Manual Intervention

Congrats on releasing the demo! Here's some feedback for you:

• The visuals look good for the stage it's at
• You've got a lot of work into menus and that kind of polish
• Music increasing in speed when it becomes more frantic was a nice touch!
• Comics were beautifully made
• The tutorial had a lot of reading before doing anything - I would try a more step-by-step approach. For example, you don't need to understand energy, the types of different units, or anything else right away - just learn how to blow stuff up and that's fun immediately! Then you can add other steps that teach the importance of those but try to focus on show (do) rather than tell.
• I was a little unclear on what was actually broken when I got to the main game. They said that it was manual mode but I still had the purple indicators telling me where to shoot so it seemed the same as normal.
• It felt quite repetitive as all I needed to do was press space and click on the purple crosshair.
• If there was a way to focus on any threat besides the closest one, I couldn't figure it out. As a result of this I found myself locking on with space bar, firing, and then wanting to wait for that missile to explode before firing at other threats because I preferred to have the guide (despite it being less satisfying - future bullet point). It would be convenient if space would cycle through all threats and/or if you could click them to focus them.
• Aiming is confusing because the reticle is on the ground but the missiles explode in the air. Some way to indicate that is important.
• I never felt like I needed to manage my energy.
• I didn't have a clear indicator of the health of cities. I thought several were damaged and possibly destroyed but at the end, as far as I can tell, I got 100%.
• I think it would add variety if the missile launchers weren't directly next to cities. It's more difficult to judge your shots when you're firing from the side rather than straight-on. The enemy ships moving while firing might also be an interesting thing to try.
• It would be cool to add some interaction with the enemy ships. (Which it sounds like you have planned.) If I had to balance deciding to fire on them and possibly destroy them vs destroy only the missiles as they're fired but protect my cities, that would add a lot to the gameplay.
• The most fun points were when I had to guess my shots visually without using the purple crosshair (because another threat was closer that I had already fired on). It was very satisfying when I managed to take out a group from far away without any assistance.
• It was fun and interesting and I'm excited to see what it develops into! You've got a lot of polish already and an interesting core. When you refine the mechanics you have and add some more variety it will be a great game!