1. It's almost impossible to tell "this ship is about to fire" flash from "this ship has been hit" flash. Maybe they could blink RED or something instead? Throw us a bone?
2. We're not buying new ships willy-nilly. They're damn expensive, and without the extra inventory space, we're not going to survive. That being the case, and there being a strict upper limit, could we maybe get _full_ health when buying a new ship? ("Thanks for the purchase, Cap'n! Give us a moment to knock holes in the ship in all the same places as the old'n, and we'll turn her over to yer...")
3. As near as I can tell, there are upper limits on each of the "stats" that aren't reachable, even with the best items available (if there's some secret I'm missing, someone feel free to set me straight.) It would be easy enough to simply have the final ship purchase (you know, the one that costs freaking $5,000?) add one point to all stats. Heaven knows we could use it against those damnably tough post-final-wave ships.
For the record, I beat the last boss, so hopefully I can make this kind of comment without getting "Waaah, you think the game is too haaard" responses- this is a pretty good game, and I know it's supposed to be "frantic", but I think it would be better from a design standpoint if there was more of a pause between the defeat of an enemy and a spawning of a new one. It's very easy to get hit by things that suddenly surge in from off-screen, and it's annoying not to have a chance to collect your hard-earned loot- even with magnets!- because you're too busy desperately circle-strafing.
I understand the way the game is structured, but it's just too unforgiving at the higher difficulties. If you don't start next to a school, and a soldier dies, every other function is all but hopeless- you can't scavenge safely, you can't reclaim territory, you can't recruit new people. Having non-soldier people on a mission should add SOMETHING to the safety of a mission. It doesn't take combat training to watch someone's back or swing a club. Soldiers are disproportionately necessary- every other character function can be fulfilled, however poorly, by someone with no skills at all!
It's beautifully imagined, no question. It's a little annoying that the artistic sensibilities get in the way of some of the game mechanics (i.e. where you can jump onto, what you're supposed to do next.)
A couple of small notes (bugs?): A "magic weapon"ed Quake I used on the computer opponent did [at least] 55 points of damage, destroying him, when it should have done only 54 (27x2). Also, only the first musical "track" seems to loop... The others seem to come to an end and stop.
It's a lot prettier, and I like that the new cards/redesign of the old makes for some new strategies, and I'm very thankful that you can now discard 3 cards per turn rather than 1 (a pet peeve of mine from the previous game.)
But I wonder if the game's creator recognizes how big a difference 20 resources and a couple of "supplier types" (builders, etc.) makes in a typical game. Very often it's not "challenge the player"; it's "the enemy has a ridiculously unfair advantage." It frustrates me in part because it's not a case of "well, you could just turn the same strategy around on your opponent"- you _can't_ if you never get the resource levels to play the cards your opponent is casually throwing out in the first few turns. No deck arrangement will change that. Basically, there are 2 very different game phases- one where resources are urgently important, and one where they barely matter. If your opponent enters the latter and you're still deep in the former, you never have a chance.
Wow. That's a very good game. Very imaginative and manages to hit the sweet spot of being challenging without getting frustrating to the point that you give up. I like the music, too (especially how it shifts from moody-contemplative to action-synthetic as you move from puzzle to platform.) I think I like the "simple and elegant" levels more than the really complicated ones, though.
Okay. There are TWO curses in my deck. I had BOTH in my hand. I used one... Two turns later, the computer used one on me! If there's a "deck shuffle" occurring at some point in the game, I think it REALLY needs to be more transparent.
Great production values, good design, like the idea. It's a little annoying that so much of getting the "best" score seems to amount to using hit and run tactics, doing five runs to do the same amount of damage without taking any in return that you could with one run if you were willing to take near-fatal damage.
Sheesh. Over $100,000 on ending, plus every single trophy, and it still only brought me to $260,000 and change. Still, it's a fun game, if one that's a little high on luck in the beginning stages.
How many complaints would go away if you could just discard more than one card a turn?!... I know, I know, it would probably involve a significant amount of AI reprogramming as well.
To heck with the naysayers. I like the addition of the "zombie hero" element; it adds a lot of variety (although Venom, who keeps stunning the same guy until he gets brought down, isn't terribly useful.) I'd love to see the newscaster become a zombie in the end!
I'm spending more time fighting the interface than I am fighting my enemies. Jumping, avoiding enemy missiles and ESPECIALLY avoiding the enemy fires are excessively difficult (and in at least one case where fire archers stayed near the edge of the screen firing onto a platform just in front of them, literally impossible.) I've never found myself wishing for a simple arrow key or WSAD interface so badly.
Lot of good stuff here. I like the art style and the music, and I appreciate the idea that the length is chosen by your own pace. It is, as has been said, a little on the easy side, but not every Flash game has to be a display of designer sadism. Good fun!
Fun concept, good graphics, very playable mechanics, easy to get into, amusing sense of humor. I kind of wish there was an *activatable* shield, rather than the brief respite the player seems to get after taking a hit. Sometimes the air is so thick with plasma there's no question of *whether* you'll take a hit, just where, when, and how many.
To increase your multiplier, a few suggestions:
Drop rocks/trucks/cars on houses until they explode;
Take out as many planes as possible, also using the rocks or trucks, either dropping them on the planes or just having them collide as they beam up or down or hang beneath the saucer.
...I just beat the computer two games to zip. Favorable cards are offered to the player all the time. The problem is that cards seem to be offered in sets; the "randomness" isn't all it ought to be. If your opponent gets "conjure weapons" followed by "Thief" early on, you're way behind by turn two. If your opponent has a series of "crushes" early on, and you're flooded with them at a point when resources have become all but irrelevant, you're up a creek. I demolish the computer at least as often as it does me; the problem is that games that feel like they're decided by SKILL, rather than sheer luck of the draw, are the minority. And for the love of all that's holy, CAN WE IMPLEMENT A MULTI-CARD DISCARD, PLEASE?! Sacrificing your turn to get rid of a single card is extremely poorly thought out.