Show HN: I spent 6 years making a cool free game
Congratulations on shipping. Most people who want to get into independent development never even make it past alpha, if that.<p>Really, I think the basic idea is alright, but the actual gameplay and design need a bit of polish.<p>However, as soon as I opened it up I got a warning from Windows. If I have to choose to let your app through the firewall that&#x27;s a bad sign. I feel like a beta shouldn&#x27;t be making network requests and posting my score to a remote server (which is what appears to be happening here.)<p>The text seems too difficult to see in some cases. For instance - the red text on the grey dialog box background in the tutorial. Some of the UI elements are difficult to read as well, and seem superfluous. I kind of feel like the only thing I <i>need</i> to have is an immediate idea of my health and maybe the score.<p>I thought the tutorial was a bit condescending. The mechanics of the game aren&#x27;t that complicated, I just want to know what the controls do, what the basic premise is, etc.<p>I feel like one or more of the following are probably true: the enemies are too small, the field is too large, or the controls are not responsive enough. Maneuvering to catch the enemies seemed to take far more effort than needed. Perhaps if the movement were restricted to a grid or some kind of graph the actual puzzle aspect of the game could become more prominent. I understand it&#x27;s supposed to be difficult, but the difficulty in this case seems a bit artificial.<p>The klaxon sound effect was annoying, and to me sort of detracted from the general sci-fi action feel of the game.<p>The background isn&#x27;t doing much to enhance the experience to me - this game would be just as enjoyable (and be a smaller download) if you just had a simple background. It would also make everything else a bit easier to see. Then again, it isn&#x27;t <i>hurting</i> anything either.. it&#x27;s just uninteresting.<p>Being told that my scores were too low for the leaderboard was a bit aggravating. It&#x27;s never a good thing to be told the game you were playing is a test and you failed it, since I wasn&#x27;t actually intending to play for a global leaderboard to begin with. Maybe allow my scores to sit on a local scoreboard, then give the option to send the highest score?<p>Overall though, if this were on Greenlight, I might consider it. It&#x27;s not yet at a state that I would be willing to pay money for, but it&#x27;s got potential. It might work well as a mobile game.