Bizarre, stylish, fun.
The game itself was extremely bizarre, a team of lady bugs inside of a butcher's brain destroying his brain cells? It was a good kind of bizarre, I enjoyed playing this as well as beating it and "knocking the butcher over" finally, I got real close to dying though, I beat it with one lady bug left, thinking I was going to die at the last boss, and there were many barriers and enemies, but I dodged and pulled through just fine.
I didn't understand the butcher pictures concept/tutorial thing in the beginning, because I was thinking that the game itself had nothing to do with knocking over butchers or dodging a cleaver once the game started, but of course I soon picked up and realized I was inside of his brain destroying his cells, even better than the pre-conceived game I had thought it out to be. Even better in the same sense as it turned out to be a classic arcade flying shooter, which I loved those games back in the good old days.
I noticed the floating green brains offer nothing else than a total of 5 ladybugs, I feel if you keep all your ladybugs and come across one of those rare powerups again, it shouldn't just be empty, it should upgrade your firepower, make it stronger, or make it more rapid as a reward, and keep it as long as you don't get hit, that would have been a nice touch considering this game is going back to old arcade shooters, just a thought though.
It was a good challenging game, the fighting formations that allowed you to spin and rotate had their ups and downs, the spinning of the bugs could increase your accuracy, making your gunfire go all over the place, great for little floating pests, and the basic starter formation where 4 bugs were rotating around a central bug was great in that effect too, especially if you wanted to concentrate gunfire on something that took a huge amount of hits to kill. The downs however left you open to more of a chance of getting hit, as sometimes you think you dodged a bullet, but sometimes you would miscalculate one of your spinning or rotating bugs , they would spin right into the bullet you think you dodged, in those formations you must consider all the little bugs, and not just think of it as one giant moving stationary fleet like some formations, it can be annoying, but if your responsible enough it can be strategic and fun.
I found myself using formation 1 and 4 most of the time, 1 for the front, and 4 to get annoyances in the back, I didn't use the side facing formations much as I found it worked out most of the time to just scroll your party to the right or left and fire over or below yourself to take out the enemy you line yourself up with, but hey I bet alot of people use those other formations, everyone has a different strategy so great idea on having many battle tactics.
The music was bizarre, yet comforting and fitting in such a dark bizarre area, the game itself, with its art and style, mixed with the music is like one big piece of art, it all just worked out together and was entertaining to just watch the game and listen to the music, as a secondary to just playing the game and trying to beat it. The music was also fitting in a sci-fi sense, it actually went well with the theme of you thinking of yourself inside of someone's brain, fighting off defensive cells protecting the mother cells.
I also think there could have been a few more enemies besides upgrades, like a few enemies that slightly fit a description of a butcher, or a few butcheresque weapons.
If you can, explain to me how you came up with the game, were you given a random phrase to work with on game jam? Creating a game that you envision that fits with the title?
The ending was great, it gave the beginning "tutorial" justice.
Bottom line the music and the game were great, as I explained it worked out to be a perfect combination of art above, I loved the neons, and the semi-glowing, and I also enjoyed the major strategy movements it took to beat towards the end, using most of the formations, very nicely done.
10/10 stars
5/5 vote panel
xVegetAx, NG Portal Lieutenant