Barback

Haven't gotten a lot of time in game yet, but I love the feel. Played on Steam Deck without much issue. Soundtrack is great. The game play is really easy to pickup and start slingin bottles!

Amusing little game, does as advertised. If I had to describe it, I'd say think of somewhere in between Fester's Quest and a more purely 80s arcade game where you complete a level, then the next one has the colors changed and some new enemies. As it was meant to be a little nostalgia project, I don't imagine it'll see any changes outside that scope, but there's a good core here. The bar layouts change in each level(lol @ DIE barrels), but it could be expanded on. More secret rooms(I did find that 1up room), maybe even secret levels or branch levels(i.e. go in the toilet, end up in a sewer section as an alternate route out the back door, or even something like "Tuesday: 2am" that introduces the puke puddle enemies sooner that can be accessed as a dangerous bonus round between days. Most things aside from the key seemed to just be for score; while serious scoring wasn't the intent, it'd probably be better to make those floor pickups one time things(and lend more reason to have secret areas that might have better stuff). The HUD should probably display whether or not you have the key(cheat and make it a changed background tile so you don't eat an extra sprite for it). It's also sort of confusing(in an extremely vague way) that you need the key to get through the door, then find another locked door at the end(general NES era logic would make you think you needed a second). Further uses for some items, for unlocking paths, could be looked into. The weapon is basic and follows the old theme of limited shots on the screen, but it is pretty funny beating rats to death with empty beer bottles. Powerups, maybe, limited by shots or time? You could even use those floor pickups as currency to buy them. Temporary speed-up, ice cold bottles that slow an enemy hit for a couple seconds if it doesn't die outright, and shots that can go through walls come to mind as obvious choices. One particular bug I noticed, something to do with loading background tiles. Sometimes you get an incorrect tile drawn, which doesn't impact anything but does make it look like there might be something special there(though it would be funny if it drew over a cracked tile and you went to go see if there was something neat). I didn't notice what separated the fire bats from the normal ones, but I did halfway expect them to split up into those mini fireballs when they died. I'm glad they didn't, when I panic-bottled the first one I saw that immediately flew close to me. XD And last but certainly not least: That was Buttercat, wasn't it?