I play Devil Daggers and note my thoughts across several sessions. I wasn't very hyped for the game based on what I've seen and read, will I change my mind after experiencing the game for myself?
First play - 9 minutes, highscore: 73 seconds.
It certainly does look pretty. I like the big tentacle obelisk things and the giant spider. Those die in satisfying ways too, while the skulls and hornskulls only sort of pop out, though I can imagine they would obscure things too much if they had spectacular explosions.
The weapon is fine. Lots of projectiles firing fast is cool, though they don’t make much noise or splash when they hit. The game seems very quiet, maybe I turned my sound down too much? Was fun so far, but I don’t really see anything super compelling in there. Everything so far is just swarms - the obelisks make lots of skulls, the giant spiders make smaller spiders.
It certainly does look pretty. I like the big tentacle obelisk things and the giant spider. Those die in satisfying ways too, while the skulls and hornskulls only sort of pop out, though I can imagine they would obscure things too much if they had spectacular explosions.
The weapon is fine. Lots of projectiles firing fast is cool, though they don’t make much noise or splash when they hit. The game seems very quiet, maybe I turned my sound down too much? Was fun so far, but I don’t really see anything super compelling in there. Everything so far is just swarms - the obelisks make lots of skulls, the giant spiders make smaller spiders.
These screenshots don't do the game justice - I was taking them in a rush while playing.
Second play - 16 minutes (to 25 mins), highscore: 101.7 seconds.
Checking the keyboard bindings allows me to discover how to reliably use the shotgun blast effect (I was trying to use left + right mouse buttons together, but you only have to tap the left mouse). I also discover that right mouse apparently does homing, but I have no idea what that means in-game or how to trigger it. Holding this homing button along with shooting didn’t seem to do anything.
I remain uncertain about what the red crystals do. I think they might give you extra attacking power? At one point in a game, my screen turned very saturated and some special sound effects were playing, but I died moments after, and then my clicking of the attack button skipped me out of the post-game summary before I could check anything. This is annoying - I can understand people wanting to get back into the game quickly, but there’s already a shortcut for that! No need to make it so easy to skip that post-game screen.
Checking the keyboard bindings allows me to discover how to reliably use the shotgun blast effect (I was trying to use left + right mouse buttons together, but you only have to tap the left mouse). I also discover that right mouse apparently does homing, but I have no idea what that means in-game or how to trigger it. Holding this homing button along with shooting didn’t seem to do anything.
I remain uncertain about what the red crystals do. I think they might give you extra attacking power? At one point in a game, my screen turned very saturated and some special sound effects were playing, but I died moments after, and then my clicking of the attack button skipped me out of the post-game summary before I could check anything. This is annoying - I can understand people wanting to get back into the game quickly, but there’s already a shortcut for that! No need to make it so easy to skip that post-game screen.
Looking at them now, they make the game look much more plain and empty than it feels.
As you can see, I played longer and survived longer on my best run. You begin to develop strategies and learn how to reliably survive the early game (mostly). Ambushing is everything early on, and will let you clear out skull swarms almost before they hit the ground. Obviously this stops working once there are too many tentacle obelisks, but for the very start of the game it works well.
When you’re in the flow it is an exciting experience, and you can feel quite skilled when there’s enemies everywhere and you’re dancing through, taking out obelisks while barely evading the skull swarms. Turning up the sound also helped a lot with making it feel more exciting - however, it does seem like some monster sounds play too loud, making it feel like there’s something right behind you when it’s actually across the other side of the arena.
When you’re in the flow it is an exciting experience, and you can feel quite skilled when there’s enemies everywhere and you’re dancing through, taking out obelisks while barely evading the skull swarms. Turning up the sound also helped a lot with making it feel more exciting - however, it does seem like some monster sounds play too loud, making it feel like there’s something right behind you when it’s actually across the other side of the arena.
This will happen a lot. Death, that is, not getting a new high score.
Third play - 12 minutes (to 37 mins), highscore: 151.5 seconds.
I reached a new milestone of sorts with the sighting of a big bone snake thing. I don’t think I managed to kill it, but it didn’t seem as dangerous as the swarms of stuff anyway. I find the experience of Devil Daggers a little too fast paced perhaps. There really are no moments of respite where you can pause to appreciate the chaos and destruction around you, and the pressure is always on. For me I think that’s draining the excitement a little bit, and the game starts to feel more like a grind than a battle.
The degree of randomness in the game also makes me curious. It sort of seems like it might be the same enemies appearing in random locations, but I swear sometimes things seem relatively quiet with less foes. Perhaps the spawn locations have that much impact. It does help if you’re strafing around and a tentacle obelisk appears in your path - not too close so that you’ll get caught in the initial shower of skulls, but the right distance to dodge or kill those skulls and immediately take down the obelisk itself.
I reached a new milestone of sorts with the sighting of a big bone snake thing. I don’t think I managed to kill it, but it didn’t seem as dangerous as the swarms of stuff anyway. I find the experience of Devil Daggers a little too fast paced perhaps. There really are no moments of respite where you can pause to appreciate the chaos and destruction around you, and the pressure is always on. For me I think that’s draining the excitement a little bit, and the game starts to feel more like a grind than a battle.
The degree of randomness in the game also makes me curious. It sort of seems like it might be the same enemies appearing in random locations, but I swear sometimes things seem relatively quiet with less foes. Perhaps the spawn locations have that much impact. It does help if you’re strafing around and a tentacle obelisk appears in your path - not too close so that you’ll get caught in the initial shower of skulls, but the right distance to dodge or kill those skulls and immediately take down the obelisk itself.
The obelisk on the right is dying.
If you leave obelisks alive too long you’re just done, as their second skull spawns will combine with the spawns from new obelisks and overwhelm you. I’m pretty certain there are no heroic comebacks in Devil Daggers, you simply don’t have the firepower to cope once the numbers get too stacked against you. This is fine as a mechanic, but again, it’s not very exciting. You can see I ‘achieved’ a big highscore increase this time, but frankly I don’t know if I have the patience or inclination to try and get higher. The bone snake didn’t change anything appreciably that I can see - though it did give me the only moment of real excitement this session, as I tried to snap a screenshot without dying (which I did!).
Bone snake! Not as exciting as it looks :(
Fourth play - 10 minutes (to 47 mins), highscore: still 151.5 seconds.
No score increase this time, didn’t even get close in fact. I’m not feeling on top of my game, but I’m also losing interest. I’m tired of getting killed by the same skull swarms because they happened to spread out too widely, or because I just missed killing one of the horn skulls, or because of bad spawn locations. If I was having fun at a basic level these things wouldn’t matter so much, but I’m not getting much joy from the shooting anymore. It’s like mopping up dirt for the most part, albeit annoying moving dirt that will kill you. Maybe I’ll go back, and I’ll update this more if I do, but it doesn’t seem likely in all honesty. I don’t feel like I’m getting better at the game, mostly just getting lucky here and there. And since nothing changes, there’s no motivation for me to keep playing.
No score increase this time, didn’t even get close in fact. I’m not feeling on top of my game, but I’m also losing interest. I’m tired of getting killed by the same skull swarms because they happened to spread out too widely, or because I just missed killing one of the horn skulls, or because of bad spawn locations. If I was having fun at a basic level these things wouldn’t matter so much, but I’m not getting much joy from the shooting anymore. It’s like mopping up dirt for the most part, albeit annoying moving dirt that will kill you. Maybe I’ll go back, and I’ll update this more if I do, but it doesn’t seem likely in all honesty. I don’t feel like I’m getting better at the game, mostly just getting lucky here and there. And since nothing changes, there’s no motivation for me to keep playing.
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