Very cool and nice game, feels really smooth, I really had fun playing it! The SFX were fun and accurate. I really liked how well the theme of the game was used, the fact that the ‘experience bar’ is a soup was very original. The final boss was really something I didn’t expect, haha, very nice design and I found it to be well balanced, not too easy nor too hard but still challenging.

I only found two problems:

1. On one run I managed to kill the boss, yet some of its projectiles were still flying and I believe it hit me right after the boss was kill so the ‘you lose’ screen showed instead.
2. I tested the game on Firefox on a low-end pc (8gb ram and 2 core) and the game goes black every few seconds. I believe it’s something related to Firefox as I’ve had problems with other games in the past. The Linux version on the same machine works really nice. I didn’t face this problem using Brave Browser.

Despite problem 1, I managed to kill the boss on the next run. I think I got lucky, as I could get all the treasures. Vitamin C was truly essential.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wddLUatdB0l9dx7NLlUNwAVNEXrUnv7i6e8sbNYL7Yc/...

I'm jumping the gun a little and testing some of the early entries! The link above is a Google Doc with my real-time thoughts.

This was a lot of fun! I was pretty compelled to keep playing after I died. While it doesn’t do anything crazy groundbreaking, the different choices are compelling and there’s a decent bit of weighing options.

In terms of assets, it’s all passable. The pixel art is a little scrappy bit in a charming way that feels at home in something casual like this. As the veggies get stronger their art becomes less appealing as the sprites get bigger and have more empty space on them, but the art style gives the vibe of a game that doesn’t need to be taken seriously and for that I can’t complain much.

Musically, it’s forgettable but serviceable, nothing in here stuck out as egregiously bad but a custom soundtrack that loops properly would be preferred. If it were left as is I don’t think anyone would complain, but it would be great if there were some more tailor made tracks.

In terms of balance, I feel like the Chef Hat might be a bit too strong. While choosing any one weapon upgrade does seem to power up that weapon alongside the additional shots, the Hat multiplying all of your shots at once almost always feels like it outweighs that. By the time I had around six knives floating around me, I turned into an untouchable killing machine that basically just got to sit there and wait for the enemies to kill themselves. Knives were especially strong too, but basically useless on the final boss except for grinding for HP.

The movement speed was annoying but I understand its value now, especially since it gives the running shoes a lot of use. If you moved at a comfortable pace from the start, the shoes wouldn’t be useful.

The boss is great, its design is very goofy in a way I adore, and it has a variety of attacks that keeps the fight really fresh (pun intended). My one complaint is that the attack where it shoots a vine and drags you into its mouth seems hard to react to, and once I get sucked in I have no idea how to escape. It basically feels like an instant death sentence, which is almost welcome since the game otherwise feels a little too easy, but a single attack’s ability to kill me in effectively one hit does feel frustrating. If there is a way to escape, I’d love some more information on how to do that.

In terms of UI and controls, it’s all functional but there were a couple points of irritation. It’s weird the game has any interaction with the mouse at all since core gameplay only uses the arrow keys or touch screen, although there isn’t much reason to disable that. On PC, my only real problem was the pause screen, it would be nice to unpause with E. Mobile had a couple more issues I went into greater detail with the touch controls. It also confused me a bit that the dedicated pause button pauses the game, is still visible while the game is paused, but doesn’t work when you press it while paused to unpause the game. I’d make that disappear or just work as an unpause button.

I’m also unsure about the pot at the bottom right of the screen. Veggies appear to enter the  pot, and its placement below the D pad conveys that it’s important in some way, but if it is conveying information I have no idea what, as it doesn’t appear to be a progress bar for soup at a glance. If it is, I would make that more readable.

Anyway, this was a fun little game! It’s not breaking any new boundaries but that’s okay, it’s a casual and addictive roguelike shooter and I think it plays that role very well.

Once ratings open, I'll return to give this a proper score!