Fun top-down shooter, XP progression implemented nicely

Windows version not working well for me. A few seconds after moving, the ship seems to zoom to infinite speed while the camera tries to keep up :worried:

Pretty classic asteroids-like game. I've never been good at mouse + keyboard controls, I'm not coordinated enough I guess, so the controls were somewhat frustrting -- even moreso on a laptop with a trackpad instead of a mouse. Seems like the aliens affect planets without actually shooting anything at them? I couldn't see them firing anything but the planets were definitely affected. Would probably be a lot more fun if I were coordinated enough to really be able to manage the controls :)

Was fun. Destroyed my planets so many times, especially when i started shooting both ways. :D

@masamunedragon: Oh no! I poked around a bit and this seems to happen on Fastest/Fast quality settings. Let me know if you have problems with the game on one of the higher qualities. My guess is that some low-quality setting is messing with the physics.

@colossal-gnome: Yea, playing a on a trackpad is pretty tough. Aliens attack the planet periodically when they are near it.

It happens on every graphic setting for me. With Fastest it happens instantly and every step up makes it happen sliiightly later but not enough to be playable even on Fantastic.

I had so much fun playing this game although most of my loses was just me killing my planets :D

My ship went to light speed as soon as the game started...

I usually suck at spaceship controls, but these simplified yet tighter controls felt great.
Nice upgrade system, which fits the theme very well.
Great job!

Oooooh, I like this, a lot :D The idea of collateral damage with forced upgrades and friendly fire that hits things you want to protect is really interesting. It does make the game a bit awkward - like you want to go balls to the wall blow everything up, but you're forced to squeeze out a shot here and there for accuracy's sake. It's a great idea and sentiment.

And all that despite some not-awesome things: The music... It's there, but it's a bit annoying and jarring against the atmosphere of the game. The controls are tight and good but feels so wrong - it's a spaceship-looking-thing that behaves like a top-down rambo. That feels so weird. I'm sure you could get controls that felt good while behaving more like a spaceship.

But again, despite all that, I really like the idea and it plays quite well :)

@masamunedragon and @11tomi12 I uploaded a new version just now that I think fixed that bug by switching some code from Update to FixedUpdate. I'm guessing that your monitor has a high refresh rate so even with vsync enabled the FPS was much greater than 60.

Edit: I also figured out how to publish a WebGL version on itch.io. Downloadable versions are still available lower on the page.

Solid control and fun gameplay! I like how the spaceship changes after level-up, which make it even more challenging to play :)

Yup, that did it! 144hz monitor here. :grin:

My only issue with the game is that level ups felt inconsistent. I don't have a problem with the backwards firing bullets (fits the theme well along with the friendly-fire!) but losing the ability to shoot backwards with on level up only to regain the ability with another level up feels... awkward. Solid entry, otherwise!

I had so much trouble playing this game, I'm just not good with using a mouse for games. Controller support would be awesome. Also, it looks like I can shoot the planets, as I've done that a few times. LOL Friendly fire, here we come! Cool game. It was fun, though I never progressed, too hard for me.

Pretty interesting take on the theme, where the more upgrades you have the more likely you are to destroy the very thing that you were supposed to defend. Simplistic gameplay but fun and controls feel very smooth. In overall pretty fun short game.

"The better you do, the easier it gets to cause collateral damage". That was certainly an interesting twist on the theme!

The various upgrade types all felt powerful in their own way, and worked quite well as "giving the player enough rope to hang himself", with the double-directional fire as an almost literal double-edged sword.

The effect where the enemies circled the planet, continuously damaging them, was a very hard state to get out of, without accidentally killing your planet as well. Which might very well have been your intention.

Having gotten my space pilot training from games like "Star Control", I had some difficulty adjusting to the "A D to strafe, mouse to rotate" controls. But somehow this just served to underline the theme. The combat felt good otherwise, especially with some of the more effective weapon upgrades.

The music was okay, although I didn't think it fitted the genre very well. Meanwhile, the art was clear, and the target markers worked well, in allowing the player to hunt down the threats.

A solid game!

>Defending my worlds!
>Oh no... Another "reward".
>Oops... Friendly fire...

Defending planets with too much powerfull weapons, what a good take of the theme! Nothing much to say, except : good entry! Well done!

Overall fun game. Friendly fire makes in pretty hard to attack enemies without hitting your own planet. Good job.

well polished, theme respected. Id'd suggest a relative rotation control (personal taste).
With more level design (more or less planets, ...etc) it could be a great game !

@tuism @somnium I initially had a different control scheme (A and D turn, you move and shoot in the direction that you are facing) but I found the game too difficult so I switched to the current scheme to make it easier to aim precisely.

If I make a postcompo version I'll experiment with a few more control schemes, and maybe make it so the guns and ship model can rotate separately. Another option would be to make the player always face the same direction (like in Galaga or a Bullet Hell game) and replace the planets with something else that you should not shoot.

Weapons from the sides and back is difficult to use. The more weapon, the harder to survive)) I kill planets by myself.

Everything else is good! Hope you'll add mode dangerous aliens later.

It'S hard to not kill the planets yourself

Great game, but it is very hard to not kill the planets by yourself. Maybe you can move them more closer or start with just one ?

Nice entry.

I was wondering about the theme integration up until the point that I friendly fired myself into a game over - nice implementation of making what seems like an obvious improvement a double edged sword.

I'd also like to comment on your oil-painting-esque space background; its a nice aesthetic you don't see too often (and I say this as someones whos made a bunch of space backgrounds in previous LDs)

I've been killing the planets more than I killed the aliens!

The controls feel really nice and the weapon upgrades are satisfying. Good job!

I love the trail animation and the backdrop. Did you draw the space background by hand or use some sort of generator software?

The gameplay is very solid and the controls are tight enough to play the game skillfully. I think the idea of having increasingly powerful weapons as a curse is quite nice. My favorite was the machine gun, afterwards it just becomes harder and harder. At the four-way gun my luck left me and the planets exploded.

One thing to note about presentation, the bottom enemy indicators may have better been off above the energy bars instead of below. Alternatively the energy bars could have been placed outside the game window, or even integrated into the game itself (e.g. circular energy bar around the planet). Often I overlooked the arrows and missed an enemy wave. Also I'm not sure if it's my lacking attention, but I had the feeling that for some waves there were no indicators, which felt a bit frustrating. Maybe having them blink for a few second as a new wave arrives may have shifted attention to this very important aspect more clearly.

For my taste, the sound effects were good, but I think having proper explosions except of blips may have been more fitting. Also a game like this begs for screenshake and excessive particle effects for explosions. Look at @terracottafrog's work for reference, he uses these two concepts in tandem masterfully.

All in all certainly one of the better games that I have played, great job!

Really fun game! This game is super clever. I love how the name of the game "Collateral Damage" matches the mechanics of the game so well. At first I thought "Hey I shoot aliens, okay... let's see where this goes" but as the guns kept upgrading every level I thought wow - this really changes up the game! Great entry!

@cerno-b Thanks for the detailed feedback!

I used https://29a.ch/sandbox/2011/neonflames/# for the background, which is a mix between a generator and a paint program. I added a few other 'tools used' links to the description.

I agree that the xp and health bars should probably move and be smaller, and that my sound and visual effects could have been more flashy. I should also probably have added a sound or flashing visual when a wave first appears.

The forward + sideways + backwards ship is pretty much the final form. The weapons change slightly after that but they continue to face the same 4 directions. At this point the game becomes extremely difficult, so I expect that this is when many players will be ready to give up anyways. If I had more time I would have liked to have added some short-range backwards weapon so that the change from no-backwards weapon to a long-range backwards weapon wasn't so sudden.

I wish there was an option to make the planets invincible even if by a short amount of time. I would use maybe a shield that autogenerates faster and gives the planets immunity to friendly fire and then, once they're unprotected, they would take damage from friendly fire, until the shield regenerates again. Alternatively, shieldless planets could autogenerate the shield faster if you shoot at them... Decisions, decisions decisions.
You definitely nailed the controls and the upgrades are a great additions.
I didn't like the music very much, specially the way it starts, but I understand this may be a bit personal. I would discard the first 30 seconds and/or increase the tempo, this is a space shooter, not a space funeral (although if you could see me play, I really died a lot on this one, but I kept playing).
Thanks for making this, I had fun :)

The fact that you shoot your own planets from the backwards bullets is pretty genius, it was really fun and am going to enjoy playing it in the future.

Looks polished and plays smoothly! Might benefit from zooming out a bit, as a lot of things are happening off-screen. The game concept (not hitting your own planets) fits the theme well, but I'm not so sure if it's successful as a game concept here. In fact I would have liked to see a version of this game where you just have to fend off enemies and not be afraid to shoot your own planets. Not very original but possibly a lot of fun!

I really liked the game mostly its grapghics soundeffect but also the game play was funny and difficult which made it addicting. One thing that was akward was hte camera movement thought it was very fast and delayed which confused me a bit.

Really fun game! Just missing some screenshake!

Grat entry for compo!

First few levels of guns was very fun. I wish to see there tons of enemies spawning from every side, it would be awesome shooting them with high fire rate :)

Also funny idea to make uncomfortable weapons which hits obects you should defend.