pkenney 2017-12-04 04:24
Beat it!
It took me a bunch of tries, and a lot of being EXTREMELY careful.
At fist I thought it was a little unfair how they can fire so many stars at me from out of sight. Especially bt the last few guys when they get [SPOILER REDACTED] I was hiding like a sissy behind a wall and feeling that there was nothing I could do. But after some experimentation I realized that while the ninjas have these strengths, they also have weaknesses which a wily player can exploit.
It was a little awkward, trying to shoot 45-degree diagonal shots on the run at an off-screen target. But I feel like instead of this just being a bad part about the game, instead you made it into a puzzle. I am not a huge fan of the controls/display being the challenge, I prefer to make the player strong and smooth to control and them set the challenge around that... but in this case I actually didn't mind it. It was a cool trick of design how you capitalized on the implementation's shortcomings, if that makes sense.
Also, I noticed a nice small touch which I liked, with how if my star would spawn into a wall you defer, and don't even just cancel it, you let me fling it later with a direction change input. Other nice aspects were the clarity of information, and the fact that you let me use spacebar as well as enter, which I preferred. The title screen and associated transitions were also nicely done, and I appreciated the very short retry loop on failure (which I had a number of!).
I think this is a great first LD entry. You threw some implemtnation out there, and then you found what was interesting about it... just what a jam is all about! Well done, and congrats on finishing.