Sine Mora(Suda 51 shmup)

[Special World]

Oh man, the powerup drops are random? This game is worthless for scoring, or even judging skill in survival. And using subweapons kills your multiplier? That's depressingly similar to Nanostray.

You know what else randomizes an essential mechanic? Angry Birds.

If this is true, Reiker, did you seriously think it would have an effect on the game's level of mass appeal? I guess people do like Angry Birds, partly because it allows them to win simply by trying enough times that they get lucky...

Trying to get the masses interested in shmups again is a lost cause. It's just not going to happen in a world where Farmville, League of Legends, Minecraft, and CoD exist. Best to not compromise your game for their sake.

I don't think anything has to be compromised to appeal to a wide range of gamers.

[nobody]

Are the powerups actually random or is there a method to it like garegga?

[Estebang]

I don't think anything has to be compromised to appeal to a wide range of gamers.

I'm not saying it does.

But allowing players to gain a huge handicap through sheer luck, rather than forcing them to improve their own skills, is simply unacceptable in an arcade-style game. It's clearly compromising the game's integrity as a standard for measuring expertise.

[kid aphex]

This is the second place I've seen people discussing the 'randomness' of the power-ups...
They don't seem to be random for me...?

[Estebang]

I don't have the full game, but it seems they're only random in Score Attack. What amazing sense that would make.

[Zaarock]

This is the second place I've seen people discussing the 'randomness' of the power-ups...
They don't seem to be random for me...?

Easiest way to notice is to just look at how much your weapon power level can vary before the first boss on arcade mode or throughout stage 1. Or to push it in your face play score attack on the last stages :p

[TrevHead (TVR)]

Ive just played the demo, I had fun playing story mode once I got off the tutorial, but flying through the underwater caves I misjudged the opening on one of those blasted doorways and lost all my power ups as they quickly flew off screen. This made it so I had to fight the train boss with a pea shooter which was quite fun but only because I was playing in easy mode

The arcade insane mode really was hard, but in a bad way imo, with my peashooter and the fast scrolling I kept on getting pushed back, and then dieing to the suicide bullets which are hard to see, I can imagine having a hard time quickly visualising the patterns onscreen with the small muted bullets flying everywhere (they also get lost in the smoke if you are up close). Are the power ups random? hmm it feels so.

I honestly think the other two difficulties would have been better in the demo, and or with another choice of ship, Putting in arcade insane mode just makes the game seem cheap, especially with the peashooter ship

Ill reserve judgement until I buy the full game but imo the muted suicide bullets might be a problem, So too might the ballancing of the power up system which for the demo felt underpowered in the insane mode. I generally like power ups in Gradius / Rtype but they allow the player to power up somewhat before it turns on the hurt and is used as a way to punish the player for messing up.

I wonder how much of the negativity is due to the game not meeting personal expectations and once everybody has had a chance to cool off and start to make sense of it that we will see the game in a new light. Those bullets will take time to get used to.

@ Reiker THX for making this game, hopefully you can make the odd tweak for the arcade mode.

[Estebang]

Yeah, it's not too late to save this game, but it's going to need a serious patch.

[Udderdude]

Powerup randomness? That's a paddlin' >_>

(In fact, so is any kind of randomness, really)

[Deca]

Reiker, I apologize for my tone in my initial post. I had hoped that the game might end up being something different from what it is and reading through all the dissatisfaction and confirmed fears I got a bit caught up in the moment. I understand what your aim was and can respect what you guys were going for with the project, and honestly I can tell that you all took a lot of pride in the project and put a lot into it and I shouldn't write it off or be so openly critical of it. The aesthetic I've seen is pulled off very well and from a presentation standpoint the game is gorgeous. I'm sure a lot of mainstream players will be able to enjoy the game and hopefully develop an interest in the genre as a whole, which you've explained was your intent from the beginning. I'll attempt to voice my qualms in a less abrasive manner.

As said earlier, this game was not made exclusively for the hardcore community. Taking and implementing some of your suggestions here would result in a different game. A game, I'm convinced, which is less attractive to the mainstream.

My issue is that your presence on this forum and general approach to communication seemed to suggest that you wanted the game to at least be made partially for the hardcore community. It seems strange to draw inspiration directly from some of the hardest of hardcore shooters and then largely ignore the serious fans of those games. As it stands there apparently isn't really anything here for hardcore players at all. With the confirmation that an arcade mode would exist alongside the story mode I became hopeful that it would implement more of the suggestions and critiques offered up by this forum and cater more specifically to the hardcore crowd. Based on what I'm reading it sounds as if the game falls short of offering itself up for serious score based play in this mode.

Mainstream gamers will play through the story mode and then set the game aside, a deep score attack centered arcade mode would keep the game alive for years to come within the serious community. I can respect what the game does well and what it is, but my disappointment comes from the fact that I would sincerely love to see it extend far beyond that.

As I said I really cannot pass final judgement on the game until I have spent time with it myself, but I'm seeing a lot of people in agreement regarding issues I was specifically concerned about.

[J_Taishu]

Played the demo, didn't think it was so bad. Difficulty really is hard to get right in SHMUPs, as the line between something feeling like it's impossible and so easy you can just zip through the game in a single life is so thin.

One thing I would like to see added is the option to dye all the bullets pink. Those suicide bullets in the very first stage weren't that bad, but straining my eyes to see a yellow bullet on a light blue background made it more difficult than it should have been.

[Kiken]

Power Ups are definitely random... although, the stronger your ship gets, the less likely Red Power Ups are to drop (I've gotten to attack level 9 a couple of times now.. but I've yet to get any ship to 10.. more often than not, getting to level 6 or 7 seems to be where things top off).

Also, scoring doesn't reset when the player continues. Yes, 1 pt is added to the score each time a credit is used, but the leaderboards don't distinguish between single credit and credit-feeding runs (everything is listed together).

[Estebang]

Also, scoring doesn't reset when the player continues. Yes, 1 pt is added to the score each time a credit is used, but the leaderboards don't distinguish between single credit and credit-feeding runs (everything is listed together).

Oh, wow.

I didn't imagine things were this bad.

Game needs a patch ASA-effin'-P.

[E. Randy Dupre]

I really don't think power-ups are random - I was going to post to say that they've not been random for me in Score Attack, but they have in the other modes, but then I read this:

I don't have the full game, but it seems they're only random in Score Attack. What amazing sense that would make.

which is the opposite of my experience. I think there might be some kind of obscure logic going on here - rank combined with number of enemies killed combined with *which* enemies killed, or something. It's definitely been my experience that continuing on death, which places you back at a checkpoint, sees the same powerups appearing in the same order on that run.

The more time I'm spending with this, the more I'm enjoying it. Once you get your head around what it's doing it really does blossom. Although the story mode is still deeply annoying - it's not just the convoluted level progression and narrative, it's other things like the dialogue subs obscuring the bottom of the screen. Arcade is vastly superior as a result, which is a shame. And also potentially damaging - if mainstream gamers do pick this up and find that Story mode's glacial pace is too plodding for them, they're going to end up throwing the controller out of the window in frustration at the leap in difficulty presented by Arcade and Score Attack. There really should have been the same difficulty settings across all modes.

I also think that it could do a better job of explaining itself. It took a few attempts before I realised why it was that I was sometimes running out of time on the very first boss and other times getting through with shedloads of time left on the clock (I hadn't realised that destroying sections added time to the countdown, so I was suffering when I was trying to concetrate firepower on its main cannon, rather than the smaller sections around its 'eye').

Oh, and I got snagged on one of the airlocks in the underground section with the giant yellow worms earlier on. It's only happened once, but yeah: annoying when it did.

Still, enjoying it now. I've settled into a craft/pilot/power-up set that suits my play and it's coming together quite nicely.

[E. Randy Dupre]

Also Kiken, if power-ups were random, as you say, then you wouldn't be seeing the consistent reduction in the number of firepower ones across all your games in the way that you are. Your observation actually supports the notion that they're not random.

Also, scoring doesn't reset when the player continues. Yes, 1 pt is added to the score each time a credit is used, but the leaderboards don't distinguish between single credit and credit-feeding runs (everything is listed together).

Oh, wow.

Yes it does - your score resets back to whatever value it was when you first hit the checkpoint, with a value of 1 added to show the use of one continue, 2 for two continues, etc. The easiest places to test this out for yourself are right at the beginning of the first stage and during the first boss battle.

edit: Video showing this at the beginning of the first stage here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=foBNizoCg4M

I've also got one from later in that level, at the first checkpoint, but it's taking forever to upload to YouTube tonight so it'll have to wait, if necessary.

[kid aphex]

The best a modern developer can hope for is to get enough of a positive buzz going to achieve amazing first day sales. In order to do this, you've really only got to worry about the mainstream press. Judging by the review scores and positive buzz this game is getting, DR did a pretty good job in that respect...

In that regard, it's totally unnecessary for any developer to pay attention to the hardcore shmup crowd. We're such an insignificant demographic with such a refined understanding of the genre, that we're almost commercially worthless.

I really do think there's an incredible amount of evidence that they put a lot of effort into appealing to us with this release. I mean, regardless of their inability to craft perfection on the first go around, I really am grateful for a shmup with great production values, done by someone who understands and values the genre.

[Kiken]

Also Kiken, if power-ups were random, as you say, then you wouldn't be seeing the consistent reduction in the number of firepower ones across all your games in the way that you are. Your observation actually supports the notion that they're not random.

They are randomized within a specific percentile... once the player has passed a certain power-up level or rank time limit, the rate of drop slopes off to an absurd degree. But I have yet to see any consistency from one play to the next in what causes them to drop when you're low. Again, as Zaarock states, from one arcade mode run to the next, the number of power-ups gained before the first boss is all over the place.

Also, scoring doesn't reset when the player continues. Yes, 1 pt is added to the score each time a credit is used, but the leaderboards don't distinguish between single credit and credit-feeding runs (everything is listed together).

Oh, wow.

Yes it does - your score resets back to whatever value it was when you first hit the checkpoint, with a value of 1 added to show the use of one continue, 2 for two continues, etc. The easiest places to test this out for yourself are right at the beginning of the first stage and during the first boss battle.

It does not reset to zero.

[SunJammer]

just spent a few hours with the full version, my impressions:

art - yay
story - yay
music - yay
speedup system - yay
bosses - yay

randomized powerups - boo
randomized boss patterns (i think?) - boo
complete peashooter weapons - boo
the entire powerup system - boo
ill-defined hitbox - boo
gameplay obscured by foreground terrain and textboxes - boo
analog stick movement - boo
all the hazard areas where the walls are completely ill-defined - boo
hazard areas that also have wind mechanics - boo
microscopic bullets - boo
bullets patterns that curve in midair - boo
"heatseaker" bullets - boo

something as simple as a gradius-style bomb would make this game hum

[Estebang]

Well, I can conclude I have zero interest in buying this unless it gets heavily patched.

[Udderdude]

randomized powerups - boo
randomized boss patterns (i think?) - boo
complete peashooter weapons - boo
the entire powerup system - boo
ill-defined hitbox - boo
gameplay obscured by foreground terrain and textboxes - boo
analog stick movement - boo
all the hazard areas where the walls are completely ill-defined - boo
hazard areas that also have wind mechanics - boo
microscopic bullets - boo
bullets patterns that curve in midair - boo
"heatseaker" bullets - boo

Fixing most of these would not make the game less appealing to mainstream audiences at all. Maybe they just didn't have enough time to polish it in these areas, and focused entirely on making it look shinier before release.

Hopefully it gets patched.

[E. Randy Dupre]

It does not reset to zero.

No, it doesn't, but the way you'd posted before made it sound (as seen in the response from Estebang) like the scores were cumulative - that you could abuse the continue system to your advantage, as with lives in R-Type - and that's not the case. There's no advantage to be gained from continuing - not only do you gain no significant advantage in terms of score, you also lose your medal combo.

If it weren't for the fact that their use is optional, I'd almost be tempted to say that the use of the term 'continues' is a mistake on the designers' part, as they function more as lives (as used in the traditional checkpoint mode of older horis) than anything else, only without the potential for misuse.

I think it's another of those aspects of the game where presentation - as in the explanation of its systems and the use of certain terminology - could have done with a little more thought. If you're trying to reinvent the wheel, deciding to call it a wheel still is the first and biggest mistake that you could make.

SunJammer> Boss patterns aren't randomised, hitboxes are shown on the ship select screen in Arcade and Score Attack, weapons on some craft are noticably more powerful than on others. I do agree with you about the ill-defined nature of environmental collision, though - especially in the dark, cave areas, trying to figure out what's going to cause you harm isn't exactly second nature.

[rancid3000]

This game has too many pros and cons for me to make a decision on buying it. I definitely agree with most people on there though. Using the analog stick on the arcade mode in the demo is not so fun. Way too much stuff going on and it's not accurate enough.

If it does have random power ups in score attack then I most likely won't be buying the full version of this. They don't seem to be random in the arcade mode, at least for me.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Downloaded the trial, playing it now. It's definitely pretty. Very, very pretty, as in one of the prettiest shmups I've seen in terms of eye-candy. The music unfortunately sucks, and I'm in agreement with previous posters that it's too forgettable/atmospheric. It totally fails to grip me compared to something like Espgaluda where the first time I got to play it I was instantly and immediately hooked (upbeat, sucks you right in, quite unlike Sine Mora's soundtrack). I went through both story and arcade with the defaults before simply turning the music off completely and putting on a more intense (or even noticeable) shmup soundtrack. Akira Yamaoka's music rocks, and I listen to stuff like the Silent Hill soundtracks quite a bit, but his work here feels out of place at best, and boring at worst.

I'm getting worried this game is trying to appeal more on the basis of eye-candy than gameplay mechanics. The game could seriously use a visible hitbox overlay of some kind as the ship colouring often makes it blend in with the background, not to mention I'm not liking all the screen shaking; why exactly is it turned to on by default if it makes it harder to dodge and is going to just be turned off by smart players? At least a couple times I've died to silly stuff due to the screen's epileptic fits.

Controls feel awful; no custom control configs is a big "what the fuck", and it's like I'm playing Gradius V with max speedups with a giant hitbox I can't make out. Either I move too fast and smack into a bullet/enemy or I miss killing enemies and run out of time. Why is the default movement speed so fast? Seriously, a slowdown/speed control button needs to be patched in, especially when your aim needs to be so fine tuned due to killing stuff with a low spread weapon being essential to survive.

Arcade mode is absurd - you're stuck with a peashooter weapon where you desperately have to memorize where the enemies appear, enemies with spinny suicide bullets on the max difficulty. Worse, the game punishes you for not being aggressive, so you're forced to kill things constantly or be killed by the timer. This is the first game with suicide bullets I've played where avoiding the enemies simply doesn't appear to be a valid tactic for surviving. Way too much memorization needed in my opinion, even by shmup standards. I mean, when I try out Mushihimesama Futari's Ultra, it might be a whole goddamn swarm of pink, but I can make out what hit me. Here I'm getting smacked by stuff I'm literally squinting to make out.

Speaking of suicide bullets, they're orange. So are some of the normal shots, and so are my plane's main weapon and the explosions. Fantastic. The explosions take way too long to dissipate, adding to the visual frustration of picking out the shots. Also, the first boss seems to be turned at an angle, looks odd when the beam hits even when you're near the boss because the way the boss is turned makes it look like only the rear of the laser would be on the same plane. Hate to bring up Gradius V, but it's hard to make out what should be hitting and what shouldn't when stuff isn't parallel to the screen. And goddamn the missiles it fires are tiny. Even worse than the missiles are the submarines underwater in Story mode and their nigh-impossible to see torpedos. Lame. Everything people have said about it being impossible to grab powerups when you're hit is true; they almost always float away through a curtain of shots or into dangerous areas instead of at least floating somewhat near you.

Tried out story mode. Tutorial's cute, but being stuck with a peashooter the whole time doesn't do anything to give me any confidence. First stage isn't any better, it's so slow paced that I'm left wondering what the point is, and I basically have random characters thrown at me. The plot doesn't seem to interfere with the flow, and LB is handy to skip with, but mid-level there's way too many 'hiccups' in gameplay. The train battle is especially stupid; is it really necessary to flip the screen and direction you're facing every time you destroy a few segments of the train? Also, gets boring in a hurry to basically be forced to use a peashooter a whole damn lot because your weapon needs to be near maxed to have any sort of spread whatsoever.

Why the heck does your multiplier go to 1x anytime you use a subweapon or time capsule? Why would you basically force players to choose between using the game mechanics or denying them for a generic "hold A to shoot the entire time" shmup in order to get even a somewhat competitive score? I can see penalizing your multiplier if you get hit at all, but that would be like Giga Wing's scoring being built around never using the reflect barrier or bombs; it kills what makes the shmup unique and sets it apart by making you choose between having interesting mechanics when playing for survival, or an utterly bland shmup experience when attempting to score.

Time is really annoying. In story mode, I could basically ignore it since I never came close to running out, or in arcade mode, where the hardest difficulty apparently makes missing killing enemies the difference between life and death. It's especially bad when you die to a boss not due to being hit but simply because you weren't killing it fast enough (which is by no means easy with weapons that feel so underwhelming). Perhaps giving a bad score penalty or something for clearing a section with 00 second left, but being killed due to time gets silly in a hurry.

The worst part is that so many of these issues could be easily fixed. In my opinion, this desperately needs a patch, and one that addresses these:

* Ditch Akira Yamaoka's music. Seriously, he's a great composer (I love his work normally) but his style simply is not suited for shmups; it doesn't fit at all and totally fails to grip the gamer in a way intense shmups usually do. Now granted, I haven't heard all of the game's music, but if what I've heard (or rather not heard for it being way too atmospheric) is any indication, the rest of the game's soundtrack can't fit much better. EDIT: The maze-like boss Domus has decent enough music that adds to the tension/panic of navigating it, but I'm really struggling to even notice the music in many sections as I'm watching playthroughs... not a good sign.

* Bullets desperately need to be more visible. Nice big pink glows around missiles, anything. Explosions should ideally be less orange or go away quicker...

* Hitbox, please. Gradius V works because the hitbox is relatively tiny (the cockpit) and is always visible regardless of which direction you're moving, even on dark backgrounds due to the ship being white and always lit up by the bright shooting effects. Here, the tilting of the plane and the super broad wings makes it much harder to judge where the center body is, especially when navigating a tight spray of bullets or worse, when you're completely blotted out by an explosion or cloud of black smoke.

* Enemies need to have some kind of glow. Seriously, it's bad when I have to look for enemies by seeing where their healthbars pop up because of how absurdly they blend in. Camouflage may be realistic in war, but it doesn't make it fun.

* Fix the controls. Selectable shot buttons, and none of this analog control stuff where the max movement speed is absurdly fast. Make the default movement speed the max and add a 4th button to cycle move speeds or simply hold it to slowdown Touhou-style. Gradius V only gets away with analog controls in a bullet hellish shmup because you can keep your max movement speed low by grabbing only a few speedup items, so it's less finicky in that regard (and at least playable with a D-pad/arcade stick).

* Scoring should not be about simply holding the shot button the whole game and never getting to use anything else. It's one thing if your subweapons were screen-clearing bombs that gave invulnerability, but killing the multiplier for both subweapons and time capsule kills the game for anyone trying to play for score, since it's reduced to a fairly generic shmup (and I'm arguing this here despite focusing on survival in most of the shmups I play).

* Powerups basically run away from you when you drop them. It'd be nice if they more just float there so you at least have some sort of a chance at getting them. You basically need to never, ever get hit in order to have a decent shot power reliably.

* It's really, really friggin' annoying to have to move my eyes to the top right of the screen whenever I use time capsule to make sure it doesn't run out when I'm in front of a fast bullet. Add some kind of indicator around the ship that pops up when you use it (like Espgaluda's Kakusei, that worked nicely). It might break 'immersion' more than you like, but I always think playability trumps immersion.

It's such a goddamn pretty game, and I want to like it badly. The art style and aesthetic is just so fucking gorgeous that it's a shame the gameplay falls flat in so many aspects. I realize that a number of the mechanics and aesthetics here are experimental, but some of them really just don't feel all that fun. I know you want to appeal to a wide variety of gamers with Sine Mora, but I think a lot of the reviews and praise I've seen for it simply ignore or do not recognize the serious flaws here, because they are people who haven't played enough shmups to see what gaming conventions really make a game work. This game has so much lost potential because of issues that could easily be addressed like bullet/missile/torpedo visibility and so on. Shmups can appeal both to casual gamers and hardcore alike, and it's nailed all the stuff casual gamers like so far (basically, eye-candy) but for people who've actually played some of the best shmups out there, there's a whole ton of issues with Sine Mora's playability...

Sorry for the tl;dr post and damn I'd really like this game to be likeable, but there's just so much that doesn't click with me. I can't justify buying the game for the eye-candy or plot when I see too many problems with the gameplay that need to be addressed.

[rancid3000]

Sorry for the tl;dr post and damn I'd really like this game to be likeable, but there's just so much that doesn't click with me. I can't justify buying the game for the eye-candy or plot when I see too many problems with the gameplay that need to be addressed.

I agree with all of that. Don't worry about the long post. I think you just said everything that has been pissing people off and more. Nice work.

Someone should do a pro review of this game in it's current state. "Go play Gradius V." Or even "go play Akia Katana."

[Chaos Phoenixma]

So this is looking like a pass. Or at least a wait till it goes on sale for a low amount.


How exactly, do the spinny suicide bullets work out anyway? I don't have the game, but it's hard to imagine that being more annoying than things like Gundemonium Recollection/Gundeadligne suicide bullet spreads(and different suicide bullet patterns for certain enemies), Ketsui's loops, DFK's suicide bullets from bullets, MMP/PS Manpuku/Harder suicide bullets, etc. Maybe if I could actually see what it's like though, maybe I'd agree about them being annoying.

[Kiken]

How exactly, do the spinny suicide bullets work out anyway? I don't have the game, but it's hard to imagine that being more annoying than things like Gundemonium Recollection/Gundeadligne suicide bullet spreads(and different suicide bullet patterns for certain enemies), Ketsui's loops, DFK's suicide bullets from bullets, MMP/PS Manpuku/Harder suicide bullets, etc. Maybe if I could actually see what it's like though, maybe I'd agree about them being annoying.

When an enemy explodes the bullets follow a straight vector path as if it were a barycenter, so instead of simply moving in a straight line themselves, they twirl around the line of motion (as if they're orbiting it). As a result, the bullets spin rapidly in tight circles as they spread outwards.

Sorry for the tl;dr post and damn I'd really like this game to be likeable, but there's just so much that doesn't click with me.

I'm bolding the important part. The game doesn't click with many of us, however, it certainly clicks with plenty of other people. Look at the reviews or go read threads on other gaming sites about the game and you'll see tons of praise for every aspect of it.

By the way, I keep coming across an odd glitch where the boss classifications (listed above their names) will occasionally display in Hungarian, instead of English.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

How exactly, do the spinny suicide bullets work out anyway?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0x_AsmXQ4g

They're not as plentiful as some games, but the fact that they are amazingly hard to see combined with the spinny motion makes them way more annoying than fun to deal with.

[Ed Oscuro]

I wonder if we'll ever see Reiker again and if so what he has to say for himself. Feels like he only came here to drum up interest and make us feel somewhat invested in the game or something with no intention whatsoever of taking any of our serious critiques or recommendations into consideration during development.

You will see me, of course. Right now I'm extremely tired and sleepy, sorry - we had a launch event going on.

As said earlier, this game was not made exclusively for the hardcore community. Taking and implementing some of your suggestions here would result in a different game. A game, I'm convinced, which is less attractive to the mainstream.

The development team was prepared that our game will be considered "blasphemy" here, yes. What we hope is, however, that the "outside world" will like it. That other companies will follow, experiment and the general public and media will be more interested in this genre.

We will do what we can to fix your major issues with the game in the following months. However, the game itself will remain what it is: something different.

Please accept my apologies, if you feel betrayed.

The short form of this is "we knew you guys would hate it but didn't care to let you know until after you bought it."

When an enemy explodes the bullets follow a straight vector path as if it were a barycenter, so instead of simply moving in a straight line themselves, they twirl around the line of motion (as if they're orbiting it). As a result, the bullets spin rapidly in tight circles as they spread outwards.

That doesn't sound like a barycenter, but an epicycle. A barycenter would have another (in this case, non-existent) object orbiting the bullet as well (to some degree). To be sure if you set the mass of the bullet to nearly 0 (relatively), it will be essentially the same thing, but...

[BareKnuckleRoo]

The short form of this is "we knew you guys would hate it but didn't care to let you know until after you bought it."

I especially like how he apparently thinks most of the bad things people pointed out about the game would seriously affect the mainstream market if they addressed them. The game is gorgeous, has absurdly high production values and big names behind it in design. That basically screams 'mainstream', regardless of the gameplay itself. And really, it's the gameplay that needs to be addressed. As it stands, it feels like they didn't trust the design elements of the game would be enough to make it sell well so they added some very experimental (and unpolished by the feel of 'em) elements to it instead of keeping it simple and ensuring the gameplay was absolutely solid (a lot of good shmup conventions are being broken here in a bad, bad way).

[Udderdude]

.