I like it. Being able to kind of 'throw' your repulsor at things is kind of cool. Of course I liked the original as well. One thing I would like to know though; what does the verb 'shmup' mean? It sounds just a tad dirty if you ask me. Dirty in a good way though.
Another thing; in cat god vs. sun king (ya know, that game you copied [that fact is likely obvious to anyone who's played it. The only few things different in this game is the mana system that is worse, the upgrade system that was mostly lifted off of kingdom rush, and the far worse guard system. The rest is almost identical from a number of the spells to the enemies you face, and anything that isn't identical is worse here]) there were other ways to regain your mana specifically so that you didn't just have to rely on natural mana regen. Also, seeing as the only way to get 3 skulls, and presumably is your goal, is to stop the enemy on the ground, why exactly does a third of your available upgrades apply to guards that appear only on the 2nd level? That makes no sense, unless of course you just fail at copying games and screwed up another game's feature. Try coming up with your own ideas and maybe they won't be so badly bungled.
No, this isn't like kingdom rush. This is, on the other hand, exactly like cat god vs. sun king by nerdook. Almost exactly. Actually, no, this is like some Frankenstein combination. The game itself is exactly like cat god vs. sun king, and the upgrades, art style, and even icons for various menus are extremely close to kingdom rush, except cat god vs. sun king felt much better balanced overall, and kingdom rush laid their upgrades out better. Way to take features copied from other games and somehow actually make them worse rather than improving them. learn to be original.
I was about to comment on how much trouble I was having with the last level, but I figured I'd try one final combo before mentioning it, and it worked. Hazaa!
Another note about the freezing thing; when it happens it appears that the characters shadow/hit area actually moves away from the frozen animation. I'm not sure if any of that helps in perhaps pinpointing this thing so that I can actually attempt survival for real for once without being afraid that I'm going to get 3/4 of the way there and it'll freeze, rendering all my time wasted. Or more wasted than it already was.
Well, the freaking freezing issue seems to have a lot to do with hucking spears. This is now the third time that as soon as I start throwing spears it's not long before it freezes. Of course the first time was when I was at 200 some kills getting ready to easily beat god damn powerreef and his damn little frog when, of course, it froze. Spears are one of the few things that speed up survival to begin with, and just seeing mounds of spears lying on the ground unthrown eventually drives me crazy, I say "well, let's give this a try again. Maybe it won't happen this time..." and sure enough I end up freezing shortly after. It's maddening.
I'm still very confused as to why this is called wtf pong. I played, I won, I restarted, I played some more, and I still can't tell what the name has to do with anything aside from the very, very beginning with the parallel ball...
God, the freezing issue is killing me. I got to 148 kills in trojan, and then I freeze and have to quit. I still had over half my health left and showed no sign of slowing down. That makes me angry. I'm afraid to even try again because who know, maybe I'll just get to around a hundred kills and it'll freeze on me, wasting all the time it took getting up there? It's difficult to have legitimate high scores when it's often times a question of who can go the longest without freezing, not who can get the best score.
Ok, so let's see here, you're perfectly willing to update the game in order to make sure you get badges, but not only can't you include the large number of repeated suggestions people keep making, but you don't even so much as respond to their attempts at constructive criticism? Screw you then. Why should anyone bother contributing or rating this game well so YOU benefit when apparently people who are actually playing the game are so inconsequential to you and/or your group that you can't even so much as take a minute to act like you care that people are playing and taking time to think and suggest improvements?
2nd, while at first the controls felt very...out of control,I've realized the 2 aspects that cause me trouble, 1 of which does a little, and 1 that does a lot; jumping finishers, and forward attacks. Finisher causes some because you directionally jump when an enemy is grounded, but not straight jump, as your character will jump to them. With forward attacks there's no way to tell whether a slash or a shield bash will occur. The game claims it has to do with distance, but I've already traversed empty fields attacking and my guy performs both regardless. It appears mostly random. Why not make controls slightly more complex to remove that ambiguity? With shield bash vs slash, for ex, why not tap forwardx2 > atk to do shield bash? Or hold atk for shield bash and tap for slash? You could absolutely make the controls more complex without becoming at all overwhelming, and imo that would be A LOT better than just guessing what's going to happen every time you press a button.
Thanks for all your suggestions. I might do a few of them, particularly putting your lives back to 3 when you start a new level. I might do the time limit on the leg break too. I don't want to make the controls more complex though, double tap to run wont really add anything except the ability to spam shield bashes, which will make the game easier, but not more fun. And my version of these games are more about timing and tactics, rather than the "dial-a-combo" thing you often get in these games. I think there is a glitch with finishing off people who are a fair distance away, will try and fix.
Another comment (because I like this game and wish to see it improve). Two more things I'd like to mention; the first is that maybe you should put some sort of time limit on how long leg breaks last, as when one thinks about it becomes apparent that being able to permanently incapacitating one enemy and move for away can easily lead to someone simply being left to fight one enemy at a time. Granted, that would move much slower than otherwise, but still. Add to that the fact that on most difficulties (the harder the difficulty, the quicker enemies get up on average) you can just kick heads into people then finish them and at least on lower difficulties and you have a dreaded scenario; high scores that go not to the most skilled, but to those willing to invest the largest amount of time, as with any amount of skill those two tactics on the lower/lowest difficulty could easily lead to incredibly drawn out sessions where the main question is how long someone's attention span is.
Alright, another thing (that I don't think has anything to do with the developer); seriously, I just spent the time to get 167 kills in arcadian survival mode, and it didn't report. The only score up there was my first try that was 58. Why does kong do that? This isn't the first time it's done it to me either, but still. Oh yeah, and as for being able to go for forever in survival; ok, lop off someone's head, use it on almost all meleers to knock them over and then just finish them off, and then pick up a spear and use that for archers and everything else. I mean just poke em', don't throw it. Any time you manage to accidentally get away from your head-ball (that's what I like to call it) just either kick enemies over and finish them or run up to them, knock them down and finish. As I said, I got to 167 in arcadian that way, and by that point I was mostly just screwing around cause I was getting bored of slaughtering ppl by then.
Another thing; why would you make you number of carry over from one campaign to another if each you only have to restart each campaign when you get a game over? With how it is now you may as well go on ahead and let the enemy kill you every time you move on to a new campaign, because if you go on with only 2 or 1 life rather than doing that you run the risk of getting further on in the campaign and getting a game over then having to restart anyways. That's silly. You're lives should reset after each campaign.
Man, the issue with all these games is that it feels like your character is out of control. He's randomly facing people and swinging in whatever fashion he feels like and randomly not finishing enemies off when I (at least try, due to that randomly facing enemies thing I mentioned earilier) to jump on them and not facing towards enemies I want him to face towards and it all feels sluggish as heck...I believe this has been an issue with many of the games from this particular developer, as almost all of them have felt similar so that means almost all of them have felt really difficult to control with any real level of accuracy and predictability. If there's some trick to it, I have yet to figure it out in any of the games.
Is there no way to restart/quit levels? What if you hit the wrong level? What if a small house fire starts while you're playing and by the time you manage to put it out with only mild burns to your body you miss half the targets? You wouldn't want to just sit through half the level then. Of course my reasons for wanting to quit/restart mostly involve me doing stupid things then saying 'I want a redo!', but either way I feel like that's something that would be necessary to avoid having to refresh the page or something just to restart...
Yeah, other than the grid size thing, the defense blocks need to be done away with as they serve no purpose whatsoever. They reduce incoming damage for that turn, then they wear off. That's it. That's worse than literally anything else you could do. That's just barely better than simply giving up a turn, and all it takes is one or two to in your grid completely screw you up for a whole battle, as you have two options; waste a turn/turns getting rid of them, or ignore them and let them screw up your combos and take up what tiny bit of space you have. Why would something like that even exist? Second, there needs to be a restart button. That way when I get a grid with, say, 3 separate defense blocks in it I can restart rather than getting frustrated and just refreshing my window.
Perhaps I'm missing something, but...what the heck is this? How exactly are we supposed to decide where any specific number goes other than through sheer luck? It's like, ok, so I need something that starts with, say, a 5; I have 2 or 3 different ones that would fit in that area. How am I supposed to pick one other than to just randomly click one, use it, and hope that everything pans out? In all honesty this just seems like a terrible idea for a game unless I've severely misunderstanding what's supposed to be happening here. You compare it to a crossword puzzle, but one of the key parts of a CW is that you're given clues as to what word fits in any specific set of blocks, and YOU CAN ERASE THINGS IN CROSSWORD PUZZLES. Also, in CWs words intersect at certain given points. They certainly aren't just some big jumbled mess like here. This is nothing like a CW other than in that things cross sometimes...
As to the meaning, people have to remember a good amount of hard drug usage is done through the IV/needle route, especially in those who are dependent. Also, one would wrap a tourniquet around their arm, which could be an explanation for the comment at the beginning. The thing is it seems to be sending mixed messages; it says, for example "you rely on me to make you a better person!", or in the second ending it talks about how they can 'stay like this forever', and that sort of apathy certainly sounds kind of like heroin usage. That's the issue; usually self-mutilation doesn't actually result in being happy, it just results in being less unhappy. It certainly doesn't make most people apathetic. Also, at one point it comments on him shaking and about some sort of anxiety, which sounds like withdrawal. The problem is that the hospital ending, while it could refer to injection complications, sounds very self-mutilation-ish. I don't know...
Wow, there's nothing quite like a strategy game with terrible ai/controls to frustrate you. "Durr, you want us to attack them? By 'attack them', you mean fly up onto the useless mutation square they're sitting on so we ourselves become useless and stare at them, right?". The thing is one's ability to control their units ends up so ridiculously clunky in many strategy type games, which makes me wonder; wouldn't that kind of be one of the more important things in a strategy game? That you can actually control your units? It's difficult to stategize when you're never sure if your units will actually do what you say or not...
 "Starmada"){kind=icon}
 "Epic Stand"){kind=icon}
 "Pocket Creature"){kind=icon}
 "Achilles 2: Origin of a Legend"){kind=icon}
 "WTF Pong"){kind=icon}
 "Immortal Souls: Dark Crusade"){kind=icon}
 "Bullseye (Interstellar Marines)"){kind=icon}
 "The Time Trap"){kind=icon}
 "Air Pressure"){kind=icon}
 "Adapt or Die"){kind=icon}
shmup = "shoot 'em up"