The game feels very dynamic. despite the graphics, it's nice to play.

really good!

The game play was fun and kept me on my feet. Spending health on upgrades didn't seem to play a big part in the game but other than that, I enjoyed it.

Incredibly fun game! I haven't played your previous games, but when I clicked on your account I was drawn into your concept of having a continuing series in LD. I probably would've beaten this game on the first run had I not been so damn tempted with the volume upgrades...

The upgrades vs hp decisions were painstakingly hard, and this game was tuned very well to an experienced gamer. I thought the firefights were very interesting not just because of the variety of enemies, but because the arenas tended to be somewhat claustrophobic which made positioning that much more crucial.

As someone who also runs larger teams, I'm really curious how your team evolved to this point. I glanced at your older games and you only have a few people on them, so I think it's just cool to have this series grow like that. It's early on the LD voting timeline but this has been one of the most fun ones I've played.

This pretty epic in terms of production quality for a jam. The art, especially the cover art is awesome. Sound effects are stellar. And they make me lol.
The controls feel good and make sense. I even notice a subtle recoil animation on the gunfire. Very nice!

In the attic, under a floorboard, lies a lockbox. Inside is my collection: Amulets of Yendor and other ancient artifacts, wrested at great careful pains from deep in the most brutally difficult dungeons that exist: those of the modern-yet-traditional roguelikes Brogue and The Ground Gives Way.

So I let myself think I know a thing or two about roguelikes. And when the formula is pulled into continuous-time/continuous-space action games, not all of the elements I like can make the leap. But Nuclear Arms 7 captured a meaningful taste of one of my favorite elements: Build Variety.

And boy did this game need it.

Because I had to play this game an unreasonable number of times.

See, right next to those Amulets is my collection of Meltdowns. And I damn sure wasn't going to miss out on adding one more for LD44.

I definitely would have thrown in the towel if it weren't for the build variety: a 5x speed build feels so different from a triple-spread damage+, or double-rate cooldown/accuracy. Exploring those possibilities kept me going through the grind. I spent around 6 hours across three sessions beating this one.

I had to exploit the little edges: tediously shoot each box in the room before entering; draw the midboss into a pillar so he projectiles don't spawn, clear the spawn list of minor enemies in the boss fight by not shooting her while she's in her easier mode.

It took those plus a nice present and a risky lategame bullet-time to finally, after all that, get me through to that sweet, sweet MELTD--- WAIT WHAT DO YOU MEAN "WINNER"!>!???

Having played 6 hours, I have a few notes:

- Overall a super-tight action package that, with a few exceptions, made me feel like losing was my fault

- As usual, many small nice touches of design

- First store being before the first heal and not after it like all the others was a huge deal: early in my experience I needed the health, but this allowed me to still learn the upgrade system. Later it gave me a boost in motivation to get rolling with the new build, right at the post-death down moment

- Off-center gun was a nice touch that created a strong/weak side and made encounters sometimes feel different rather than symmetrical mirrors

- Ninjas. Oh boy. Important, but also responsible for the ultimate feelbad moments of the game. #1 is "my gun overheated and this ninja is leghumping me while I wait". #2 was the way that the ninja pushes other enemies forward at his speed, so, like, here comes that gunner PLUS a ninja at crazy speed one step out the door gameover. Important, but the only thing that in certain cases felt unfair.

- Overheat was a great mechanic, usually hate it but in this game was awesome. But full-cooldown lock-out felt like too severe a punishment, I think the ultraslow RoF of 99% is already enough.

- Oh gawd that two-triangles room after the midboss. That room was a huge hurdle for me.

- Gunners have really excellent design in terms of range, rate of fire, speed of walking, etc. Nice work, they were really good at being easy when you were in control and playing carefully, but spiking quickly in danger level if you were careless or caught off guard. Great routine enemy that created a variety of experiences.

- Big robots were low impact. They can punch through walls (so can Ninjas)

- Sound was overall strong, great voice work yet again (Jurass-kicked lol). SFX were communicating important things to me that I didn't notice until quite a lot of play: 30 mins before I noticed "room clear" hiss, 3 hours before I noticed "enemy killed" gentle puff. Was looking for both well before I found them.

- I know you didn't make the music but damn it was excellent!

- Story was pretty good although not going to displace my previous favs of yours

- Just loved the variety of upgrades, really made the game. Almost all were compelling. Risky presents were a nice touch. Exploding enemies felt a little underwhelming except in the triangle room.

You really delivered an excellent package again, this time with more complexity, congrats!

Now where's my Meltdown?

@pkenney you are such a gem. I know I speak for the whole team when I say that we look forward to your reviews the most every time. I don't know how we missed meltdown :'( Do you have any social media we can DM you on? We've got a special treat we'd like to send you.

Ha! Glad you enjoyed yourself @pkenney. We'll be forever disgraced for forgetting about MELTDOWN. The game is probably tuned a bit too difficult for sure. Will definitely take some of the points you made into account if we decide to release an updated version after the fact. I'm kind of leaning towards that cause I really like what we ended up with here.

We definitely appreciate the time you put in! I do hope we didn't put you through hell to finish it ;D

This was a pretty enjoyable game. I would say the worst thing about it would be the starting upgrades being random. A system of choosing from some given options would mitigate the annoyance of being given some less useful upgrades and having a bad run.
The game itself is fun, trying to decide the usefulness of a power-up in conjunction with the current set up versus how much health it would be worth in the short and long term is a good choice to make. It is funny to me how speed seems very valuable with how many enemies can only attack by getting close.
It would have been interesting to see different projectile type as another form of upgrade, as the player could decide if those would be useful against a certain enemy type they have trouble with.
Overall very fun and nice game, good luck with the rest of nuclear arms games!

I see you are a group with fine tastes :) Love games with humour and even better when the gameplay is actually bad-ass. I enjoyed this one so much I went and checked out some of your other works. This character and Nuclear arms universe you have created are a tonne of fun, just keep on doing this. Is an origin story in the mix you think? Also, you guys have a great sense of humour, don't shy away from more jokes and writing.

Also, I'll just leave with the words of a wise internet scholar, "Show us what you got man. Wanna see how freakin' huge, solid, thick and tight you can get. Thanks for the motivation".

Super fun game, funny settings and dialogue, and great gameplay. Cool music and good sound effects. The art style, while not professional quality, also added to the humorous setting.

One thing I don't understand though is why the cost of the mystery box was so high, doesn't seem like it'd ever be worth it.

It's a really nice game ! Very good job ;)

A very good game! Amazing gameplay, art, story, souds, music! Everything is amazing! Good job!

Cool game! I love this music and shooting system. And this intro... ahhh.
Very... very good job guys :D

Amazing full-featured game. A part of the series! I see what you did there :wink:
I like the gameplay and the upgrade system is really well thought-out, it is always a tough solution whether to upgrade or keep some energy!
Can't yet beat the final boss, but I will try. The kids also liked it a lot, though they come from a new touch-only generation, and WASD is something alien to them! :laughing:

Thanks for the reviews everyone! Glad you're enjoying it. @avon the mystery box sometimes contains up to 3 free upgrades (potentially another mystery box). So like the other upgrades it's a risk!

I looooooove this type of LD game and y'all nailed this. Great stuff. The enemies felt fair, weapons felt good, bosses dispensed the required amount of snark and swagger. Top shelf. My one wish would be for an r-click defensive maneuver, a dash a shield or something, but that may not be Arms McManstremf's style and that's ok. Thanks for this fun game.