Planet Killer

it's an ok game. kinda becomes a slideshow at later levels and turns the screen into the sun. hitting escape and letting the bloom die down helps a little, but it feels like there are just too many particles on screen for anything to run smooth. instead of a $10 game it feels more like a $5 flash game. The meta progression also costs a bit much. Not sure how many runs it was supposed to take to unlock one ship, but with how things are I feel like most of the ships will never be unlocked by a casual run through the game. It wouldn't be difficult, just time consuming as each one would take a few runs just to unlock the next ship. It was also hard in the late game to tell which gun was doing what damage. It all melded together in a big flash of bloom at the end. For example most guns felt like they didn't do much later in the game with a 98% damage debuff to planet damage, but there was one that went straight through the planet even in late game. But, by that time I couldn't tell if it was me or one of the fleet ships that was doing the damage. I just had to hope I didn't accidentally replace it when throwing out things for bigger number things. Still a good game, just needs some tweaks. Maybe cheaper ships, maybe a damage counter, and maybe a limiter on particle affects would be nice.

Gets dull very fast, some enemy planet weapons seem invisible and can knock out somehow 2000 shields at once, which is crazy, this is in the 20-30 planet range.

The game has great Reply value, it is super simple to play, BUT there are some strategic elements you realise down the line that make it more interesting. It runs fine on a MacMiniM4 (for MBased Mac users not sure for compatibility).

Mislabeled early access title that ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ out the wrong aspects for its early access. On launch, you'd have a slow, unchallenging, miserable in how boring it is experience for a first dozen planets in the run, then you'd maybe have a bit of fun once you got some money to buy stuff, you got some drops, you start making your build, and that would last for a dozen planets more. Then you'd have a slide show because the game runs worse than an 8k native pathtracer at that point, yea you kill the planet in "2 seconds" according to stats, you just have to wait for 20-30s for the game's render to get to that point because of how bad it is/was. Until your run ended because something oneshotted you through three layers of 85% damage reduction and six-digit shield. Patch 1.06 allegedly improved the performance, but I couldn't really confirm it because it also wrecked the economy and now pretty much every run ends in the miserable unfun not-enough-gear phase, and you don't get to snowball to an impressive arsenal anymore on a lucky run. There are three weapon classes (projectiles, guided missiles, and beams), and beams make no damn sense whatsoever (yes, please, give me level 40 godslayer extinction weapon with the range so poor I might as well be just ramming, and dps on par with starting weapons of the run). Trying to play mechanically and dodging enemy projectiles makes you spread the damage over the surface of the planets, which is ineffective because you can't suppress or destroy their weapons this way (or any way, they just keep shooting out of nothing), and the planet constantly regrows, making the path to the core take longer. Sitting in place and plinking is very challenging and engaging. Doing circles is marginally more fun but makes you an easy target for cheaty enemy beams. You can unlock different chassis, but they all work the same, just have different starting stats and a different hitbox and there are WAY too many of them for the state the game is in, the overwhelming number only serves to drive home how samey they are. Some try to gaslight you into having some special purpose like ramming/drilling, except those aren't really a mechanic, you can ram a planet (but not enemy ships!), but there's no way to interact with this mechanic with weapons/boosts, it only ever is good for killing yourself. It also has an EXTREME case of a common problem with roguelites where if you don't get a decent first buff/weapon, it's much better to just terminate the run and start anew because you'd be suffering from boredom for nothing.

Tbh the amount of ram needed is a lie. It should be way lower. also your beams? trash. worst weapons to get early without upgrades for firerate enemy beams? goated all game and their damage and firerate gets better.

I played the demo so much that I was worried it would ruin the game for me, but I was wrong. This game is fantastic. And DARK. I don't usually like games where I play the villain. There's just something immensely satisfying about one-shotting a whole planet. I am become Death Star, Destroyer of Worlds.

Digital crack