itch.io

Beat it after setting lives to 8.
The game is presented really well - polished visuals, great soundtrack (which made me dance with my mouse sometimes). Player ship controls well, following the crosshair at its own speed works really nicely to keep things fluid.

The main issue is just how tanky the enemies are. They take a really long time to kill, even when you're in their face with the strongest shot. Frustratingly long, because I wanted to play aggressively and had to wait until an enemy dies instead. Especially those tiny circular enemies - they look like popcorn, why don't they pop like one? All in all, the game's pace is significantly slowed down as a result, to a pace that doesn't gel well with the intense soundtrack, the swift stream of player shots and the ship speed.

I also think the time stop mechanic, while really cool on paper, needs a redesign. It's way too strong as a survival tool since you can warp without a cooldown and delete nearby bullets, and is not suited as an offensive tool at all due to reduced shot power after warp. Combine this with the stupidly tanky enemies - and you get a mechanic that keeps you alive but never lets you advance. This has really sapped the fun from the game for me. As a suggestion - why not disable time stop when player power is 0, and create a damaging, bullet cancelling explosion (visually like the ones that play when you launch the game executable) of scaling power and radius depending on player power?

Overall - great presentation, great potential. Did not find it fun, but it's fixable. Solid effort for a jam game. Congrats on finishing!