I tried this game like 3 times before it finally clicked. Some note for future players:
- You always fly to the right. Mouse up = fly up, Mouse down = fly down.
- If you hit the ground, you lose a life
- If you fly into the sky, you go to the shop
- At the shop, you can buy upgrades. If you don't spend all your gold on upgrades, it goes into the bank.
- Your goal is to steal items from the people below. Just fly through their torsos with left mouse button pressed to steal their items.
- Make it back to the shop with gold before time timer runs out to upgrade and bank your gold, then repeat.
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Feedback for the devs:
- This game is fun, unique, and feels complete.
- Feedback is often lacking. A lot of buttons don't highlight when I hover over them. There's not animation when I steal an item. A lot of mechanics aren't fully explained.
- Despite that, I really had fun with this once I got into the flow. It had good "sea bird fishing by skimming over the water" vibes, and once I got a pattern down, it was super satisfying.
- It took me a long time to realize gold was being banked, because the bank icon and the per-run gold icons are in the same place.
- I felt like the game had two phases. High stress "unlock the upgrades" phase, then low stress "just zoom through the crowd and reap the rewards" phase.
- Some graphic indicating where the mouse is would help a lot. In the browser, the cursor is hidden, and I have to wiggle it to figure out how high/low it is.
- The art is really good. Consistent tone, and the goofy almost-too-real physics sells the tone. The birds flying animations are so good I almost forgot to mention them! They just feel perfect to the point they fade into the background!
- Getting trampled when I hit the ground happens too fast and is too punishing. I wish I bounced once or twice and got a chance to recover. Or, possibly I just wish the people were a little taller. Or, possibly, I'm just bad at video games.
- It took me 22 flights to finally pay Odin back, btw.
All said, brilliant work. It reminds me of the old flash games era in the best possible way!