The controls are horrible. Apart from that it's a decent game.
Reviews for "It Came From Outer Space"
RaveRadbury responds:
Check out the new menu option to change the control scheme!
Lot of the same reviews; mechanics are unintuitive. It's not a great difficulty curve if you're expecting me to unlearn decades of *the way every other game ever* is made. Left to go left, right to go right, up to jump, down to duck. I find it funny that it says "This game is much better with an Xbox360 controller!" when the automapping of buttons resulted in a control scheme in which the jump button was on the opposite end from the fire button, meaning that you couldn't even jump and keep firing at the same time. Even the keyboard settings (mind you, the only actual settings that the game tells you ahead of time even as you are the ones to suggest using a controller) are slightly better mapped, but the movement scheme is ridiculous.
Eventually the screen is filled with enough crap that at that point I can't really think about controls and the instincts just kick in, and again, I believe everybody's instincts revert back to what we've done for countless collective years of gaming. It's the control scheme that really makes this difficult, more than anything else. For that I felt more lucky to get a high score than to have any sense of accomplishment.
I also disliked the speed of the missiles combined with the fact that they have no audio cue. Can't tell you how many times I was watching the sides for UFO shots or rolling mines from the back end and as soon as I jumped up a missile launched and slammed me right in the face. I could try to change the trajectory of my jump or something but only if I get a little more fair warning that the machine itself is gonna be firing as well.
Sprites were big and detailed enough, easy to identify. I never had a problem really understanding what I should be doing, it was just trying to get myself to do it properly. Hiding behind things is not as intuitive as it could be, and really was more useful in the early going because after there's lasers and spread shots and mines everywhere on the ground, giving me a box to hide behind then is mostly worthless. Staying in one place is pretty much assured death. Powerups were good when I could get them, although it was nigh-impossible to reach them without exposing myself to fire. The difficulty was usually ramped up by the time I managed to get a spread shot or machine gun so I didn't get much opportunity to use them before dying. Soundtrack was pretty cool and the interaction between stage actors and offstage crew and producers was good, although it should have been voice or something because the placement of text at the bottom of the screen meant that I couldn't really appreciate it on account of having to spend more time focusing on the play field.
It's not a horrible game, but needs more work on playability. I like me some bullet hell games, but there's games that are difficult but are designed to still be winnable because they're easy to pick up. This game's difficulty curve starts high and gets worse and in the end you feel like you could get further along in achievements but you mostly just wish it was made differently.
RaveRadbury responds:
We've added an option to change the control scheme of both the keyboard and controller, so I hope that this will improve your gameplay experience!
The boss operates on a timer, I felt that this in combination with how few missiles were shot in comparison to other attacks made it fair enough.
Thank you for your feedback!
ive been trying to kill the boss for so long. does it ever die??
RaveRadbury responds:
Sorry, no. It was designed to be an endless arcade experience. We considered having an endless cycle of bosses, but this was not something that we were able to do with our time and resources. If we end up making a paid version of this, we'll be able to do something like that.
Good:
- Graphics, Sounds, Polished, Funny theme
Bad:
- Controls, No tutorial
You should show the basic control keys the first time you play
you can change the control keys but you have to play with the weird default controls to know which keys you want to use
I wrote a long review and the tab crashed, so let's try this again. The game still runs smoothly without too much of a slowdown. The mute button on the front page is praiseworthy. Graphics are decent as well. However, the medals do not send after you earn them. Having a medal game with broken medals defeats the point.