Downgrade

Overall★★★★★★★★★★3.69
Fun★★★★★★★★★★3.78
Innovation★★★★★★★★★★3.09
Theme★★★★★★★★★★3.72
Graphics★★★★★★★★★★3.72
Audio★★★★★★★★★★3.56
Humor★★★★★★★★★★2.48
Mood★★★★★★★★★★3.48
What was supposed to be an easy job turned into a dire situation indeed.

screenshot_02.png
Instructions: WASD for movement, mouse to aim and click to shoot.

Changelog:
- (03 Dec 2018) Added m4a files for sound in Safari browsers. Fixed a bug that would at times freeze the game when the player wins.

screenshot

Comments24

pvp
pvp3 Dec 2018, 04:24
Like the fact you feel powerfull at the begining and helpless the more you progress.
marcellus3 Dec 2018, 04:27
Was fun and quick, nice take on the theme, I had sweaty hands when I finished.
mcovert
mcovert3 Dec 2018, 04:29
The dialog was really slow for me - though admittedly I'm a really fast reader. Would have liked a way to manually advance it faster.

Other than that, enjoyed it! The art's really nice, and the concept's interesting.

Audio was a little on the loud side.
justalocalhero3 Dec 2018, 04:31
I love the look. I love the gameplay. I love the sound. I hate the slow, unskippable cutscene.
Nick Rafalski3 Dec 2018, 04:33
Very nice game! The overall feel and polish are very high. I really did feel like I was making sacrifices to survive! I had to lean more on maneuverability than raw firepower to stay alive. Unfortunately, right as I killed the last alien, the browser window seemed to hang indefinitely, so I'm not even sure if there is more after killing the first 'wave' but I had a ton of fun regardless!
Vasco Freitas
Vasco Freitasauthor3 Dec 2018, 05:00
@nick-rafalski That's a shame, there's supposed to be a final dialogue at the end. Anyway glad you had fun! :)
Vasco Freitas
Vasco Freitasauthor3 Dec 2018, 15:47
@justalocalhero @mcovert Sorry about the dialog slowness and lack of skip; it was the last feature I added and without much time to tweak I preferred to err on the side of caution and be sure there was enough time to read it. Glad you enjoyed the game!
artbohr3 Dec 2018, 16:07
Very nice game, cool graphics and sounds, and totally on point regarding the theme. The only thing is, I think it needs some score or something to track your progress. Good job.
Roolow
Roolow3 Dec 2018, 18:36
I liked how the powers you were stripping away from the player were positional, rather than the player making a choice about what weapons to take versus others you'd never get.
Slowpro3 Dec 2018, 18:42
This is Awesome! i could play this all day!the only thing that could have made it better is some sound at the beginning and bigger enemy bullets, i found them hard to spot. Great work!
Yrasin
Yrasin3 Dec 2018, 18:42
Very fun game. I feel it was perfectly balanced, not too easy but still a challenge. I find balancing to be quite hard to do in a Compo, but you sure managed it. Nice work!
kippllo
kippllo4 Dec 2018, 16:54
DANG!!!!!! THIS GAME IS FLIPPING AWESOME!!!!!!!
I love BulletHell's! This was great!!!!

Pros:
- Art is amazing!
- Music and sound is amazing!
- Controls are great!
- Story is perfect!
- Game play is challenging
- Fits the theme perfectly!

Cons:
- I can't buy it on my Nintendo Switch!!!
Lontrus4 Dec 2018, 18:20
The intro was too long, you could've implemented skipping text by input some people read quite fast. The game is fun tho, and the concept is interesting.
alec
alec4 Dec 2018, 21:18
fun game, I liked the spin of increasing difficulty not by making enemies harder, but making the player weaker! I agree the intro text could have been faster. And some indication of my progress to level complete would be nice (I want to compare with friends how far they got). The gradual speed up after downgrading is great though, a super small detail that makes a big difference in the games polish! Good luck!
Diogo Rocha4 Dec 2018, 21:21
Very fun to play, the game fits the theme very well. The intro could use a little song or sound effect in order to make it more engaging for players that are just arriving :)
Owen Rees
Owen Rees4 Dec 2018, 21:21
I'm a big fan of top-down shooters but I found this game kind of easy, I'm not sure if that because I'm used to bullet hell games or that the sacrifices weren't that punishing, I managed to complete it on my first try. I loved the visuals and the audio was great.
Vasco Freitas
Vasco Freitasauthor5 Dec 2018, 14:03
@kippllo Haha awesome, I'm glad you liked it :) Maybe I will make a full version, since I'm really happy with how this turned out and would like to do more. Thank you!
Vasco Freitas
Vasco Freitasauthor5 Dec 2018, 16:19
@owen-rees Thanks! Yeah, I imagine it's a bit too easy for experienced shooter players; I tried to strike a balance so it's not too hard nor too easy for most people.
Vasco Freitas
Vasco Freitasauthor5 Dec 2018, 16:23
@alec For indication of progress I wanted to put a bar indicating how much "energy" the ship has left, and when the next downgrade would be, but didn't have enough time :( Thanks!
mgsx
mgsx6 Dec 2018, 19:10
Nice game. I like the end of the game, nice double catch on the theme ;-)

Good points : music and SFX give a good mood. Gameplay is pleasant. Difficulty is well balanced (could be less easy though).

Thing to improve : Sacrifices are obvious to me and i'd like to end up with a very small weapon. Text sequences are too long and can't be skip.

Great job though !
Serious07
Serious077 Dec 2018, 04:56
This game looks very polished, music is awesome! I have a lot of fun with that one!
conrad123
conrad1238 Dec 2018, 22:50
Cool idea. I like the backstory, and the music is fantastic. I think it could use a little bit of balance. The game was way too challenging for me without a lot of replayability. It's hard to squeeze in extra ships or new features in 48 hours but there's a lot of places you could go with this. Good job ;)
loligxp
loligxp12 Dec 2018, 17:44
Amazing Game for Ludum dare! it´s clean has nice visuals and the Mechanics all work :D
a second enemy type would have been nice tough.and what a sad Ending, farewell captain. Well done sir!

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