I like this! It's fast. It's smooth. It's pretty. The grid-background effect is mind-blowing, though I admit I hoped for the grid to be more substantial to the game the just being a fancy special effect (I haven't bought the other modes yet, perhaps it will be?)
Music is good and the sound effect fits.
I wanted to try out getting "You are a tree" in which I score 5000 points without moving or using any subweapons. What I found was that it doesn't even take five seconds for an enemy to spawn exactly inside me. Do I just have to be REALLY lucky to get this?
Also, it seems odd that you can't check the online highscores from inside the game. I'm pretty sure I've seen other games do it. Game's pretty addictive, though. Gonna get right back to it now.
One thing that would be nice would be the ability to set the resolution for the game and increase the view. Right now far too much of the difficulty lies in the fact that you can't see a whole lot around you and the playfield seems small enough that it'd fit pretty nicely inside the resolution of most standard PC monitors these days.
Also, I find that the main menu fades in much too slowly. An option to disable the fading entirely would be nice.
Additionally, shield is spelled wrong in the customization menu.
The charge beam kicks much ass. Definitely my favourite weapon.
Allow me to share my thoughts about the different weapons:
It seems to me that by not using the energy-based weapons, the player is gimping themselves. Now, the shield makes you totally invincible and the speed booster does the same with the added bonus of murdering your foes and allowing quick manouvering. These two weapons can be used an infinite amount of times.
On the other hand, the floating mines can be placed at a point and you can kinda hope that the enemy you want to trip on it does (or plan for it, of course) and it will probably murder them. This weapon can be used twenty times (I have yet to upgrade it, though).
The bomb will murder everyone around you. It's pretty damn powerful and can be used five times.
The laser will murder everyone around you if you do a circle with the mouse. It's pretty damn powerful and can be used infinite times.
Comparing these facts, the bomb and the floating mines seems rather underwhelming. You can probably dish out some carnage with them but sooner or later the fun stops and you're short a subweapon slot that could be used to get out of tight spots. Perhaps the enemy should have a certain chance to drop bombs and mines the player can pick up to replenish their stock?
Edit: I've dwelled some more on this matter. Using a bomb has, in essence, the same effect as dying with the exception of the dying in itself. (Or rather, dying has the same effect as using a bomb) which means that every bomb you have is, in essence, an extra life but only if you can react quickly enough to use it. I propose, in lieu of bomb pickups (there should still be pickups for mines before they can be considered remotely useful) a buyable upgrade:
The autobomb. This effect being, perhaps, self-explained. Getting hit will, as opposed to kill the player, simply expend a bomb. I can think of two ways to keep this from being overpowered: The first is that an autobomb will use two bombs (because an extra bomb is used to shield you or other such technobabble). The other is a bit more interesting. An autobomb won't only not grant you the points for all the enemies killed by it, but you'll be
deducted points based on all the enemies it killed and as such the player is much encouraged to remember using the bomb on their own, perhaps even foregoing (disabling?) its purchase.
Edited by zeddidragon, 20 March 2010 - 02:05 PM.
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