Hi, nice game and congratulations ! Simple mechanics that still offered a decent amount of challenge.We're realizing a video with several games of the Ludum Dare #36. We made the same thing at the previous jam.

Can you add your game on indiexpo.net ? (it's free)
So we can include also your game in the video ;)
p.s. write #LDJAM in the game's description.

Very nice looking and well polished game! Controls feel good, sounds are funny, art looks great and consistent. I think that using the theme as an artistic direction, rather than one of gameplay was a unique decision. You've pulled it off.

It would have been nice to see some basic power ups, but I'm impressed by the amount of content you managed to get in!

@BoxedMeatRevolution, thank you!

The game already have power ups (lamps). Are you speaking about making them more "basic" (and what do you mean by "basic" then?), or you didn't notice them at all (which means they're too unclear, shame on me)?

I love your game ! The art is really neat, I love the "theater" look of it. I didn't succeed to beat the sun though, it's quite challenging ! Music and sounds are nice too.
Great job ! :)

The sound effects, music and art style is brilliant. The gameplay is simple and very fun. So you have done a really great job.

Music and art were great! The frame rate was really dragging on my computer for some reason. Anyone else having this problem?

@ThreeLivesGames Thanks!
The frame rate indeed can be a little wayward. I did my best to fix all possible issues but something (e.g. a lot of game objects with physics and intricate drawing pipeline) just can't be fixed without redoing whole game. But if you have framedrops without any visible reason (i.e. on the empty or almost empty screen), it would be nice if you let me know and describe situation, in which framedrop revealed itself.

Hey! Downloaded and I'm getting an error message - copied in below. Unsure if this is just me? Give us a message if we need to do something to make it work as we'd love to play your game.
___________________________________________
############################################################################################
FATAL ERROR in Vertex Shader compilation
ShaderName: shadow_shader

D3DXCompile failed - result

at gml_Object_Background_Other_10
############################################################################################

Very simple, but impressive)
The sound effects are cool!
The beautiful game)

For one thing - too difficult to see which way you shoot, because the sight is lost because of the craziness of graphics)

@Culturebosh_games
Thanks for pointing this out! For now, all I can do it's to remove shaders completely (result is less impressive shadows for some objects).
Already uploaded a corresponding version. I would appreciate it very much if you check whether it works on your computer or not.

I love the strings to indicate enemies, it makes it so your position has a strategical advantage (if you are above your opponent, you know their position but they do not know yours). The upgrades are cool but things are just a little to frantic to be able to dodge anything so you just end up tanking it all. Also I wish you could destroy the planets or something, even though they do look cool on their own. The sound effects are awesome. Also screen just takes a little too long to pan to my position.

Hey, the version without shaders works for me. No idea what the conflict is - I'm on win 10 with an ATI GPU.

Anyway, fun & cute! Sound effects, graphics and music are all really coherent and together. I really like the acapella music track and it all gels together nicely.

Beautiful game, simple and exciting. Sounds are awesome :)
Enemies are a bit too far from each other and it takes too long to get to them...
Helper arrow is nice )
Some sort of score system or combo wouldn't hurt...

@Gipzo Yeah, combo is such an obvious addition to the main gameplay, it's a shame I actually never thought of implementing it. Thanks for the idea.

The aesthetic is stunning, the game looks amazing. I just wish the game mechanics actually complemented the puppet theater theme. I'd like to be able to shoot the strings holding up the planets to make the swarms stop spawning, or to have a bit of a scene change in between the planets. This just feels a bit dissonant between the art style and what I'm doing in the game.

The sound design is kinda cute at first but it does get grating fairly quickly. The bullet sounds are far too loud and the music lacks any real structure. The ancient grekoroman style can be really nice to listen to, but random dyssonant voice clips just get on my nerves with time.

Regarding the space shooting:
The UI could also use a bit of work to make it more clear when I get a powerup, and what I assume was the stamina/power bar didn't seem to go down unless I really mashed on my mouse button. Not that I had any issues with the autofire.
The game feels really easy, or at least the difficulty ramp is far too shallow. Felt like if I just kept moving and kept my distance from the swarm, pointing my mouse vaguely in their direction, I could survive indefinitely.

Not a bad game by any stretch, but it just lacked some cohesion for me to enjoy it much.

Well done with the game, the idea is very creative having it look like a puppet show almost but the idea I felt reminds me of a super stardust clone, but still good idea.
it would have been good if you added the arrow to show you were the enemies are similar to a map or an enemy detector,in which the arrow stays with you so you dont get lost looking for the enemies.

Veeeeeeery beautiful game ! Art and sounds are awesome. I agree with amras0000 above, about the game mechanics not really complementing the puppet theater theme.

I tried 3 times but couldn't beat the sun. Is he beatable ? Because there isn't any feedback on his health/status, I was starting to wonder if the sun was meant to be kill.

Oh, and sometimes it gets visually confusing, especially during the Sun fight, where you can get hidden behind the curtain.

but still, one of my fav game so far.

@SbstnC
Sun is beatable. Bossfight was implemented in the last moments, so it's a really lackluster on a gameplay plane (still, I believe, game is better with it, than without).
A lot of details were planned to connect visuals and gameplay, but, as with boss fight, you know. Reality of time restrictions, so game turned out the way it is.
Thanks!

I really liked this. Is there a boss? I played for a while and it seemed like there was gonna be a boss fight but it never happened.

@AWOL Yup, there is a boss. In order to meet him, you need:
1. Follow the arrows and kill all enemies near the planets;
2. When screen starts flashing red, keep killing enemies until arrow appears again and points in the sun;
3. Fly in the sun.
It's a little too cryptic, I know, but I've tried to make this as clear as I can with arrows.

The puppet theatre thing combined with a space shooter is something I don't think I've seen. I like your aesthetic and sounds seem to fit with the idea of an actual puppet theatre (ie created by mouth).

You could benefit from some story... I was thinking pop-up(down) narration cards between planets... something like "Now off to save Naboo!" and "Oh no evil Mr Sun has come!"... I don't know what I was doing wrong in the boss fight, but I must have circled the sun for about 15 minutes shooting.

The crux of it all is this. I played it for a long while. So it must be pretty engaging and fun.

In all, I would call it a successful, well executed and awesome game. Good Job!

This is such a gorgeous game! Everything about the art and style is unique and cool. It was fun and I loved the arrows that popped up.

Really beautiful art style, the sound design is great too, and the gameplay is simple and fun. One little thing though, I found it gets a little confusing when there are a lot of bullets flying around and that makes it harder to navigate and dodge enemy fire, maybe having the enemy and the player have different color bullets would help. In total it's a great achievement the game looks really polished and is fun to play. Great work!

-Mihai (LittleDoomDevs)