We're a two person team who just released a demo of our new shmup on steam. This forum was actually a really useful resource in developing it, so first off I'd like to say thanks just for that. The game is still relatively early in development and while we had several of our friends play test it, the overwhelming majority of them told us they weren't really into the genre. As such, we could really use feedback from the perspective of genre fans.
While designing it I was thinking about how roguelites have expanded the appeal of the arcade experience of dying and starting over by introducing randomness and progression to ease the repetition. However, when looking at shmups it seems like memorization and mastery of well crafted levels is a major part of the appeal (as seen by the popularity of 1 credit runs), so adding random elements seemed pretty antithetical to the genre to me (though certainly a few games have done it to success already).
We wanted to make the act of stage mastery more appealing, so we created an extraction mechanic instead of randomization. Materials are scattered all over the levels and dropped by enemies, but if you want to cash them in for new weapons you need to safely exit the level by holding down the escape button for a few seconds without getting hit- thereby encouraging players to learn and replay them. We also tried to create more of an action adventure type of progression by having levels branch in several directions, with each being constructed around finding and crafting the right equipment to make them easier to tackle (though we left some room for players to challenge themselves with sub-optimal equipment). There's also a hard mode that introduces more difficult enemies and limits the number of runs you can make, adding an element of needing to plan ahead and push yourself deeper to make the most of your time.
Any feedback you could provide would be greatly appreciated.
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlyKgTByGkA
Steam Demo: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2831900/Crab_Attack/
