Reviews for Heartship

[b-random9]

Difficulty feels a bit all over the place, after having it very easy I believe I got introduced to the eyes with about 5 at once. I appreciate a wavering difficulty, but I don't the randomized nature excuses such a big difficult wall. Still, I'm being picky, and once it did get difficult I did start to have fun.

Art and sound I felt were really quite charming.

I did get stuck once I reached the skelly heads with the orbiting shield. I appreciate being able to skip the tutorial though, so a simple prompt or something at the start of every run that tells you about the splitting mechanic might be nice. If you look at Binding Of Isaac, I believe each of Isaacs abilites are drawn onto the background of the first room, completely non intrusive but helpful regardless.

Personally, not a fan of how the character feels to control, it's very floaty. Regarding the splitting mechanic, it's really quite cool, but it feels more suited to a puzzle game. It aside, you've got a nice fast paced shooter, but when you split the pacing comes to a halt. Right now, my strat is to take out everything normally, then switch the split mode to deal with skulls; this approach seemed the most efficient but doesn't at all jell with the fast pace gameplay. Perhaps there exists some mythical strat where I could utilize the splitting and keep up the pace, but doing so would probably involve forcing myself to get worse for a while whilst I try to do both at once and completely fail, and of-course it's not the players responsibility to control the pacing.

Apologies if this review sounds overly harsh, it really is a cool game, I just don't see those two parts uniting. I've done something similar with my game Skyward Descent, where everyone wanted mouse control but I preferred twin-key (WASD move, arrows aim). In the end, even if I as the dev could see something fun with the control scheme as someone who was good at it, but I really should have ditched it and worked with mouse aiming or just found a way to make it more approachable, and I see this game in a similar position.

Whatever potential the splitting has, its easier to just not split until I'm forced to. Perhaps it just needs to feel more like an advantageous thing than a hindrance. Letting the player get used to shooting w/o needing the splitting early on against the bats and stuff seems logical (introduce the basics before adding the twist) but I almost wounder if in this case it's instilling bad habits into the player. Letting them get used to normal gameplay before slapping them on the wrist.

I'm gona shut up now.

HealliesGames responds:

Don't apologies, don't worry! Reviews exists on purpose.
Indeed I thank you for taking the time to play and exposing your thoughts. :)

The whole game, since the introduction, assumes that the tower must be faced by at least two people. The mechanic of splitting is deliberately made an obstacle, as also (little spoiler) is openly said in the end.

And it is natural to put enemies or situations that force you to separate yourself, remaining relevant to the theme of the tower itself. If they weren't there, the sense of splitting would be lost. As if it was a puzzle game, you would use mechanics when it would be right to use.

I agree that it may not be very accessible as a game, because even easy difficulty requires skill and quick reflexes.

So yes, the technique is first to eliminate the enemies normally (skulls permitting, because they could block the bullets) and then think about those for which you have to divide yourself.

[ThedogOfWater]

nice game is fun and entretening and hard the mechanics are weird but like good weird i love the split mechanic i dont see that in meny games good work

HealliesGames responds:

I'm pleased to know you liked the mechanic, thanks for the feedback and for playing!

[Prid-Outing]

Fun concept and nice graphics, but the difficulty can seem a bit unfair at times due to its RNG nature.

I had to check the tutorial on my 3rd try because I couldn't seem to understand how to beat some of the later enemies. That splitting took me by surprise as I accidentally discovered it, but that was a gamechanger as it defined the whole game -- nice work!

Still, the RNG nature of the enemies reminds me of the roguelike genre, which this is probably aiming to be? There are some "undocumented" techniques that you have to self-discover like how it's imperative to split in half and then use the gun to propel yourself to the other trigger when you're on a level that requires two triggers to be activated to knock out the enemies' shields, otherwise you'll definitely lose a health bar or two. Such an essential technique should've been in the tutorial as I almost always lost a life when splitting in half and slowly running towards the other trigger, meaning the aforementioned technique is a must to beat those floors.

Another nitpick I have is the angle of the gun. When you switch sides (left to right, or vice versa), the gun is positioned so that you won't have a full circle effect on your bullet (kinda hard to explain), but that's a bit jarring and makes the shooting a bit harder and more prone to error.

Otherwise, a solid game that I'll probably beat one day, as even the "easy" mode is pretty difficult, haha. I'm sure this will place on top 5 or something :)

HealliesGames responds:

I take all responsibility for not putting the tutorial mandatory. My bad.
Yes the genre is rogue-lite, and I took inspiration from the progenitors of the genre itself.

The random difficulty is the element that characterizes the games, but I can assure you that any combination that come out is absolutely feasible.
Some more difficult, some easier, but beatable.

I thought it would be nice to find out the technique of pressing the buttons yourself, because in the easy difficulty the speed of the enemies allow you to press the buttons without using the "gun technique" (only if done quickly though).

In normal and hard no.
But then again, obviously for me it is simple. I will definitely add it in the tutorial.

Thank you for your time and review Prid-Outing, as well as for encouragement. :)

[BabyFrog]

Putting the split dude back together is unnecessarily hard. One button should do it without having to walk over to it.

HealliesGames responds:

Good idea! The two sides can attract each other.
In the next update I'm planning, I'm going to add a little thing if you complete the game with all three difficulties. I could implement what you suggested.

Thanks for the feedback, BabyFrog!

[Scorchle]

Bitchin hard, but once you get used to the controls, the learning curve shapes up really well!
I keep finding myself coming back to this. Fantastic work!

HealliesGames responds:

Glad you enjoyed the game.
Thank you for your feedback, Scorchle!