Claustrophobia (the walls are closing in)

Oh wow... it actually made me feel claustrphobic...great game!

Great job for your first Jam, well done. The music, especially, fits the mood of the game really well.

The speed of the projectiles, along with the limited fire rate, works well: requires you to anticipate enemy paths. The limited rate of fire particularly lends to mood of the game is it becomes clear that you simply can't keep up with the speed of the encroaching walls.

Couple of points for improvement:
- the static on the main menu is a bit too loud;
- the constant rate of fire means that once the level reaches a certain size it becomes almost impossible to get a shot off on a bug that suddenly appears and is coming straight at you. Might be better to allow the player to fire at will but, as before, limit the rate of fire.

It's a great idea for a "running out of space" theme, well done!

Hey, the mood and feeling of this game is really great.
The music and the sound effects set a threatening mood.

The gameplay itself is okey, you really hit the theme.
But hitting the bugs is really hard.

Thank you for the great submission!!

Hello Godot developer!

Great little game! Really conveys the claustrophobia aspect. Only negative note I can think of was already mentioned.... title screen static a bit loud. Music was fitting, graphics work, though I wouldn't mind some variation in the bugs (different bugs, different colors, sizes, movement speeds, etc). I *think* I like the previous suggestion of being able to fire at will, especially as the level gets really tight, but I'd have to play it that way to really know.

Have a great LD--and thanks for sharing your Godot game with me!

wow, such a tiny but great game! loved the atmosphere and the background music. maybe the fullscreen resolution would make it more immersive? also i got scared a bit by the static sound in the menu, haha. thanks for your game!

I don't understand why can the bugs go away sometimes instead of bouncing back on the fog's edge. When you shoot down one you don't push back the fog with that bullet. Is it a good strategy to just let the bugs live, and only kill those who threaten your life and hope some of them go away?
It became a game of "Don't hit the bugs unless it is a must" for me. It wasn't that effective. My highscore is 2280 this way. I don't remember but I think I did above 2500 earlier aiming at them (I've been playing with this game for 40 minutes by now)
I had to mute the audio because I couldn't concetrate on the bullets rythm, the heartbeat wasn't in the same tempo, wasn't in sync. Maybe that's helps the mood, but I was going for high scores.
Thank you for this game, I really enjoyed it.

Thanks for the feedback so far, everyone! I truly appreciate it.

@melmo @alexfalkenberg Sound levels shouldn't be too hard to tweak, I can include that if/when I update the game. As for changing the firing mode, I'm not sure how I feel about it, I would probably also have to playtest that method myself before I can formulate an opinion.

@zozol Fullscreen actually sounds like an interesting idea for a future version. Thank you for suggesting it.

@balka Ah, you're the first to actually spot (or at least report) the gameplay bug. The enemy bugs aren't supposed to go away like that. It's an issue I've known about for a while, and I've been trying to figure out how to fix it. I'll update the game when I figure it out. Thanks for playing!

I noticed the bug thing as well, but didn't think too much of it, I guess. I did tend to just focus on every shot switching to a different wall to knock back, got into a rhythm, and only went after the bugs if they were coming right at me. I was relieved when they didn't bounce back. ;)

I thought firing into corners would be an effective wall-shrinking strategy, but I found just switching up taking turns on each compass direction N S E W worked best for me.

One other minor aesthetic thing: Don't know if fixable, but it was bothering me that the beating heart and the "bullet" firing were not in sync. :) I know I mentioned the firing-at-will thing before; I may have changed my mind on that....

Still, though, I've come back to this game several times, left it on my desktop, so kudos. :)

This is a really interesting game. It really achieves the theme, however I found it a bit repetitive. The bugs were quite challenging to hit (unless they came straight at you or up close) but it was quite satisfying to throw a bullet ahead to see them run into them! The music was great and this really helped create a really eerie uncomfortable mood (which was really fitting for the game). Good Job!

My daughter liked it :) You hit the nail on the head with the theme! Good job^^

Simple but powerful usage of theme, especially with the music.

A simple game that has a great affect on the player. Really good use of theme, good job!

This really shows how the sprites and music can affect how you feel of the game.

Interesting concept! The graphics, music and sound effects fit the game very well. I gave a high rating on the mood. It made me feel "heart broken" when the game ended. Great job!

I hope the mechanics could be more complex.

Nice game, I hope to see more updates and improvments sooner.
If you don't bother take a look at our game when we focused on Graphics and visuals and see the results that we got:
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/spacelab-42

Nice game, i am a fan of simplistic art styles and this is perfect. Also the audio, is perfect. Good job

Great game! Very cool and interesting! :D

Hypnotizing effect, the game window seemed to shrink. No drogues, I promise.

@melmo @alexfalkenberg (and anyone else who's watching) You may be interested to know that I've made my first update to the game, including (among other things) that click-to-shoot mode. Devlog here if you want to read about the changes, or just head back to the itch.io page to grab the updated version. Thanks again!

I liked this idea a lot. It seems I lose everytime when I eliminate the bugs. I thought you loose when the walls close in or the bugs contact the heart. Correct me if im wrong.

@mza Thank you for your feedback. Can you clarify what you mean by that? If the game is ending immediately after you hit a bug, that should not be happening. If this is the case, can I ask what platform you're running the game on?

Nice game and very climatic music!

Simple concept but well executed !
Nice mood, i liked the heart beat getting faster as long the walls are getting closer. (post jam version)

I manage to reach 1830 points !

This game hits on the theme quite well! I definitely enjoyed the feeling of slowly being overcome by the walls and bugs. While the rate of fire works well to that effect, I didn't like the lack of agency I felt. If there was just one special move I could choose to use, like an extra burst of bullet(s) on a cooldown or something, that would give the game a new layer of depth and strategy.

I enjoyed it and thought I was interesting it fit the theme quite well

This was a really neat game that totally played to the theme well! I wasn't very good at getting all the bugs, but the feeling of claustrophobia was certainly there hehehe. Nice work!

Fits the theme perfectly. I love that you made it a stationary shooter. It really adds to the mood and makes you feel helpless when the space starts catching up

Interesting game. The sound was very good and increased the feeling of being trapped. Well done