I can see where you're going with this and I think it has potential, but I found this initial experience very confusing. One of the screenshots made it look like a top-down shooter but then the first part of the game is more like a platformer.
The movement and jumping need refinement. I was constantly getting snagged on corners.
Control scheme needs to be more obvious. I had no idea there were so many other buttons and options available until I saw the very small green text telling me to press F1.
Learning curve is brutal. I honestly didn't have the patience to figure out how to make a spaceship and on top of that the AI voice is saying I'm about to be under attack.

This reminded me of when I used to play racquetball! I like the simple gameplay. Mouse movement was a little imprecise at times so maybe add a feature to adjust mouse speed. Good game overall!

Really liked this! The bullet patterns were pleasantly hypnotic at times. Also liked that there were cues when enemies would come from different directions. The "repair" feature works well. Updating the graphics is about the only area for improvement.

Love the theme of this game! The voice acting and humor were good. The gameplay mechanics feel a bit off though (I was playing with keyboard and mouse). It's fortunate that collisions with walls don't hurt you (unless they have spikes). I feel like the momentum of the spaceship made it hard to control at times. Also, having the "wingman" cat unnecessarily cluttered the screen and made it especially confusing because his spaceship is blue just like the players'. I didn't have a problem with the WASD controls but would have loved to see a target reticle instead of trying to find my mouse cursor when I'm trying to aim.
I played this game longer than most indie games I try out. Definitely some potential here!

Love the graphics and how the whole game in general has a much more polished feel than a lot of indie games out there.
As far as controls go, keyboard and mouse is functional but not practical. The keyboard part is fine, but having to physically move the mouse great distances for relatively minor adjustments in firing angle is not that fun. I would have liked it better if the mouse part were left out altogether and the player could only shoot up. Maybe make a traditional top-down shooter mode?

Best game I've played on this site so far! I got a score of 1050.
Loved how the graphics were simple, but usually enough to tell what things were. The limited line of sight gives a great atmosphere. Controls were straightforward. Nice little touches of humor.
Only minor adjustment I would make: Show bullets coming out of the guns.

I got as far as 4 money on this game.
The controls are responsive, but there is very little room for error. If you stay at the back of the screen, you don't have enough momentum to move out of the way quickly and if you go faster by staying at the front of the screen you don't have enough time to dodge the asteroids. The player is pretty much screwed either way. And at times it seems like there is just a wall of staggered asteroids -- how is the player supposed to avoid that?
The background music was unobtrusive and the camera angle was a nice change of pace.
Wasn't very obvious in the game what the whole betting system was about without reading the instructions online.

Graphics and music were nice. Controls were simple but I couldn't get even halfway. Reminds me a little of the grappling hook in Just Cause 2, so maybe make it work in a similar manner.

Graphics and sound are good. Brings back memories of Ninja Gaiden on the NES. Controls are a bit awkward though. Was not easy remembering what a, s and w do -- some (most?) gamers associate WASD with movement, not special moves. Up arrow for jump and space bar for attack would be the simplest.
The level design was nice and I liked how there were secret areas.

I liked the simple controls and the mouse aiming works better than on a lot of games I've tried recently. Graphics are simple but they get the job done.
What I think needs more work is the level design. Shooting down 35 fighters is a bit tedious when there isn't that much variety in the enemy ships. I also found that the 4-degrees of movement wasn't all that useful -- most of the time you can just camp out in one spot and as long as you're fast on the trigger, destroy any enemies before they force you to move.

Awesome demo! Controls were simple and responsive when I played with keyboard and mouse. Shift sprint works fine (though I don't know why anyone would want to sprint in the dark . . . with monsters). Loved the moving shadow effects! Adds a lot of atmosphere to the game.
Also glad to see that there is infinite ammo (provided one reloads).
Not sure if I found the boss, but I killed all the enemies and eventually got to a point where I couldn't find any other exits. Left me wanting more. Good job!

Good little Gradius clone! The core gameplay is pretty solid. The default screen was really small but it was easy to just resize the window for a larger playing area. Also it wasn't very obvious what some of the controls were, especially for selecting upgrades (I pressed buttons on the keyboard until figuring out that it was the Shift key). Would have preferred to use the arrow keys instead of WASD.
Other than those small things it was a pretty good demo!

When someone says that a game is terrible my first instinct is to take it with a grain of salt . . . but, my goodness, this game really is terrible!
Like the previous reviewer, I had to dig around to find the .exe because all of the game assets are in one folder.
I'm guessing the clouds kill you because they have lightning, but they don't even look like stormclouds.
The music and sound are awful and too loud with no option to turn them down or off.
Hit detection is brutal. As a result, the highest score I got was 4 (and no desire to aim for higher).
I seriously feel like the developer spent more time animating the multicolored balls on the title screen than the whole rest of the game.
Speaking of title screen, for some inexplicable reason, you have to click in 3 different spots to progress to the game play.

There are only two positive things I can say about this game: 1) The controls were easy (mouse to move and space bar to activate power ups). 2) This game is so bad that it was actually fun to roast!

The demo and the video should be the same. Was there something in particular that looked or behaved differently?

Thanks for the feedback Seamus!
In this demo, the player default laser and the enemy fighter lasers have a limited range which is why they despawn after a while. The current build I'm working on has unlimited range.
I agree, there are way too many enemies all at once. I'll work on a system to have them spawn gradually.
The rectangle-based fighters consist of two hit-boxes which allows for modular damage (you could shoot off a wing but the cockpit is intact or vice versa). It does look weird having parts disappearing so this is another area I've been improving.
Glad to hear you liked the planet! Currently working on ways to make it better without increasing load-times.
Thanks for playing! I'll be releasing new demos towards the end of every month until the final release.

Fairly good minimalist game, would be nice though if one could move with the arrow keys instead of the mouse.

Pros:
Overall the game has a very high level of polish to it. I didn't encounter any bugs or glitches. Gameplay and controls are intuitive and simple. Graphics are good. Background music was nice and soothing. Tutorial voice over sounded generically familiar but still preferable to reading blocks of text. The game itself is quite enjoyable!

Cons:
The river texture on the demo level looks a bit out of place, I think mostly because the river has a much higher polygon count than the hills and terrain around it. Maybe a more hand-drawn/low-polygon looking river would look better?
Some of the menus I would recommend using the word "Back" instead of "Quit".
Maybe this is already scheduled to be added later, but the characters should have health bars to help determine which units are almost dead.

Thanks for trying it out! My latest build is a little less difficult to start with. I'll check into the fire and sound effect synchronization. A new demo will be out 27 April if you'd like to play the updated version.

Simple but fun little demo. I got a High Score of 724.

I like the parallax scrolling effect and how the game gives you audio feedback if you die (fart sound) or pass your last high score marker (cheers). Since you can't stop running, I thought it was a good idea to allow the Ninja to sometimes get one last jump to get back on a building.

Like another said, the Ninja running stance looks strange, especially with his hands behind his back. This might look better if you simply put a sword on his back to make him look more Ninja-like or maybe just redo the animation altogether.

It wasn't until after I played the game that I read that the green buildings speed you up and red buildings slow you down. This should be a bit more obvious within the game itself.

I'd like to know this too. For that matter, I can't even figure out how to update the thumbnail image and screenshots.

Was there a specific part that appeared to be lagging?

Thanks! Should be out towards the end of next month!

This game does an excellent job of capturing the look and feel of the Gameboy era.
It's a very polished and I didn't notice any bugs.

The gameplay is simple but you definitely need to think ahead a little bit if you want to get a high score.
The animations and music are really enjoyable so I've already played it several times trying to do better than the last time.

Hi Jonas! Thanks for your feedback, it's very helpful and I'm glad that you seemed to like it.

So far I've fixed the negative scoring issue and I've added the others to my bug list.
Scrapstorms are an alternate attack you can do based off of how much scrap you've collected. More scrap = larger scrapstorm.
Thanks again!

Hi devbobcz, thanks for the lengthy feedback! I've added it to my spreadsheet of likes and dislikes.
A new demo will be coming out near the end of October and I have already fixed some of the bugs you noted.

Thanks for the feedback GhostDev! I've added your suggestions to my spreadsheet. Thanks for playing and have a great Thanksgiving!