The game shows promise, but please make the player's projectile attack instant, or at the very least, much faster. It's tedious having to wait on it to go from the gap in the bullets where you are, all the way to the enemies that shot them AND wait for it to come back, only to have to do that 3+ times for nearly every enemy after level 1. Even when you're right next to enemies and repeatedly clicking on them, it still takes them longer to die than normal bullet hells let you kill enemies on the opposite side of the screen from you (in fact, maybe you should lower enemy HP across the board as well). It's worse if you're trying to do combos, because then you ALSO have to spend time dragging the mouse around to connect each enemy (and in the right order sometimes), all while they're moving around and shooting at you, requiring you to stop aiming and move around tightly-woven projectiles as well.
You say you're not good at bullet hells, but your game's core aiming & combo mechanics demand more skill and multitasking than any bullet hell I've played, continue systems notwithstanding...so maybe just make the full game a normal SHMUP instead (á la Gradius, Hydorah, etc.), with normal-sized hitboxes and with the current level 3 difficulty being the final game's final level difficulty.
I also think it should be made clearer as to when invulnerable bosses can be hit. For the start of June's boss fight, my attacks kept making the "immune" sound effect, but I also couldn't interact with the unique flashing bullets in any way (they just hurt me like normal bullets). It wasn't until after my first game over when I tried attacking the boss again and was suddenly able to deal damage, and I'm still not sure what I was expected to do. Likewise, the stasis tank boss should have a clear visual to show that the laser only disables its shield instead of dealing damage itself like you'd expect, and only while the laser itself is active (though I think it'd be better to have the laser disable the shield permanently so the player doesn't have to hover around the top corner of the arena the whole time).
Oh, and you should have a warning for when enemies are going to come up from the bottom of the screen, since that rarely happens in vertical SHMUPs.
P.S. Will the composer put the soundtrack up for download anywhere?
Thanks so much for playing, and all of your feedback! I appreciate it, and it'll definitely help me going forward as I continue to build games.
TwoGoku is in a weird position because it was A) experimental, B) an in-joke taken somewhat seriously, and C) primarily made for a handful of people on the Magical Girl Game Jam discord.
I won't pretend that the experiment was a resounding success, or even close to that, but it satisfied what I was attempting to do. I plan to finish it, but honestly don't think I'll be making major changes to the gameplay. It's built fairly janky (being a jam game) and it's going to be hard enough to find the time to making all the rest of the levels... altering the core gameplay will unfortunately be too much work for the amount of time I'm willing to spend on this.
That said, you've made some suggestions that I can definitely try to add in the future, such as better call outs for invulnerable moments during boss fights, etc. When I get back to working on this(TBD, no real timeline right now), I'll look over your suggestions and see what's reasonable to try and add.
If you want to try a more standard SHMUP in the series, check out "June Mejos and the Moonlit Curse" on my page. That was my attempt at something more normal in this genre.
As for the soundtrack, I'll ask Sunny if there's anywhere he posts his music!
Thanks again for playing, and taking the time to leave all your feedback, it's very helpful!
It might be nice to add a placeable forcefield mechanic. That way I could focus my eyes on enemies instead of just dodging and wiggling the mouse. You could even make it targetable like in that first boss fight!
Thanks so much for playing! I'm working to make my games more accessible, and I'm glad you were able to enjoy this one. (I'm not very good at bullet hell games myself XD )
Hoping to expand and finish this game during Devtober! We'll see what life throws at me though.
← Return to game
Comments
Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.
The game shows promise, but please make the player's projectile attack instant, or at the very least, much faster. It's tedious having to wait on it to go from the gap in the bullets where you are, all the way to the enemies that shot them AND wait for it to come back, only to have to do that 3+ times for nearly every enemy after level 1. Even when you're right next to enemies and repeatedly clicking on them, it still takes them longer to die than normal bullet hells let you kill enemies on the opposite side of the screen from you (in fact, maybe you should lower enemy HP across the board as well). It's worse if you're trying to do combos, because then you ALSO have to spend time dragging the mouse around to connect each enemy (and in the right order sometimes), all while they're moving around and shooting at you, requiring you to stop aiming and move around tightly-woven projectiles as well.
You say you're not good at bullet hells, but your game's core aiming & combo mechanics demand more skill and multitasking than any bullet hell I've played, continue systems notwithstanding...so maybe just make the full game a normal SHMUP instead (á la Gradius, Hydorah, etc.), with normal-sized hitboxes and with the current level 3 difficulty being the final game's final level difficulty.
I also think it should be made clearer as to when invulnerable bosses can be hit. For the start of June's boss fight, my attacks kept making the "immune" sound effect, but I also couldn't interact with the unique flashing bullets in any way (they just hurt me like normal bullets). It wasn't until after my first game over when I tried attacking the boss again and was suddenly able to deal damage, and I'm still not sure what I was expected to do. Likewise, the stasis tank boss should have a clear visual to show that the laser only disables its shield instead of dealing damage itself like you'd expect, and only while the laser itself is active (though I think it'd be better to have the laser disable the shield permanently so the player doesn't have to hover around the top corner of the arena the whole time).
Oh, and you should have a warning for when enemies are going to come up from the bottom of the screen, since that rarely happens in vertical SHMUPs.
P.S. Will the composer put the soundtrack up for download anywhere?
Thanks so much for playing, and all of your feedback! I appreciate it, and it'll definitely help me going forward as I continue to build games.
TwoGoku is in a weird position because it was A) experimental, B) an in-joke taken somewhat seriously, and C) primarily made for a handful of people on the Magical Girl Game Jam discord.
I won't pretend that the experiment was a resounding success, or even close to that, but it satisfied what I was attempting to do. I plan to finish it, but honestly don't think I'll be making major changes to the gameplay. It's built fairly janky (being a jam game) and it's going to be hard enough to find the time to making all the rest of the levels... altering the core gameplay will unfortunately be too much work for the amount of time I'm willing to spend on this.
That said, you've made some suggestions that I can definitely try to add in the future, such as better call outs for invulnerable moments during boss fights, etc. When I get back to working on this(TBD, no real timeline right now), I'll look over your suggestions and see what's reasonable to try and add.
If you want to try a more standard SHMUP in the series, check out "June Mejos and the Moonlit Curse" on my page. That was my attempt at something more normal in this genre.
As for the soundtrack, I'll ask Sunny if there's anywhere he posts his music!
Thanks again for playing, and taking the time to leave all your feedback, it's very helpful!
Hey there, just letting you know the composer has posted the soundtrack on Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/sunnychowtheguy/sets/twogoku
Thanks!
Crazy good! Was not expecting a second boss.
It might be nice to add a placeable forcefield mechanic. That way I could focus my eyes on enemies instead of just dodging and wiggling the mouse. You could even make it targetable like in that first boss fight!
For sure in the running for best game of the jam!
Thanks so much for playing, and I'm really glad you enjoyed it! I got that second boss in by the skin of my teeth hehe... it was a tight jam for me.
I'm hoping to add a few more player powers in the Devtober update, a shield of some kind is definitely a good idea!
Whoa, playing from the perspective of the Golden Eyed Girls. I probably should have seen this coming but I was still surprised!
Great work – really impressed by all the little details in the character designs.
Thanks for allowing me to keep playing even when I die; it’s nice to be able to follow the story even as a non-expert ^___^
Now Basin Lake has gotten me to play not just my first Tower Defense but my first Bullet Hell, nice
Thanks so much for playing! I'm working to make my games more accessible, and I'm glad you were able to enjoy this one. (I'm not very good at bullet hell games myself XD )
Hoping to expand and finish this game during Devtober! We'll see what life throws at me though.
very cool! just please get a fullscreen button since i cant see the entire game at once :) ( its literally one click )
Thanks so much for playing! I do have a fullscreen option, press "U" on the keyboard at any time and it should toggle between full and windowed.
That said, I guess there's no reason I can't also turn on the itch button too. XD I'll do that now.
great! thanks for replying!
This was so fun!! I can't wait for the full game <3
Thanks so much! I hope you'll be back for the updates, tentatively next month during Devtober!