Vortex Breakers- DevLog 21

This level is not really inspired by a specific retro game. I just though- "what if you were just surrounded and ambushed by a fuckton of enemies." I went through several variants of this where I tweaked the firing sequences in different patterns. In the first version, the enemy firing was fully randomize, but it was virtually impossible to destroy the them while successfully defending your crystal. It just became a foot race to destroy the enemies as fast as possible, while taking moderate damage no matter what. The second version had all enemies firing in unison, but that created a similar problem. Having a ring of bullets coming from all sides was just as impossible to defend against without a fully upgraded time slow ability, which doesn't happen until late game. That still felt unfair. I wanted there to be a "get gud" way to escape the trap without taking a ton of damage. The final version was almost an accidental inspiration. I was tweaking the spawning, and I realized that since the spawn sequence was actually 4 separate loops (one for each side of the screen), I could set the timers to trigger separately with each loop and that would have them fire each side in a pattern. This version felt the most fair. Now you have the opportunity to actually defend and attack in a way that rewards skill and not just speed.