Neat game, I think as a minimalist bullet hell it’s rly good
but as a nodelike it leaves more to be desired, it feels so frustrating how you don’t pick everything up on death, and needing to choose between “either focus on getting gold or kill enemies for gears” feels unintuitive and unsatisfying compared to other nodelikes I’ve played before (like in astro prospector, sure you can choose per run what you focus on, but you’ll still make *progress *on both resources, and I feel that’s missing here)
And further this game doesn’t have much… Identity? Which in itself could be an identity, but idk
It just feels like “more astro prospector except with a core game that isnt as fun” since without the nodelike elements I wouldn’t really enjoy the core arena shooting that much? The enemies spawn in too quickly, without end, and also without any satisfying curve in difficulty, level 3 starts with a lot of enemies and the amount of bullets on screen never really… Changes much from there? Since they spawn only slightly slower then you can deal with them +the boss is there too
And the “shooting the walls for gold thing” is also a bit unsatisfying, since in a bullet hell it’s really hard to move close to something, and here you need to do that in order to pick it up! Even though you already have the reward, it’s right there on the ground, you properly shot it out! But then no, you don’t get it
And that just felt unsatisfying, and like if this was just a single room arena shooter with a high score chasing loop, it wouldn’t be that fun to go for these walls, and I think that’s a shame
All in all a very good demo, the bullet hell elements are very polished which I love (the little glow before enemies shoot, the bullets being readable, the spawning and your own shots feeling nice), but the nodelike loop and the core gameplay I think could use some more work before I’d consider playing a full version (as is there were a handful of moments where I would’ve stopped playing, if I wasn’t so intrigued by the polish of the pure bullet hell side of things, it’s simple, but I do really appreciate it)
The bounciness of everything is nice, even if unneeded at all.
The flow is there, periodically.
secondly, the bad.
The balancing is a little bit on the very cautious side.
The optimizations are doing something strange. My PC(2080 is while not on the strongest side, should be still enough for simple shapes game) is struggling on paused/node tree/You win the demo screens much more than in game itself.
and thirdly, the obvious bugs.
On win, all of the collected resources are not actually collected.
The VFX of lightning is cowering up enemies spawn, which is a little bit irritating.
The speed of enemies spawn at the start of the game is delayed for a few seconds, while in all the subsequent runs it is almost instant.
Overall, pretty pleasant experience, with a few caveats. Wish you all the good in the world, and success in this incremental endeavor!
Thanks for the feedback! Web build are hard to balance and the performance is more a function of all the stuff we throw on the screen as opposed to the GPU. That being said we are working to get it in a good state so it runs well enough on web.
Other than the the delay on the first level is on purpose to give you some time to explore the movement before we add the enemies. And I agree VFX of lighting is a bit much right now.
Just pushed a new build with some target optimizations. Hard though on a web build, perhaps make sure you have hardware acceleration turned on in your browser. You can also play the game over on Steam to have a local version. Thanks for playing!
Just tried the new build and it's just as laggy as before. Also, the steam build doesn't really help me as I'm not a steam user . . . as evident by me being here on Itch.io instead of on steam.
Fair enough, can you share the spec of your computer? We just pushed another round of optimizations. So if that doesn't help then maybe learning more about the system you are using could help us find out why it's not working.
The new optimizations don't seemed to have improved things at all. And no, i don't mind sharing my PC specs at all. What would you like to know?
Also, while I'm down here typing this, the music from the game is playing without skipping so maybe it's a visual thing or an Itch integration that's causing the lag.
A nice little game, unoriginal but still fun to play. A few comments after beating the 3rd boss:
- The second run felt really bad. The first run gives you some time alone before the enemies spawn, but from the second run onwards enemies spawn immediately. Without any upgrade, it is challenging to get trough an ore block and gather upgrade materials while under constant fire.
- The enemies spawn faster than you can clear them, which is an issue. I would expect killing enemies to reduce the pressure on you. Instead, another pops up almost immediately, attacking from a new angle while you try to grab the salvage from the first. It makes killing enemies pointless if you're trying to mine, you're better off ignoring them and only bothering with enemies when you're trying to summon the boss or gather salvage.
- Mining is odd. At the start it's challenging. At the end of level 2 you can drill trough the dirt fast enough to dodge bullets and go far enough you have ample time to do so.
- The ball enemies in level 2 are somehow easier to kill, less dangerous and more rewarding than the basic cannons.
- The bosses were generally just a block of HP to drill trough. Their attack pattern barely mattered compared to the constantly respawning cannons forcing you to dodge.
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Neat game, I think as a minimalist bullet hell it’s rly good but as a nodelike it leaves more to be desired, it feels so frustrating how you don’t pick everything up on death, and needing to choose between “either focus on getting gold or kill enemies for gears” feels unintuitive and unsatisfying compared to other nodelikes I’ve played before (like in astro prospector, sure you can choose per run what you focus on, but you’ll still make *progress *on both resources, and I feel that’s missing here)
And further this game doesn’t have much… Identity? Which in itself could be an identity, but idk It just feels like “more astro prospector except with a core game that isnt as fun” since without the nodelike elements I wouldn’t really enjoy the core arena shooting that much? The enemies spawn in too quickly, without end, and also without any satisfying curve in difficulty, level 3 starts with a lot of enemies and the amount of bullets on screen never really… Changes much from there? Since they spawn only slightly slower then you can deal with them +the boss is there too
And the “shooting the walls for gold thing” is also a bit unsatisfying, since in a bullet hell it’s really hard to move close to something, and here you need to do that in order to pick it up! Even though you already have the reward, it’s right there on the ground, you properly shot it out! But then no, you don’t get it And that just felt unsatisfying, and like if this was just a single room arena shooter with a high score chasing loop, it wouldn’t be that fun to go for these walls, and I think that’s a shame
All in all a very good demo, the bullet hell elements are very polished which I love (the little glow before enemies shoot, the bullets being readable, the spawning and your own shots feeling nice), but the nodelike loop and the core gameplay I think could use some more work before I’d consider playing a full version (as is there were a handful of moments where I would’ve stopped playing, if I wasn’t so intrigued by the polish of the pure bullet hell side of things, it’s simple, but I do really appreciate it)
peak
Cool and fun game!, but the game performance is terrible for me even though I have a very powerful PC. Wishlisted
okay, firstly, the really good.
secondly, the bad.
and thirdly, the obvious bugs.
Overall, pretty pleasant experience, with a few caveats. Wish you all the good in the world, and success in this incremental endeavor!
Thanks for the feedback! Web build are hard to balance and the performance is more a function of all the stuff we throw on the screen as opposed to the GPU. That being said we are working to get it in a good state so it runs well enough on web.
Other than the the delay on the first level is on purpose to give you some time to explore the movement before we add the enemies. And I agree VFX of lighting is a bit much right now.
Thanks for the feedback!
Good game, but it seems on win of a stage, all of the resourced that converge on your avatar aren't actually added to the winnings.
Dear lord in heaven, optimize your game. It's like playing a flipbook.
Just pushed a new build with some target optimizations. Hard though on a web build, perhaps make sure you have hardware acceleration turned on in your browser. You can also play the game over on Steam to have a local version. Thanks for playing!
Just tried the new build and it's just as laggy as before. Also, the steam build doesn't really help me as I'm not a steam user . . . as evident by me being here on Itch.io instead of on steam.
Fair enough, can you share the spec of your computer? We just pushed another round of optimizations. So if that doesn't help then maybe learning more about the system you are using could help us find out why it's not working.
The new optimizations don't seemed to have improved things at all. And no, i don't mind sharing my PC specs at all. What would you like to know?
Also, while I'm down here typing this, the music from the game is playing without skipping so maybe it's a visual thing or an Itch integration that's causing the lag.
A nice little game, unoriginal but still fun to play. A few comments after beating the 3rd boss:
- The second run felt really bad. The first run gives you some time alone before the enemies spawn, but from the second run onwards enemies spawn immediately. Without any upgrade, it is challenging to get trough an ore block and gather upgrade materials while under constant fire.
- The enemies spawn faster than you can clear them, which is an issue. I would expect killing enemies to reduce the pressure on you. Instead, another pops up almost immediately, attacking from a new angle while you try to grab the salvage from the first. It makes killing enemies pointless if you're trying to mine, you're better off ignoring them and only bothering with enemies when you're trying to summon the boss or gather salvage.
- Mining is odd. At the start it's challenging. At the end of level 2 you can drill trough the dirt fast enough to dodge bullets and go far enough you have ample time to do so.
- The ball enemies in level 2 are somehow easier to kill, less dangerous and more rewarding than the basic cannons.
- The bosses were generally just a block of HP to drill trough. Their attack pattern barely mattered compared to the constantly respawning cannons forcing you to dodge.