I really liked it! Overall a really, really nice bullet hell. I liked that every level has enemies that are kind of related to the boss, color or bullet-wise, I really loved the character interactions (indigo and saffrons dialogue before saffron’s last phase took me out, I felt the same as indigo and it was funny. indigo’s comment before fighting scarlet was also very funny) and how you subtly introduced pre-stabilished relationships and dynamics (the dialogue with amber before her last phase was very interesting and done gracefully). Knowing how the group formed through the compendium was a very cool adittion too.
I felt the difficulty curve was nice (seems like something you improved as time went on, and I think it really paid off), and there were a lot of cool patterns (I liked aqua’s first phase best). I like that the stardard mode has infinite continues but penalties on cores, and I loved the idea of an insta-fail bullet and love that it’s an evil little tadpole. I have honestly no background with bullet hell besides undertale so these opinions aren’t very well substantiated but… here they are anyway haha.
If there was one thing that wanted changed in the game, without contest would it be the game over screen. I don’t know if I’m the only one running into this, but the game takes input into the retry/quit decision immediately after dying, before the game over text or even the options have appeared. So if I press Z before I realized I’ve died, I can quit the run entirely (if the invisible cursor is over the quit option). It’s happened a few times and it really soured the experience for me. Besides making it so that the game only takes a decision into the retry/quit option after they appeared on the screen, I think it would be cool if the decision selection was the kind that had you hold the button for a few moments to confirm it.
About the core bombing, I thought it was a really cool idea in theory, but as it is it didn’t work for me at all. Mostly because 70% of the time I remembered CB was a mechanic I did because the cores I wanted to collect just flew off the screen and I wished they didn’t. Again, I’m a bullet hell casual, but usually I was focused on dodging bullets while collecting cores so the cores I tried to collect would just be shot offscreen because I didn’t angle myself properly to counter the orbit. Like I said, I really like the idea - it gives a choice to the player to sacrifice spending power for bullet power if they strategize right, but because the handling of the core is so unnintuitive I found it more of a bother than anything. Maybe assign a button that activates the orbiting, keeping one core orbiting the player while the button is pressed, and releasing it from orbit when released?
Speaking of cores, I would agree that they kind of mix with the enemy bullets. The flashing helps but not much, specially when dodging can depend on split second discernment. Couldn’t the color of the cores be indigo, as it’s the player color and contrasts well with the orange?
About Prism mode, I really like the addition of an easy mode for story purposes, but I’m not so hot about the execution. It completely disincentivizes any interaction from the player, making it just the dialogue but still including the in between challenges - none of which will be interacted with by the player. I think a better compromise for someone that wants to experience the story but doesn’t want to commit much to getting better could be made than just straight up invincibility. For example, you could double the amount of hearts, and/or raise speed of the burst charge, and/or refill hearts after retries and beginning of levels, and/or remove the core penalty, and/or slow enemy bullet speed. Basically make it much harder to die instead of impossible.
One thing: the compendium mentioned a “life burst”- is that an actual mechanic, or just lore? By testing I can’t tell if I successfully resurrected or bursted right before the bullet hit me. I’ve also let a burst after death that didn’t resurrect me (is that what the achievements call “Death burst”? the compendium doesn’t mention it) so i don’t know if the window for resurrecting is just really small.
Small things about the gameplay: Violet’s second attack sometimes has unreacheable safe spots. For example, if the only safe spot is at either end of the arc, as the arc grows out and downwards the safe spot moves outside the screen. Saffron’s first attack’s bullets can leave the screen before redirecting onscreen, which makes it hard to predict their path. In scarlet’s level the bullet that starts big then explode into a circle of little ones (from the orange) ghosts can spawn offscreen, making them completely umpredictable if you’re near them. Also, the burst sometimes does not clear all bullets as it expands. Can be bad if i’m near a swarm of bullets, use burst to clear them, and it misses them. And a suggestion about the locked modes: say what they are haha. I think you would only gain from saying what are the game modes one could get by buying the DX.
Oh, and two bugs (web version): I got the compendium completion achievement when i didn’t complete it. I had all but the two entries under prism scarlet, for context. Also, indigo’s compendium entry has her name as “TBD”.
Anyway, thank you for the awesome treat! Best of luck with the sequel, hope you keep it up.
Wow, this is some really detailed feedback! Thank you very much! I'm glad you enjoyed the game and took the time to write all this out. Your opinions are definitely valid, so I'll go through them one-by-one, from the top:
I didn't realise the "game over" screen worked that way, sounds like a bug I need to fix. Thanks for letting me know.
"Core-bombing" is something I threw in for the hell of it, thinking maybe an advanced player could get the hang of it (I too struggle to pull it off except by accident). For the sequel, I need to either refine it as a mechanic or just scrap it.
Making the cores a different colour is something I hadn't thought of, but could be a good solution. I'll give it a try and see how it feels.
Prism Mode is similar to Core-bombing; it's a debug feature that I threw in for accessibility purposes. You're not the first to point out that it's too easy, and it's definitely something I need to think about for the sequel.
Life Bursts are an actual mechanic, but the window to use them is extremely small; you have to more or less anticipate getting hit and use the Burst right as the bullet lands. I agree that there's not enough feedback to tell you if you've executed one, and I'm already fixing that in the sequel. Any mention of "death bursts" is a typo that should say "Life Bursts", and something I need to fix.
Violet's second attack has been a PITA to get right. I think I need to add some sort of hardcoded rule that guarantees there'll be a safe spot somewhere near the middle.
In theory, any bullet that's out-of-bounds should be erased automatically. My guess wrt. Saffron's first pattern is that the bullets aren't quite going far enough out-of-bounds to trigger that, but I don't know what's happening with the ghosts in Scarlet's stage so I'll look into that.
I'll have a look at the Burst, I know it was a bit finicky at times during development. Lua doesn't like it when you remove items from an array while iterating over it.
I hadn't considered naming the DX-exclusive game modes, but you're absolutely right: naming and describing will probably work much better as an incentive. It probably doesn't help that even in DX, they're still locked until you get the good and bad endings. I think I'll adjust that in the next update, and edit the description with some more info.
The Compendium completion achievement unlocking early is for backwards compatibility with older versions of the game, where there were two Compendium entries that couldn't be unlocked due to a glitch. I wanted anyone who'd encountered that glitch to be able to unlock the achievement. The glitch was fixed long ago so if it's causing confusion, I can up the requirement again.
I'll fix Prism Indigo's Compendium entry, thanks for pointing that out.
That's a lot for me to look at, but again, thanks for such detailed, constructive feedback! I'm glad you're looking forward to the sequel and I hope I won't let you down. (BTW, not sure if you're aware but there's a one-level demo of it out already ;) )
nice touhoulike! i got invested in the story in a short run where i died in the first boss, so i tried the infinite lives mode. that felt a bit too inconsequential so i might give another shot to normal mode! good stuff! a few notes: - the game screen went black in saffron fight, and did not recover. I could pause the game normally, tho.
- the core attractor sometimes misses, the cores can shoot into wild tangents sometimes lol.
- my personal preference would be to make the collectibles and bullets different-coloured, it's easy to mistake one for the other in the heat of the battle!
- I'll have to investigate the issue with the screen going black, it's not an issue I'm aware of. If I find the glitch and push an update, I'll let you know. - Cores getting flung away like that is actually a game mechanic, it's possible to deliberately fling them back at enemies and blow them up. I worry that the mechanic might be too confusing and I'm tempted to remove it for the sequel. - I've had this mentioned before, and I've tried resolving it by making the bullets flash, while the cores don't. There's still probably more I can do to differentiate them, and again, it's something I'll look into for the sequel.
Just to follow up, there was indeed a game-breaking issue with the Prism Saffron fight (and a couple of other fights). These have now been fixed as part of the v1.3.4 update and the game should be stable from this point onwards.
Sadly, no, I don't have illustrations of them. I'll see if I can throw together some larger-scale pixel art or something to show them in more detail.
And yes, that's intentional. The player can still be hypnotised by the final boss and get a Game Over even if they're playing in Prism Mode. Might be a bit harsh, but I didn't think if it would make sense for the hypno-bullet to do nothing.
Hey, tried to play the browser version of your game but I could not press enter to actually start playing. going up and down in the menu worked fine, just confirming my choices with enter or space did not work for me. Might be just me and my weird keyboard though.
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I really liked it! Overall a really, really nice bullet hell. I liked that every level has enemies that are kind of related to the boss, color or bullet-wise, I really loved the character interactions (indigo and saffrons dialogue before saffron’s last phase took me out, I felt the same as indigo and it was funny. indigo’s comment before fighting scarlet was also very funny) and how you subtly introduced pre-stabilished relationships and dynamics (the dialogue with amber before her last phase was very interesting and done gracefully). Knowing how the group formed through the compendium was a very cool adittion too.
I felt the difficulty curve was nice (seems like something you improved as time went on, and I think it really paid off), and there were a lot of cool patterns (I liked aqua’s first phase best). I like that the stardard mode has infinite continues but penalties on cores, and I loved the idea of an insta-fail bullet and love that it’s an evil little tadpole. I have honestly no background with bullet hell besides undertale so these opinions aren’t very well substantiated but… here they are anyway haha.
If there was one thing that wanted changed in the game, without contest would it be the game over screen. I don’t know if I’m the only one running into this, but the game takes input into the retry/quit decision immediately after dying, before the game over text or even the options have appeared. So if I press Z before I realized I’ve died, I can quit the run entirely (if the invisible cursor is over the quit option). It’s happened a few times and it really soured the experience for me. Besides making it so that the game only takes a decision into the retry/quit option after they appeared on the screen, I think it would be cool if the decision selection was the kind that had you hold the button for a few moments to confirm it.
About the core bombing, I thought it was a really cool idea in theory, but as it is it didn’t work for me at all. Mostly because 70% of the time I remembered CB was a mechanic I did because the cores I wanted to collect just flew off the screen and I wished they didn’t. Again, I’m a bullet hell casual, but usually I was focused on dodging bullets while collecting cores so the cores I tried to collect would just be shot offscreen because I didn’t angle myself properly to counter the orbit. Like I said, I really like the idea - it gives a choice to the player to sacrifice spending power for bullet power if they strategize right, but because the handling of the core is so unnintuitive I found it more of a bother than anything. Maybe assign a button that activates the orbiting, keeping one core orbiting the player while the button is pressed, and releasing it from orbit when released?
Speaking of cores, I would agree that they kind of mix with the enemy bullets. The flashing helps but not much, specially when dodging can depend on split second discernment. Couldn’t the color of the cores be indigo, as it’s the player color and contrasts well with the orange?
About Prism mode, I really like the addition of an easy mode for story purposes, but I’m not so hot about the execution. It completely disincentivizes any interaction from the player, making it just the dialogue but still including the in between challenges - none of which will be interacted with by the player. I think a better compromise for someone that wants to experience the story but doesn’t want to commit much to getting better could be made than just straight up invincibility. For example, you could double the amount of hearts, and/or raise speed of the burst charge, and/or refill hearts after retries and beginning of levels, and/or remove the core penalty, and/or slow enemy bullet speed. Basically make it much harder to die instead of impossible.
One thing: the compendium mentioned a “life burst”- is that an actual mechanic, or just lore? By testing I can’t tell if I successfully resurrected or bursted right before the bullet hit me. I’ve also let a burst after death that didn’t resurrect me (is that what the achievements call “Death burst”? the compendium doesn’t mention it) so i don’t know if the window for resurrecting is just really small.
Small things about the gameplay: Violet’s second attack sometimes has unreacheable safe spots. For example, if the only safe spot is at either end of the arc, as the arc grows out and downwards the safe spot moves outside the screen. Saffron’s first attack’s bullets can leave the screen before redirecting onscreen, which makes it hard to predict their path. In scarlet’s level the bullet that starts big then explode into a circle of little ones (from the orange) ghosts can spawn offscreen, making them completely umpredictable if you’re near them. Also, the burst sometimes does not clear all bullets as it expands. Can be bad if i’m near a swarm of bullets, use burst to clear them, and it misses them. And a suggestion about the locked modes: say what they are haha. I think you would only gain from saying what are the game modes one could get by buying the DX.
Oh, and two bugs (web version): I got the compendium completion achievement when i didn’t complete it. I had all but the two entries under prism scarlet, for context. Also, indigo’s compendium entry has her name as “TBD”.
Anyway, thank you for the awesome treat! Best of luck with the sequel, hope you keep it up.
Wow, this is some really detailed feedback! Thank you very much! I'm glad you enjoyed the game and took the time to write all this out. Your opinions are definitely valid, so I'll go through them one-by-one, from the top:
That's a lot for me to look at, but again, thanks for such detailed, constructive feedback! I'm glad you're looking forward to the sequel and I hope I won't let you down. (BTW, not sure if you're aware but there's a one-level demo of it out already ;) )
nice touhoulike! i got invested in the story in a short run where i died in the first boss, so i tried the infinite lives mode. that felt a bit too inconsequential so i might give another shot to normal mode! good stuff!
a few notes:
- the game screen went black in saffron fight, and did not recover. I could pause the game normally, tho.
- the core attractor sometimes misses, the cores can shoot into wild tangents sometimes lol.
- my personal preference would be to make the collectibles and bullets different-coloured, it's easy to mistake one for the other in the heat of the battle!
Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it!
- I'll have to investigate the issue with the screen going black, it's not an issue I'm aware of. If I find the glitch and push an update, I'll let you know.
- Cores getting flung away like that is actually a game mechanic, it's possible to deliberately fling them back at enemies and blow them up. I worry that the mechanic might be too confusing and I'm tempted to remove it for the sequel.
- I've had this mentioned before, and I've tried resolving it by making the bullets flash, while the cores don't. There's still probably more I can do to differentiate them, and again, it's something I'll look into for the sequel.
Just to follow up, there was indeed a game-breaking issue with the Prism Saffron fight (and a couple of other fights). These have now been fixed as part of the v1.3.4 update and the game should be stable from this point onwards.
great, that was fast! ill give it another go then 👍
The girls in the game were cute.
Do you have an illustration of these girls?
It may be an intentional system, but the character died in the final boss battle for some reason even though it was in Prism Mode.
Sadly, no, I don't have illustrations of them. I'll see if I can throw together some larger-scale pixel art or something to show them in more detail.
And yes, that's intentional. The player can still be hypnotised by the final boss and get a Game Over even if they're playing in Prism Mode. Might be a bit harsh, but I didn't think if it would make sense for the hypno-bullet to do nothing.
Hey, tried to play the browser version of your game but I could not press enter to actually start playing. going up and down in the menu worked fine, just confirming my choices with enter or space did not work for me. Might be just me and my weird keyboard though.
It's Z to confirm menu choices, not Enter or Space. Sorry, I should probably mention that somewhere.
Okay, cool, thanks! Got to play it for a bit and quite enjoyed it, good work!