I finally got a chance to sit down and play the game. My thoughts... (same as on GDR forums):
The menus and all of the UI that you go through before getting into the game is well done. The only thing I dislike is the in/out floating of the title text. Some other people might not be bothered by it, but it's the only thing I dislike about the UI, for the most part. Other than that, it's really solid and has an awesome retro feel. Going through the options operates as it should (minus the unimplemented sound controls). Good job on that front. The menu sounds aren't annoying either--and I liked the little touch of going "back" produced a different pitched sound. These are all things people come to expect, but it's good that they are there.
Into the gameplay: I've only played on normal level, and I think that's good enough. I can't chance playing on the super hard difficulty and keep trying until I ultimately beat it. That said, I was able to achieve "Victory" on normal mode. I guess first we should discuss the difficulty: I found the normal difficulty to be a complete pain in the ass. By pain in the ass I mean incredibly hard. Eventually I got the hang of how the controls go and what the size of the hitboxes for various enemies are. For instance, upon first encountering the turrets I figured I had to hit the actual turret itself (the gun part) as opposed to the base on which it stood. This was tad bit annoying because if you fly down right next to it you cannot shoot a horizontal bullet and destroy it. That said, I'm not sure if you should change that. This is what makes the game difficult. One thing you might consider in order to even beef up the difficulty is when the saucer is too far from a tank's reach to be hit by its bullets, the tank should then just kill the hostages instead of shooting aimlessely (or doing nothing). Cool things I noticed: I like the animation of the legs-very cool. There are also a lot of cool little touches like landing showing a tiny (but noticeable) animation (like the ship pushing down a bit when you land quickly). The little men floating up on the platform is really awesome, too. The letterbox mode works as expected and is a great feature.
Things I think could possibly be changed:
-I absolutely hate the waiting time to watch my ship (not) explode (but rather smoke up). Additionally, the wait time to get past the game over sequence is annoying too. Sure, it's only a second or two, but being unable to bypass it frustrates me to no end. When I was at the end of my lives I would simply exit out and abort in order to restart rather than waiting. I think you should make these delay times skippable by pressing enter or some other key.
-It's not 100% obvious what to do with the platform. When you land on it, it starts making some sounds and flashing. For some reason (maybe I'm dumb), I didn't realize you need to land next to it. Some kind of little graphical indicator on the ground (even a little circle would probably do) would help eliminate that confusion
-I think the minimap is great, but could use some work. Currently there is no border to it or anything. I think having some kind of border would be nice to help you get a grasp of where you are within the map/course itself. Maybe you wanted it set up so you can only decipher enemy's proximity to yourself--I don't know. I guess you could see what other people have to say about it.
-You need a menu option for viewing the scores.
Overall, it's really well put together and feels solid. The difficulty is great and gives the player something to overcome. I'm interestsed to see what the most difficult level is like to play. One other little note, though: while the game is difficult, I found a very easy way to destroy all turrets without being in harm's way by their bullets. I would simply lift off the ground as little as I could, and then fly across the screen. The regular bullet turrets cannot aim low enough to hit you at this point (leaving you open to just destroy them as you fly past). The rocket-launching turrets also cannot shoot the missiles directly at you, and you can do the same thing. Most of the time, you can outrun their heat-seaking ability and will be out of harms way. This tactic also seems to work quite well for destroying tanks. Incidentally, for the most part you can just stay low to the ground for the entire duration of the game until the jet fighters come out (since you can shoot backwards and up, the helicopters aren't that much of a distraction). I think this low-to-the-ground approach cheapens the play a little bit. You might want to do something with it such as being able to crash into turrets if you fly past them? Make the tanks have a horizontal attack? I'm not sure exactly what you would want to do, but the player is almost invincible from most enemies while flying low to the ground.
For the record, my score on first victory was: 41150. I'll most likely try again on a harder difficulty. Great job. I can't wait to see what kinds of additional stuff you put in. Are you planning on making different levels (like the water and cave levels)?
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What else should I do?
I'll call them next week. In the meantime, try the googlepages mirror above.
