All the violence and drugs might be interfering with the algorithm?

Thank you! ^_^

It's the only project I've ever finished and not immediately being disappointed in.

Thank you! Glad you liked it ^_^

WHERE WE'RE GOING WE DON'T NEED EYES

I'm legitimately so bad at games I need to make my games easier to be able to beat them myself...

Scrolling with the mouse wheel is so ubiquituous I basically added that input in subconsciously, I never realized it could be an issue... derp.

(UX design isn't exactly my strongest suit)

Thank you! ^__^ (and happy holidays!)

I think it could be because I've mostly given up on making games for profit, when my priorities are "make a cool experience" and not "make a marketable product, preferably as fast as possible" there's a lot more room to let cool ideas grow that you don't really get in the industry...

(Also the other secret ingredient is "iteration", for every project I finish there's 5-10 I start up and then abandon when they don't turn out good enough... sometimes you don't know if an idea works unless you try it)

Thank you! ^_^

Meleeing through walls wasn't intentional, I guess I just kinda assumed all walls were too thick for your attacks to reach through but never actually checked? (I did fix a bug where longer guns could shoot through walls since the bullets are created at the end of the barrel and that would poke through the walls if you were right next to them, that one was way too powerful; but since you wanna go fast for the bigger combos and slowly picking off enemies is... slow, I never found the melee wallhacks to be that gamebreaking)

Wow, you just blazed through the entire thing in one sitting! The amount of struggle you had with Game Over and The Big Picture is what I expect a blind player to go through with EVERY stage, but you first-tried more than half the game! (This is the reason the score screen can't be skipped the first time you beat a stage, I figured players would appreciate a break - I guess I should change that to make them skippable from the get-go...)

GG at skipping the entire last phase of the final boss too, you had so much DPS the attack pattern didn't even have time to spawn in properly!

(Having to read mail to unlock stages is a similar intentional choice - it's used to drop the plot on you, gives hints about what's ahead so you can make a more informed equipment choice, and it's supposed to give you a break in the action... I guess I should add in an option for that too...)

And sorry for making an even more incomprehensible plot this time, a lot of stuff are references that makes no sense without knowing Touhou lore (when moving from the japanese-only PC-98 to Windows the entire universe was reset, this was later in turn made canon, and this is what the ending revolves around)

I also never realized how busted melee damage is, enemies can hear you do finishers but I guess I forgot to make them hear you oneshotting their friends right next to them... (I tested every stage with the default equipment to make sure they're beatable without upgrades, which also means I barely tested how upgrades affect the balancing)

And yes, it's the "The Shining" carpet. I stole the idea from Anger Foot.

One of the good things with code is that once you've made it, you can reuse it everywhere! I'd definitely be down with making this CRT filter my "style" (I mean, I've already used it in like 5 games at this point...), it goes a long way for making retro pixelart with big chunks of the same color more visually interesting.

Glad you liked it! ^__^ It was fantastic seeing your reaction to the shotgun and then gradually improving every level until you ended on an S-rank! You're also the first person I've seen figuring out the vents exist without tips, so good job!

(The reason you never had anything new to equip is because you never visited the shops in the headquarters, maybe I should add some more signposting those exist so it's harder to miss...)

Cool! Seeing someone play the game blind is always awesome for UX / tutorial testing~

Oh wow, I've never gotten sub-20 and I made the game...! (And I made the other two levels yesterday so I've spent like 20 days playtesting Rise And Shrine exclusively...)

I'll try to finish the game up soon, it was meant as a quick side distraction from my real project and then I ended up overscoping things way too much as usual.

Hopefully having this demo out means people find all the massive problems I overlooked so I can iron out the worst flaws before the full release...

Excuse me, Hotline Miami and Cruelty Squad but Touhou :P

Glad you like it, though! ^_^