First impression, warden down

[Hearteater]

First, amazing game. Absolutely enjoyable, fun, and beautiful shot patterns. Seriously, I think sometimes I just like watching the enemies fire. I have a lot of favorites and only a few I dislike (the wall boss is the most annoying). Also, the tutorial voice over was excellent. Conveyed a ton of character and humor, without being cheesy. So props on the VO and dialog. Incidentally, this game makes me want to play almost every other Arcen game I own, so if you were attempting to sell Arcen-brand crack, you succeeded. I really want some of those ships in AI Wars . Ok, so love it a ton and just tossing in my first impression feedback.

Played on normal, keyboard+mouse. I've played a lot of top-down shooting games, but they were pre-bullet hell (e.g., Zanac on Nintendo). I've also played a lot of Isaac for comparison. Normal difficulty was really comfortable for me. It is easier than I'm certain I'll be playing on in the future, but it was great for giving me some challenge while still learning. Doing this quick because its time to make dinner. Here we go...

Tutorial:
Excellent, with two suggestions:
1) It ends too abruptly. Even a slow fade to black (maybe with the game playing in 1/2 speed during the fade) after killing the last ship would be an improvement. I literally took my hands off my keyboard and had a mental "wtf" moment because I was right in the middle of shooting at a ship when the screens suddenly goes pitch black.

2) It never explains turrets, and this was the most confusing part for me. I've figured out how the various kinds (that I've encountered so far) work, and the turret controller, but the first few games were a little confusing. Main points learning in the tutorial would be nice: a) turrets can't be damaged, and b) turrets and other defenses are disabled when the room is cleared. This helps the most early in the game when every ship/turret is new and you are trying to figure out how it all works.

Basic Loot:
Money icons seem a touch small.

Maybe it is Normal, but the drops seem too common. 100% from every container? I can't think of a level I completed that didn't have 5+ health and missiles left behind because I was at full. I actually hit the max money cap twice (both with the x2 cash improvement, which I don't think I'd get again). Also, healing 2 per pickup is unnecessary based on the drop amount. Again, if that's just normal difficulty, fine.

Modules:
That blade module literally won me the game. Nothing compared to the power of destroying shots in front of me. Only way I beat the wall boss. Not a huge fan of its graphic, but its effect is amazing.

Consumables:
There seemed to be a lot of repeats, specifically floor skips (are there like 3 different items that do this?) Especially with that also being one of your level-up picks. More diversity here would be nice. I tend to dislike the timed boosts, but maybe that comes from Isaac which tends to have "until you leave the room" durations on consumables. The blackhole does not work as expected.

Companions:
I find how they function near walls kind of annoying. I'd almost rather they just orbit and pass over the walls, even if their attacking is disabled while over impassible terrain. It would allow using them to shoot over walls, but that sort of thing is completely legit in this genre.

Sacrifice Shop:
Generally underwhelming, especially for the cost. Compared to Isaac for example, where those items could easily transform your entire run.

Weapons:
Missiles - These are pretty bland, small, and unnoticeable for something so powerful, especially something that destroys shots. Something brighter would be nicer. Also, really not impressed by their damage against bosses.

Left-click Weapons - Did I just miss it, or is there no range upgrades?

Enemies:
I felt the introduction rate and fire patterns were excellent. They quickly communicated their patterns, were very memorable, and easy to quickly adjust to when first encountered.

Bosses:
I've mentioned it before, but the wall boss is a beast. I find him harder than the warden. Just a touch more time between the blue alternating up/down shots would help. I spend too much time dodging those to put enough damage on him.

It would be nice if the non-shooting mini-bosses had a uniform name in the beginning (like Trial of the Twin Suns, Trial of the Hunter, etc) to mentally queue the player to quickly switch gears.

UI:
I would really like consolidated stats, specially things like crit% and "dodge"%, instead of having to mouse over all my power-ups trying to total things up.

I also lost track of my consumables key. Maybe when paused it can display the key/mouse binds next to each weapon.

Misc
The monolith silhouette between levels is...uh...interestingly shaped. Both times I've shown off the game, that's the first comment I've heard. It never crossed my mind, but apparently some people are like that. Just saying .

Bugs?
See attached, but I had a few +crit% items and this started happening when the blade module struck things.

I took the +20 keys for leveling up (yes, I had no keys for far too long) and I only got 19 keys?!

Also, I had +1 shield from level up and got the "no shields for this level, +1 shield after" challenge and those two did NOT combine to give me 3 shields . Is that intended?

Anyways, amazing work. Thank you Arcen and everyone who contributed for an excellent game. It made me so sad to read your blog, but I'm hopeful Starward Rogue picks up in popularity. I actually saw it being played on Twitch before I realized it was an Arcen game. It was between queues for another game, but it has a lot of the qualities for a good streaming game, so hopefully it starts showing up more and brings in more people.

[Captain Jack]

Can't comment on too much, but yeah, max shield is 2. Extras float above that so if you lose one for whatever reason you'll stay at 2.

Item variation is still being balanced. There's 200 items (equips, abilities, etc.) but the early items repeat too often.

The sacrifice shops were recently nerfed. Abilities used to cost 1-3 health which made them waaaay too good. Might be time to find a new balance?

There are range upgrades but you're playing a RNG game. 

The trials aren't bosses at all. They're supposed to be relevant to the story, but with how bad SR is doing who knows if we'll ever see it.

UI... actually I agree that could be improved. Don't know that we'll see a graphical overhaul, but numbers should be mantisable.

[LaGrange]

UI:
I would really like consolidated stats, specially things like crit% and "dodge"%, instead of having to mouse over all my power-ups trying to total things up.

This would be extraordinarily helpful!

[crazyroosterman]

Can't comment on too much, but yeah, max shield is 2. Extras float above that so if you lose one for whatever reason you'll stay at 2.

Item variation is still being balanced. There's 200 items (equips, abilities, etc.) but the early items repeat too often.

The sacrifice shops were recently nerfed. Abilities used to cost 1-3 health which made them waaaay too good. Might be time to find a new balance?

There are range upgrades but you're playing a RNG game. 

The trials aren't bosses at all. They're supposed to be relevant to the story, but with how bad SR is doing who knows if we'll ever see it.

UI... actually I agree that could be improved. Don't know that we'll see a graphical overhaul, but numbers should be mantisable.

you say we might never see the story ):? well that's just sad.

[Captain Jack]

you say we might never see the story ):? well that's just sad.

Haha, that's up to Chris, and he's a bit ruthless about games that underperform. We'll see more content in SR for as long as the volunteers are still interested, but I imagine that the story's not going to advance anymore.

[crazyroosterman]

you say we might never see the story ):? well that's just sad.

Haha, that's up to Chris, and he's a bit ruthless about games that underperform. We'll see more content in SR for as long as the volunteers are still interested, but I imagine that the story's not going to advance anymore.

): I guess your right unless some strange person goes and writes a long fan fiction.

[Misery]

For the Wallmaster boss:  https://youtu.be/8-At-oRGojg


That's just to show the method for taking him down.  When done right he really doesnt require you to move all that much compared to most of the other bosses.  This is why he's in the floor 1-2 bracket.

HOWEVER.  I have stumbled on a problem! 

Have a look at this: 

Look at the size of the hitboxes on those blue things!  Just... what.   That's a definite issue.  I suspect they're not the only bullets with hitboxes that dont match the sprite either.

There are some definite issues with hitboxes in this right now.  Hopefully those can be worked out over time.... but for the most part they dont affect this fight TOO much.   I may simply change the bullet type later (not doing it right now).

[Hearteater]

I finally got the normal version down reasonably consistently. But the hard version's rear shots always wind up screwing me up. They are always opposite the blue shot's spray, requiring a really wide swings up and down.