Ok, first and foremost, for the love of God, MAKE. THE. BULLETS. DISTINGUISHABLE.

Seriously, one of the last things you want your player to do is to wonder whether the thing they're flying into is a collectible or a bullet that's about to wreck them. There's not a single reason you should do that, unless you want to make the game annoying on purpose.

The art itself is quite nice though, low-res but that's what you'd expect.

The music quickly gets on your nerves, so I'd appreciate it if it was more of a background tune, especially given how it repeats over and over and over without too much variety.

Now, the gameplay. This is where the game lacks the most - this thing simply isn't fun to play. The stages themselves feel like typical grinding for exp - you do it because you have to, not because it's fun. It doesn't require much effort, and gathering the cores like that quickly gets very boring.

Regarding the first stage boss - his second phase is absolutely horrible. While the spiral looks dangerous, every "wave" hits precisely the same positions, so all you have to do is position yourself in a blind spot and hold "z" until dude drops to 0 HP. It's the same as if you had just put some random lasers on both sides, and put the guy just there, doing nothing, waiting to get killed, except here you try to make an illusion that something is happening. The only thing you achieve is making the player annoyed by both boring the person who already knows the pattern, and annoying the person who doesn't and might get hit for no real reason other than the design being bad. Please, don't do that.

Stage 2 boss was somehow even worse... Its third stage was alright, the bullets explode in different positions, so it's at least a bit less annoying than the other two, but it's still just.... fine? For the most part, you made it just as an big pool of hitpoints that the player has to get through, a little at a time (as far as I understood though, you wouldn't even have to shoot them? The actual HP bar never went down). The only thing the first two phases do is slow your progress. They don't pose any real threat to you, they ONLY slow your down. Again, don't do that.

Overall, the game simply isn't fun to play. I didn't play past second stage because it's just draining.

PS: I rate things harshly, so don't take this as hate or something.

EDIT: the bullets actually do have a similar colour to the cores, they should contrast stronger than that. And regarding the music, the melody of the tune is, let's say, "sharp" to the ear. The high pitch paired up with very regular time interval between notes quickly tires the listener out. I understand the limitations of the engine, but take a look for example at VVVVVV's soundtrack. While the music there clearly can be better due to the lack of limitations, even short parts of it have a lot of personality and are nice to the ear.

It's just a 2048 copy with some graphics.

Good game, fun to play for a short while. Not too long, so it doesn't get too boring before finishing it, and the design of the levels is also clever, so it has just enough to keep the player entertained until the it is finished.

Music and graphics are the strongest points of this game - they are top notch, especially for a game jam like GMTK. Marvellous job here.

The idea of course is not anything new, and as far as I know, it was commonly used in the jam (someone correct me if I'm wrong - I was not that interested, and it took place so long ago, too), however this is a really good approach to it. I tend to dislike the smaller sizes of the levels, but clearly the game makes very good use of what it has, and some of the levels were really enjoyable.

I definitely do feel like the difficulty curve tends to be a bit random at times, and some levels are just suddenly way easier than the others and vice versa, but overall it is quite good. The game is demanding, but mostly fair, and that makes it enjoyable.

Would anyone mind explaining what the use of having to hold the horizontal arrow in the direction of the wall to be able to wall jump is? There is a very (VERY) huge chance I am missing an obvious mechanic (or just forgot about it already). That is just out of pure curiosity, as a fellow game design hobbyist myself.

One thing that I would definitely think about, is the way the game handles respawning. There is a pretty long animation after death, and if it is one of the levels where the player is almost instanly pushed into a hazard, it tends to get a bit frustrating (not too much, since the design is still good, but extra frustration reduction is still welcome, unless a frustrating game is the point, of course, but I assume that is not the case here). What I'd suggest is waiting for the player to press a key on the keyboard, and only then proceeding to let the virus take over control. This would increase fairness and lessen unnecessary death count at the beginning of the level.

Overall it is a simple, yet very enjoyable game for the 20-30 minutes of gameplay. Good job on this one!

so <3

this right here is an absolute masterpiece! *-*

amazing *-*