I did a pair of playthroughs that ended at the warden level/boss a couple days ago and enjoyed my time! Will probably be returning to see if I can save Rodney at some point soon...
Especially want to give Misery and co. kudos for the great work on the enemies and bullet patterns. (PS: Sideshots are jerks <.<)
But I also had a few small critiques (yet think the reaper mini-boss is fine).
This actually stuck out to me with the screenshots particularly, but the game is missing a bit in the atmosphere and lighting department, even if I realize a lot of this is due to the compressed dev time of the game. Many games of this rough style create atmosphere by cranking up the effects to 15 and making a hash of visual clarity. Starward Rogue has the visual clarity, but is also a little too conservative in its visual stylings. Needs more shadows and distinction to its light sources because the visuals look flatish at the moment. Which turned into bland looking screenshots. Which probably had an impact on being wishlisted instead of bought.
It's the 'first thing a person sees' deal, and why strong, vivid visual aesthetics matter (even if those strong, vivid visual aesthetics may not technically be 'good', more just has to be 'not terrible'). They provide one of the first hooks to get people to buy the game.
This has been a bit of a problem for Arcen for a while, and why I was very happy with the overall looks of SBR because it was a huge step forward in correcting that.
Another critique along these lines is the UI and item sprites. Overall, they're a bit too plain and simplistic (visually) while not really adding to the aesthetics of the game, and even subtracting in some cases (key cards). Again, three month dev cycle. But also again, hurt you with the screenshots.
My other critique is some lack in primary weapon variation. This may have been because the game never got around to showing me, but in two rounds of 5-ish floors, I rarely got the chance to swap my weak-ish chaingun with an okay railgun. And touching back on the visuals thing, neither felt more than 'functional' to use. There never really was a point where I felt like I'd found an awesome weapon, just a couple things that'll get the job done. Missiles could use a bit more oomph at that (although I did find the infini-missile item which was quite the thing while it lasted).
But other than those critiques for the moment, great job on Starward Rogue! I was impressed with what I found. ^^
