shmoop2dd14 feedback

Love the SNES-style transparency/dithering, and the way S shoots feels great.

Some kind of arrow flashing up for the first screen movement would probably help avoid some unfair-feeling deaths.

I'm having a lot of trouble moving out of the way of the laser enemies in the first level. The time to react to their pre-laser windup seems crazy small. If I'm not dodging bullets it's easy enough to react to their appearance, but the pre-laser could be changed to make them easier if that's something you wanted to do.

It's kind of hard to get back into the fray after dying. I could be mistaken but in other SHMUPs I've played respawning drops a pseudo-bomb, cancels all the bullets, or just has longer invincibility.

Bursting also seems a little weak, but I guess I didn't explore it much. Any time I could have burst I either didn't react fast enough or felt that just dodging would accomplish the same thing. Sometimes I would hit burst out of fear of a large wave of bullets, then none of them would be cancelled due to the small area of effect. If you're not quite sure what to do with this mechanic, I think the way Gigawing did this was awesome. Holding the fire button for a quarter of a second expanded out a shield with a pretty big radius that would reflect the bullets, which felt crazy satisfying. It also gave you a reason not to just hold the fire button the whole game.

I did about 4 playthroughs and couldn't get past the second boss. (Sounds about right to me, figured you'd like to know regardless)



Overall, it's looking great! Very satisfying.