Schmup Demo

Been a while since I left you a comment. Sorry about that. I can't wait to see the rest of this game. Or even just to play a full level! I think the main reason for this is that the ship feels weighty and athletic. The time it takes to accelerate to top speed makes it feel like I am blasting off, but at the same time, I feel in control. Additionally, I really like the bounce that happens when you crash your ship into a wall or a block of space ice. I do wish that the momentum imparted by the bounce away from whatever you struck scaled with how fast you were going at the time. As it stands, if you coast slowly into a wall, you get the same springy bounce back that you had before. Still, I can imagine it would be quite fun to try and control the ship while it's bouncing in order to traverse a level faster.

Shooting feels markedly less energetic. This could be chalked up to a missing animation or perhaps a different sound effect, but while I thought the ship's flight controls felt tactile, the shooting felt comparatively weightless. In terms of what you mentioned in your dev-log, I would say the ship feels quite responsive! There was never a time while I was playing where I would a push a button and an input was eaten or when I thought something should happen while another thing did. I think the input buffer time you chose was great for this reason, though I would be intrigued to play a couple versions with different input buffers to see if I could spot the difference.

One last detail you might not have considered. I noticed that when you hold one of the arrow keys in the horizontal direction and then hold down the other, instead of accelerating to top speed, you stay at the coasting speed that it also used for when you are firing your weapon. This kinda gives you a "brake" in your movement system for free, which is kinda cool. I did notice that when you do the same thing for the two arrow keys on the vertical axis that instead of continuing in the direction you were already headed, but at a slower speed, you stop moving along the vertical axis altogether. You do continue your movement along the horizontal axis, though. Lastly, I was disappointed to see that this does not extend to when you are firing your weapon. Instead of continuing at an even slower speed, you stay coasting at the same speed. I think that if this additive button press movement system is pretty cool, especially if you allow it to extend to all states that the ship can be in. I could imagine that it would help maneuver through tight spaces, or to hold your position. These sorts of little quirks where different inputs can combine to make surprising interactions are things I love about video games, especially when the system they affect is the movement system.

Like I said, I can't wait for a full level!