearby! ahhah

I played your game on stream today, and after couple initial early deaths I got the grasp of what is going on. I had some issues with not being able to click fast because that would auto buy Power Ups when they popped out, which could be mitigated by just holding LMB, but then you walk slowly so :shrug:

Overall pretty great. Music was spot on with a fast paced tempo of the game. There are definitely couple of ways to build your character, surely some are better than others, but there is fun choosing your build. Some are more risky, some more safe, some straight will almost kill you, but that's good thing. You learn the game, take risk, die fast and try again. Great job :muscle:

Hey there! I really like your entry! I immediately thought that there will be a choose your power up screen at some point in time and i was not dissapointed. I like the connection to Vampire Survivors, if it was meant to be :smile: I have missed some more progression after hitting level 11. I felt that i could not gain that power that i need to get and that my previous decisions had no real impact (like piercing through enemies and bouncing didn't combine, am i right?). Nevertheless a solid thing to continue with!

@marin0104 Yeah, you're right. The order for the projectile behavior was as follows.
Pierce as much as possible, then fork once, then chain.

Also, yeah. Vampire Survivors, but also just the Twin-stick shooter genre in general.

I really wish I could've added more cards and monster variations and all that to keep higher levels interesting. Level 11 seems to be at the breaking point where monsters get faster than the player and it becomes overwhelming. In hindsight, it would've been smart to make the player character's speed also scale like the monsters. We'll probably find a different solution altogether if we are to do a full release.

I enjoyed the way you had to keep an eye on the blue orb, as it added an extra element to the genre. I liked also that your pushback ability consumes your blue bar, making it a trade off. I didn't like that the small enemies hugged you - but maybe it just needed more feedback to help you notice they are on you. Towards the end they move faster than you so if you dont know they are touching you - you can die fast. I also feel the whole "upgrade" system is quite common now, and so it'd be good in future to think of more original ways to implement the upgrade screen (since a pause with "choose 1 of 3" is quite disjointing and common place these days.

The game is certainly fun, but after enough time, the enemies just pile on you and constantly end the game. The upgrade system is nice, but the selection you're given doesn't vary too much. Most of the time it's either 'Home in on enemies' or 'Projectiles pierce through enemies'

The music's decent, and I think you all already know that sound effects could spice up the experience. Though there could probably have been 1 or 2 more enemy types. I can't really think of anything else, but there's a lot of ideas that a game like this can have; I may not follow the development, but there may be some real gold hiding in this.

Great work, and best of luck with the full version!

@honest-dan Yeah you're totally right on the enemies hugging you. We'll be making the feet colliders around both player and monsters a lot bigger, and also speeding up the character progressively. We're also thinking about just doing away with the HP altogether and making enemies damage the energy-bar directly.

The upgrade cards were just an idea to add a lot of chaos to the game, which tends to be pretty fun. We've considered either making the options more interesting through increased variety and a deck-builder system. Although since they are also pretty disruptive to gameplay, we might have to theorize a different way altogether. If you happen to have an idea for that, let us know!

Hey @kimberly, thanks for inviting feedback on how you might turn this into a full game!

First of all I can't help myself commenting what I love about what you've already got. The music is DOPE (seriously I'm tempted to just extract the mp3 and save it), the art style is exactly the kind I prefer, and the game loop is really fun. The upgrades seem well considered and interesting. I noticed a bunch of polish like the subtle light that always points to the rift orb you need to collect. I'm a real sucker for time dilation effects too.

I think to briefly sum up what's missing from the jam version of your game, here's a link to a 44 minute youtube video: [the art of screenshake](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJdEqssNZ-U).

lol. Just kidding. Unless...? Actually I do think it's practically essential that you watch it, because everything it talks about applies to your game as well. Sound effects, recoil, screenshake, give enemies some kind of death effects rather than instantaneously disappearing, etc etc. Each one of those is going to make your game more fun to play, and the sum of doing a lot of them is going to make a gigantic difference. Thinking about it, I'm actually surprised at how fun your game is _despite_ missing so many of those specific details (my best guess is that you have enough of them, like enemies getting knocked back by bullets, but maybe most of all the badass music is doing a whole lot of work here!!). Though I hear you, letting the programmer eat and sleep is important too. :) Communication-wise, it took me maybe two deaths before I figured out what the game actually wanted from me, until then I thought the grayscale/slowdown was just me dying from low HP. Also on communication I didn't read the game description until after I played so I didn't realize I could roar - making that evident in the HUD would have clued me in that I was missing part of the game mechanics (although.. thinking back, I did see an upgrade card for roars but didn't know what to make of it).

For a full game, I think the key is having multiple level layouts -- maybe even double down on that, making it into more of an adventure game, rather than an arena battler? That would get you beyond just "delaying the inevitable". After all, I think probably the most important part of an interesting game is having the player learn some new game mechanics, then challenge them with a bunch of different curated scenarios and variations that each test that they really "get" it. Then repeat. Some other smaller ideas: Have different weapon/bullet effects look visually different, and maybe allow switching between weapons or characters. Similarly have different enemies be more distinct (maybe some enemies explode on death, others hover around the rift orbs, that kind of thing). Boss fights. I feel like the rift could be more intrusive as you get closer to running out of power - maybe touching the edge of the stage immediately kills you, and the rift shrinks (in some sort of interesting way) as you get closer to losing your power. Multiplayer obviously!

The game that this most closely evokes for me is Nuclear Throne, so you might want to check that out both for inspiration, but also to make sure your game is clearly different from it.

Anyway thanks for the really fun game, and the unusual writing prompt! I focused on suggestions and critique since that seems to be what you're looking for... you already know you've got a gem here. :) Best of luck turning this into a real game, be sure to @ me when I can wishlist it on Steam :D

@honest-dan since you asked for a suggestion, you could keep the same system even but at the end of a wave instead of throwing a popup on the screen, place the powerups in the level with some dialogue on the screen saying choose one - this is the exact same thing but doesnt disrupt the players control of the character. Something more complex could be offering players challenges that control which they get. For example: basic one: survive the wave. medium one: collect 10 blue orbs before completing the wave. hard one: Take no damage and complete the wave. Obviously needs some further thought than that, but hopefully that gives you something to consider in future!

@shawn-moore Wow, that's the biggest comment I've ever gotten on a gamejam entry! Honestly thanks for all of it. I totally agree on the lack of communication regarding what the game wants from you, and the lack of sfx/vfx feedback for hitting enemies. I keep saying it's a problem of lack of time, but perhaps we should have just put it as a higher priority. Definitely taking it to heart, though, for the final game. The video as well.

Multiple layouts/characters; From the start we already wanted a sort of hub world with a character select and this big rift portal in the middle; The professor's laboratory. Sort of in a Gungeon style, where the character can already run around once chosen. Then a story of sorts with progression and unlocks based on challenges.

Boss fights? Totally awesome, definitely thinking about that. So far my only inspiration is some sort of big worm, inspired by Terraria, which travels from one end of the map's edge to another. Definitely going to need to make the map scale in size for that, though.

Multiplayer. Oh boy do I have something fun for you. Totally already got plans for that :stuck_out_tongue:


Oh, and about the music. Our composer was actually in the process of moving, so he didn't have all of his gear available to him. When it arrives, we'll totally be getting a remaster and much more. At that point, I'll happily provide a soundcloud link, or even just a direct download if you join our server :wink:

Jokes aside. All of what I've mentioned here is pretty cool, although also massive scope creep. We're hoping to do a weekly web build and share it around for people to give direct feedback to. Hopefully that'll keep us in-line, haha

I really really like being able to mix elements together to customize my weapon. That's probably one of, if not my favorite part of the game. The music and visuals are also good. There's already some juice in this game and there is potential to make it even juicier. Bear's roar goes well with the ranged weapon.

I would imagine some kind of story based campaign that show off the characters' personalities and play through different maps with more and more obstacles could be pretty fun together with the "arcade mode". I could also see people sinking a ton of time into the game to get into leaderboards. Co-op would also be fun.

Some people like hunting for achievements in repayable games like these, so that could add to the list of "things to do". I think some kind of progression would also be important. Best of luck with the project! Would be cool to see it on Steam someday :wink:

@anaxie-studio Out of those, leaderboards and achievements weren't in the list yet, but now totally are! Thank you!


(A copy of our Trello)

I had way too much fun with this one. The core loop is simple, the music keep you hooked, and the powerups and scaling are meaningful. One brilliant, brilliant idea is to allow me to continue after I die, so I can keep going as far as I want without loosing progress I think is a great way to setup difficulty without having to shout out loud an easy mode. I would like a bit of extra feedback when I get hit, but since I'm swamp by creatures that might be too much feedback. I would like different enemies, what about adding minions that help you?

@binaryprinciple Thank you so much! More feedback and different enemies are definitely coming in the full version. Going to have a fun chat with our wonderful pixel artist about possibly designing some little robot/drone minions. Sounds like it'd make for a cool upgrade

The game was real cool. Seems like we had a similar idea of having a "last stand" type of game set inside a circular arena. :smile:

The visuals and background music were great, and I really enjoyed the talent system. I would, however, implement some sort of mechanic to avoid selecting talents accidentally. Perhaps you could show a "level up!" indicator above the player and prompt them to press a key to select a new talent, and then you could have the player select the talent and press a different button to confirm it. I picked half of my talents by accident. :sweat_smile:

On a final note, I'd have liked to see some more feedback from actually firing the gun and hitting enemies, perhaps some screen shakes or sound effects?

Nice game. Allthough I found the upgrades really difficult, cause while shooting I just selected one cause they just popped in the screen and then I didnt know what i "picked". Maybe a confirmation button would be nice for that, so that you select the upgrade by clicking and then confirm you want to take it

The post is very informative and useful. You and everyone are doing a great job. Go on. [emoji](https://emojihub.org)