Hi!
Tough one but kinda my jam, really cool sound and music, input feeling was really nice, super polished game, loved the different shooting types.
Thanks a lot
My score: 10500

I really liked the music. The 45 degree directions made it a bit hard to hit my targets, but that is part of the challenge. My score was 190600!

Good job!

@sivarde Thank you! I considered a few different approaches to the aiming situation, including incorporating analogue joystick controls, or even switching over to a dual-stick control scheme ala Robotron. Ultimately, that was something that never sorted to the top during the 48 hours, so it got left out. I'm glad you enjoyed it, though!

That's a fun game loop. Maybe a bug - after the first play, the first level game-over'd no matter whether I was in the base or not with the item once the time expired.

The controls are crisp, and I love that hitting the walls spins you out for a bit, a modest penalty instead of straight-up losing. The tension between getting power ups / points / returning to base is very clever. Graphics and SFX are good, as is the music. Nice work!

19,000! This is fun! The tiered upgrades for the gun really give you a power trip when you get to the highest level. I think the timer drops should add a bit more time though overall I think the balance is pretty good for leaving the player with a satisfying time per run. Great job!

Movement felt a little odd at the beginning but i got used to it. I rlly enjoyed playing and i appreciate that you can't die from crashing your ship around. My score 309100 ●ᴥ●

@asmadigames That happened for me, but very rarely and I thought it was fixed Q_Q. I think if you refresh the page and start over, it'll usually work. I've made it to level 13 without it happening, so it's a really difficult bug to nail down.

Fun little game you have here and yes this would definitely benefit with an analogue joystick control but still, it's a very polished game and I liked that you designed the game play with a sense of urgency and a way to delay that urgency.

I think the hour glass could be bigger, I didn't notice it on my first try

First off, and most importantly, this is a really fun game! I love a good shmup. I liked the element of hunting for power-ups and weighing up how much time you had left, really fits the theme well. I like the fact there are good sound effects for everything that happens and some music too--lots of Compo games seem to neglect audio. I think some of the objects like the ship and especially the power-ups could do with being a lot bigger on screen, playing the game in WebGL without fullscreen they felt too small.

@daniel-foutz The hourglasses actually give more time early in the level and less time later (I think they give 5 seconds at the start, and it drops by half after 30 seconds and by half again after 60 seconds). I made it this way because I wanted the timer to truly be inevitable, you can't keep the level going forever just by playing well. It maintains the pace. The amount of time awarded also drops as you reach later levels. This is so that the game gets impossible before it gets boring. Everything after level 12 is more or less a killscreen unless you're lucky. The one thing that I was thinking of doing in this area was having the amount of time that you gain appear onscreen after you grab it, so this mechanic is more apparent to the player. I would probably only consider increasing the reward if I added more content overall to the game, so it could be played longer without getting repetitive.

Sorry for writing a novel. I put a ton of thought into this mechanic, and I like sharing my process. Thanks for playing the game, I'm glad you liked it.

Thanks for sharing! That makes a lot of sense.

I like the controls and action here. It's fast paced and responsive. One minor gripe would be it's a bit challenging to line up diagonal shots due to arrow key controls. The key item to progress to the next level being hidden makes it feel a bit more rogeulike-y, but the time limit feels arcade-y. Seems like in the easier levels you can use your extra time wisely to score additional points. My high score was 476700.

@jonah-srg Yes! Using the extra time to score points is absolutely the goal! Thanks for playing, I'm glad you liked it.

@extar I agree that the gun powerups are too small. I think the hourglasses are about right, and this very concern was my reason for adding the blinking label to the key item, so the player doesn't miss it. Yeah, if I had more time, I would definitely make the gun powerups bigger.

The game is fast paced and fun. Wish it had WASD controls as well, I'm not too good using my right hand to move around.

Nice game - solid moment when i got 3x bullet spray. Lots of micro polish -like when you bounce off a wall

Fun game, I also wish the controls mapped to wasd.

My score was 421200. The bonus shots absolutely shred, a lot of fun with that. Audio was great. Music especially. Nice entry :)

I did find the powerups a bit small.

As others have said the only major improvement I can see is to be able to rotate the ship like Asteroids. Also the level objective graphic looks very similar to the multi-fire powerup, it's only really the 'get this' text that makes it obvious it's not just another power-up. Really good fun though, I got 590,400 before accidentally running out of time to get back to base because I was having fun blasting asteroids.

Surprisingly good ... I was reluctant from the screenshots.. but controls felt nice. Nice audio. Easy to understand. Really good job :thumbsup_tone1:

Fun and fast paced game. Really enjoyable.

Very cool, simple concept, well executed. Gamepad support would be great for this.

I think I ran into the bug you mentioned in your changelog, I thought I'd grabbed the doodad but still got game over.

@martink Were you inside the base?

@quinn-patrick Yeah. It only did it once, so I may have just made a mistake.

@martink I'm going to choose believe that because I can't get it to happen, and I fixed it by completely changing the nature of the check, so if the bug is still in there I have to reevaluate my grip on reality.

I really love the game overall. The music fits it really well, also the mechanics feel good.

Wow that was intense! Great music that really amplifies the mood. Manoeuvring the ship feels really nice. More power ups would've been nice but you can't have everything :wink: Well done!

Interesting project, I think it would be really nice to play with a controller, I found keyboard controls quite challenging

Great game! Few hiccups here and there with the audio being a bit too loud and controls being a bit weird but overall very fun!

Loved the game and the voronoi effect of the base, really cool!

This is a fun game! The shooting feels very nice, especially when the gun is upgraded!

Nice. This was immediately fun. Good job!

Pretty fun game! I think it would have been better if you had allowed player to aim with the mouse.

Pretty fun game! I think it would have been better if you had allowed player to aim with the mouse.

Wow! Superb polish to the audio for a compo, both the sound effects and the music that fits the mood of the gameplay so well! Graphics were also nice, and also very clear.

The gameplay itself felt pretty smooth. The controls were a bit tricky, as I found myself trying to time my motion into a stop-and-turn that would align my shot with a target, and I never got fluid at it.

OK I just went back to play again and try to understand my issue better. My problem was rolling through the diagonal.. I'll try to explain: as I approached alignment with a target, I would snap the ship over 90 degrees a tad early so that I could drift past through alignment while firing and strafe them for a hit. This worked great if I released one movement key, and then pressed the second one, producing a direct 90-degree turn. But more often I would roll my fingers through the diagonal, having both keys pressed for a moment. This would round out my corner and cause me to be at a 45 as I passed the target, which felt like I'd overshoot the target before completed my turn to line up the shot.

I guess that's just user error and something I would get better at with practice!

Anyway this was conceptually interesting, fun, and had a jammin' feel. Nice entry!

This is really fun and I'm not a fan of this kind of game! I really love how you bounce around stuff and the weapon upgrades. It feels polished, well thought out and fits the theme perfectly. I think the icons of the collectable items should have been bigger, but otherwise great job!

That was a whole lot of fun! And I can prove it! Your game is in part one of my let's play series:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YpXlNnSS0s

A lot of fun! Nice mix up of asteroids! Found myself just holding down shoot the whole time!

Definitely one where you try and beat your score each time!

Hey, game reminds me some old ones! It's really cool!

Great project!

@erkberg This is awesome, thank you! Watching you figure out the game was really instructive, and it made me happy seeing you notice so many of my design decisions. As for the inspiration on the music, I was originally going to do something like Silver Surfer NES, but then I started playing with the electric guitar synths and wound up with something more like the final boss from Yoshi's Island. I also listen to all sorts of metal stuff like Dragonforce and Sonata Arctica, so that's always an influence. You also pointed out Final Fantasy, which didn't occur to me, but I am a huge fan of Uematsu, and stuff like Otherworld from FFX and Dark Messenger from FFIX is always subconsciously running in my head when I'm writing intense music.

Also, I think the reason why the button layout worked for you is because I used the Unity input system, which gives the options to map controls based on US keyboard layout, rather than character. I'd be interested to see if it works that way for everyone's keyboard, but I'll update the game info to let people know that it will probably work on international keyboards.

The aiming is something that a lot of people brought up, but I've been pretty adamant on the choices I made. By tying shooting direction to movement direction, it encourages the player to move around more. With twin stick controls, they may be encouraged to sit in one place and just aim, which would be less engaging. In post compo stuff, I may incorporate analogue joystick control as a compromise, so you have 360 degree aiming and movement. Alternate control schemes was actually a feature I was weighing in the closing hours, but screen shake and alternating level layout wound up getting in instead. With more time there would have definitely been work on that.

It doesn't look like you ever realized that the gun powerups stack, so to get the spread gun you have to collect a powerup while you already have one. I never realized that some people may not find that obvious, and I think I'll update the description to reflect that.

I'm so glad you enjoyed it! Watching other people have fun playing my games is one of my favorite things.

@quinn-patrick Yes, it was a great relief for me to see the buttons working instead of getting the usual hand cramp when I see Z used in a game :D Really cool that the Unity input system seems to support this!
I think I did realize the gun power stacking, maybe not in the heat of the moment (that heat is also increased quite a bit by streaming ^^), but in the back of my head I was still aware, I think. I guess I just didn't really go for it because everything was quite frantic and I just enjoyed the first powerup a lot already :) and maybe also because the pickup items are a bit small and easy to miss when you're in the action.

Score 326800 not too shabby. Pretty nice game, the concept works nicely for the theme and solid take on the classic asteroids style gameplay. The only issue is that it feels very rng based about when I find the special level object. In my first run I didn't find it on the first level so it was quite short, on my second I found it on like the first thing I destroyed out of luck and randomly got it quite soon on the next couple of levels. So maybe making it appear only after a certain time on each level or after a certain number of asteroids destroyed would feel fairer. Music took me by surprise for being pretty intense right out of the gate and was pretty decent. Visuals were also good, with judicious amounts of particles which are always nice. Overall all felt pretty polished to me. Solid entry.

@automatonvx Actually, there is a bit of strategy to finding it, but it's a secret. Okay, I'll tell. The item is placed in one asteroid when the level begins, which are roughly evenly distributed. When you destroy asteroids, they fill back into those areas when you go a certain distance away, but those new ones will never have it. This means that the best strategy is to cover lots of ground quickly, hitting asteroids all over the level as soon as it starts, using shift to go fast, of course. If you just hang out in one area, you'll never find it unless it was there to begin with.

I like to design games this way, where is feels random to new players, so that they can attribute an initial lack of success to random chance, but as they improve they pick up strategies to play the odds, and can achieve somewhat consistent success despite random elements.

Nice game! Feels good when you get the powerups :D The powerup icons were way too small though. Also having to wait at the base for the time to run out felt annoying. Overall I think there's very little incentive to progress and it all feels quite meaningless, so it's hard to stay engaged for long. Great amount of polish on the flight mechanics and effects though! Also long intro texts are always quite annoying, so I recommend looking into alternative ways of providing instructions!

@nyxkn I'm confused by this feedback. You understand that the object of the game is to get the high score, correct? You aren't supposed to just hang out in the base until the level ends, my intention was that you would fly around continuing to rack up points, and then cut it as close as possible. Also, higher levels are more challenging and offer more points, so advancing is certainly not pointless.

I hope you can come back to it armed with this knowledge and enjoy playing as much as I do. If not, I'm not sure what to say, since your core complaints seem to be with arcade-style gameplay in general, and not with any decisions that I made.

Also, the decision to spell out the games mechanics clearly at the beginning is rooted in experience. I always try to convey through gameplay, but I also understand that a large proportion of players will inevitably fail to understand, especially in a game like this with complex rules.

Yo, nice one! Love how you used the theme to come up with a game mechanic! Game is fun, power ups are very satisfying, the countdown before the end of the level is a good and useful touch...

Here are some suggestions:

* I'd love to play this with an analog controller. Aiming was a bit frustrating, I think analog controls help with that
* Finding "the GET IT" felt a bit random and luck-dependent. I'd prefer if this was less so.
* As much as I love the "delay the inevitable" mechanic you created (and I do!): who cares for high-scores these days? :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye: Alright, half kidding, but I'd really prefer if the bonus was not in score but in something else that affected gameplay. Like, longer lasting power ups on the next level. Or maybe allowing to "spend score" to buy different power ups (item magnets, a "GET IT" detector, armor, moar guns...) I can imagine a super nice game, with more variety than one can make in 48 hours by following this path.

Kudos again, nice one!

PS: Your user name didn't sound totally unfamiliar. Now I know. Send my best wishes to Brubnar! :wink:

Solidly fun entry. First run I scored 456400 points; my highscore is 894700. Shooting things is a lot of fun, and the upgrades are a lot of fun as well. I think the arcadey spaceship mechanics work pretty well here.

One interesting thing, my first run, is that I actually totally missed that I had got the objective when I lost. That is--I had apparently collected it, but somehow I completely did not realize until right before I ran out of time. I don't think this is a serious problem with the UI indicator at the bottom, as it's probably more my mistake than anything, but it is I think somewhat interesting that I somehow was completely blind to it for a minute there.

Another interesting thing is that it seems like finding the GET IT is possibly quite random. My first run I got through level 4 and had collected the GET IT on level 4, but on my high score run I had a very hard time finding it on level 3 and could not find it on level 4 at all. (Note: I had read your above comment about how the GET IT spawns at this point).

I really like how the hazards in this game are implemented as bouncing the player ship around. This works really well, I think, as there really doesn't need to be anything but the time pressure driving the difficulty. I also think this helps make the single-stick controls work better, as it is much harder to use single-stick controls when you also have to dodge enemies and use more precise movement.

So overall, very nice entry.

@quinn-patrick Hey quinn! I give you feedback; you decide what to do with the feedback :) I offered you the thoughts of one of your players while playing your game. That is all! You do with that what you will.

Really solid entry, game was easy to understand and the difficulty progression through levels was just right. Very fun game, good job!

Nice retro style game. Thank you for submission:)

I'm too ashamed to share my score :laughing: Fun game, even though this is def not my kind of thing (I'm too slow!). So, I'd love to see an "easy" version people could play maybe with the mouse (or just with a more generous timer?).

Something else is that I kept confusing the signs for the upgraded gun and next level (so I got this new gun and hurried to the base, only to die with it). Not sure if this was just me? If they could be a little more different, or maybe use different colors, it would be easier to differentiate.

Anyway, super nice entry, and wow -- done in the Compo!! Congrats!

Nice game! It was fun to play and I really enjoyed moving around with the slight drift from the space ship. Good job!

Cool entry. I think the collectibles could probably be larger in general, especially since it looked like the asteroids covered them up when occupying the same space.


Darn, nowhere near your score. Oh well. I liked this a lot. One issue I had was that my vision isn't the best and it was hard to see the gun enhancing pickups sometimes.

I did rather enjoy having the gun pickups though when I could see them. Who needs aiming when you have Gun 3, muhahahhahahahahaha.

Cool entry! I like the music, art and the countdown, maybe a rotation movement of the ship cut be nice, good work!

The game starts out kind of slow, but then the timer gives it an urgency that the asteroids slow movement do not. In later levels when the UFOs attack back, there seems to be some concern, although I didn't know if they were a real danger or not (no, wait, I just played again, and I see they stopped me from heading to base easily...grrr).

I liked how the ship spun around when you hit the sides or an asteroid, because then my shots went all over the place. It was especially satisfying with Gun 3. B-)

I liked the intricacy of collecting time delays to add to your score later.

The music, sound effects, and screen shake all worked together well. Good work!

Nice game, you really feel the retro style! Some things that would make the game better in my personal opinion:

* Allow for more precise direction controlling instead of only in 8 directions. Not quite sure what the best things would be, but I think one would would be to make the arrow key slowly turn you in that direction instead of instantly.
* Add a clear instruction on the screen "Find the thing and bring it to the base!"
* Show bullets exploding when you are inside the base, otherwise one might think the shoot button is broken
* Make the game a bit easier
* Somehow help the player find the thing otherwise it's just random searching and luck

But anyway, good job!