Solaris - Arcade Edition

This is a promising start. I believe this is a good early phase for your career, though there are some areas that could benefit from refinement, such as adding prompts for keys to use to play the game. Additionally, the game doesn't currently scale, so on a 4K screen, it appears quite small—almost like playing within a window barely larger than a few postage stamps. Some of the sound effects are significantly louder than others, which can be a bit jarring, especially since the preceding sounds are quite quiet and suddenly there's a notable difference in both volume and quality. Regarding gameplay, there is potential for improvement. For example, currently, it’s possible to clear stages by simply staying in one place and repeatedly pressing the fire button to make a path through. Please keep developing this—I'm interested to see how it evolves.

With “arcade” in the title, you can expect a straightforward game with no bells and whistles, just simple mechanics and gameplay that fill a few minutes of your time. It’s all about getting as many points as possible for personal satisfaction, and there’s no higher purpose. You control a ship and fire bullets at everything that comes down from the top of the screen. There’s no auto fire, so you need to mash the single button for each shot. This can strain your finger, so you might not feel like playing for long. Gamepad support is not available, or at least I wasn’t able to get it to work. There are four stages, each featuring different enemies but the same behavior. There’s a weak enemy, a tough enemy, and one that fires bullets. However, the goal is not to defeat them all, but to earn enough points to reach the next stage. You have to start destroying enemies right away because the screen slowly but steadily fills with a horde you won’t be able to avoid. The only way to survive is to fire directly in front of you, cut a path through them, and dodge bullets. You repeat this until the last stage, where you eventually meet your end. And that’s all there is to the game, which you can finish in a few minutes. As a reward, you get an introduction to each enemy along with their health and point value. Everything is incredibly simple and feels more like a developer’s test run into game development.