If you are going to put a demo on a free site, but ask money for the full version, at least be upfront with what you're offering - don't call it a "prototype" or a "beta version" if you know full well the release version already exists. Call it a demo so that we actually know what we're getting into.
It IS a prototype — the full version has been entirely rebuilt in a different engine, with changes to layout, plot, research and balance. This version is a proof of concept, to see if people would enjoy it. The full version is the vision as intended, expanded with more content. It would be deceiving to say that this is a demo.
The animation quality and sound quality of this is stellar - but it's a shame it plays like such a borefest. If the entire game played at about 1.5x the speed of the last level, it would be much more entertaining. The first two levels, though, are honestly yawn-inducing - with the exception that the sketch style makes some of the obstacles in the second stage nigh invisible.
A hint: The counter for the "super bouncer" achievements goes up every time a ball hits the bottom of its column. To get those achievements much faster than usual, upgrade the "bounce" of a ball (or multiple, if you can) and set it to start bouncing near the bottom of its tube. It will make contact with the bottom much more often, getting you the achievement significantly faster. Good for getting a few gems.
Not a complaint, just a comment on inconsistency - most of the employees have a green outline around them, but a couple (specifically Sue Preem and Will B. Richie) don't. Is this because of a mechanic I'm missing, or a slight oversight?
so, let me get this straight - every single time I die in a roguelite (which is gonna be pretty often, let's be honest) I have to go through a death screen that feels like it takes a full minute, and then go through the title screen and intro sequence again? Why? What possible reason for that decision was there?
Where do I even start with this? Is the joke supposed to be about games that are just ridiculous cash-grabs with zero actual effort put in? Because that is genuinely what this feels like. So many things that could have gotten upgrades did not, the paradigm shift means that there's less ship parts, and on top of all this, it's absolutely stupidly easy. 2/5 only because it is technically a functional game.
Also, lightning rods are incredibly OP. You stack a few of those on your ship, you never need to aim your weapons again. That alone warrants a bad rating, when one class of weapon is clearly superior even to others that cost the same.
The thing that irks me most, though, is that in the first couple UC games, you could at least make your overall ship look decent. But because of the sideways viewpoint and the fact that the dang ship doesn't flip around when travelling the opposite direction, it's impossible to make your ship look like anything but a flying hunk of junk.
I like this game, but there are quite a few things that could be improved. My suggestions:
1) Ship classes; having a bigger ship class would have more expensive upgrades but a higher max level, the tradeoff being that your ship would have a larger hitbox
2)Ocean currents - there are already currents, the fact that ships tend to drift downwards, but they should be more visible and in random directions. That way you could use them to your advantage when maneuvering. Voice of Calypso would randomize all current directions.
3) The game NEEDS to be optimized quite badly. The cannonballs in particular are hell on my laptop when there's 200 of them on the screen at once. While it is understandable, editing the cannonball so that it requires less memory would be a massive improvement on the gameplay.
Overall, though, I really like the concept and the execution is pretty solid. My score is 3/5, but with these suggestions implemented I could see an easy 5/5.
... Why does racing not give prize money? That doesn't seem to make any sense. The slowest thing right now for me is earning money, and if I could earn cash with racing that'd help solve that.
Ok I was doing pretty well on this, but I have to say that the bobbylove challenge is absolutely impossible. I have been trying to type fast enough for the past half an hour. I have the solutions. I'm calculating them automatically in an Excel document. It is absolutely impossible for me to type the solutions fast enough to pass. How the hell Bobby did it I have no idea.
This is a good game, but it does run into the same problem that all of the other Gemcraft games have, for me at least - there's one level (H4 in this case) that I simply do not have the capacity to beat, so my options are to go back and grind for some inordinate amount of time until I have enough skill points to actually beat the damned level, or stop playing the game. Inevitably, I elect for the latter. Also, the relentless pushing of the "buy the pouch" got really annoying after the first 3 times it told me to buy it (it's asked me to 14 times by my count). 3/5
I just wanted to toss out a couple of comments. First of all, it's not very often we see idle games use an acceleration formula (that is, things giving money/second^2 rather than just money/second). It's an interesting formula that lends itself really well to idle games, especially improving the effectiveness of idling with a few low-tier businesses. Secondly, I'd honestly think the game was good without knowing the dev's only 16 but man, that's really impressive. Keep up the good work, I look forward to seeing more games from you!
The money/sec seems to be broken. I'm selling less than 10g/sec of weed at 400$/gram, so I'm making about 3k/second. However, the money/sec insists I'm making anywhere between 35k and 50k per second.
I have noticed a slight bug, where where after getting the update I have the ability to prestige for ~ -9000 exotic particles. I don't think this is intentional, given that in the previous builds I could prestige for at minimum 0 particles.
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It IS a prototype — the full version has been entirely rebuilt in a different engine, with changes to layout, plot, research and balance. This version is a proof of concept, to see if people would enjoy it. The full version is the vision as intended, expanded with more content. It would be deceiving to say that this is a demo.