Info about Angel at Dusk: Official game description: Outline ------- Overwhelmingly bizarre beauty. Shoot, dodge, and destroy! A shmup where an apocalyptic world awakens to primal desires! The newest answer to shmups. A game which is "uncompromisingly skeletal". That is, a game in which every last ounce of excess has been cut away, and only its framework quintessence remains. Bones free themselves of flesh, laying waste to needless entrails! **Revealing a skeleton of extraordinarily strenght.** Story ----- Mankind has rid the world of all crime, pain, and desire. Finally, they extinguished the source of all sin, intellect, and transcended to angeldom. A great deal of time passes. The year is now 2300000000 AD. "Earth" is a paradise of angels. The sun has begun to expand, and a long twilight is now upon this heavenly realm. System ------ Dodge fire, grab items, and blast away at throngs of enemies...A faithful return to the origin of shmups. The closer you attack your enemies, the more HP recovering and bomb charging power-ups appear! Obliterate oncoming projectiles with your charged attack, and get up close and personal with enemies to hammer away at them from close range. **The best offense is a good offense!** Features -------- * Artwork that exhibits both extravagant beauty and grotesque surrealism. * Story that illustrates the apex of Earth's evolution with unparalleled grandeur. * Original mode with Hack-and-slash style game mechanic where there's no limit to how strong you can upgrade your ship. * Arcade mode with a variety of unlockable ships. * The path to mastery can be walked by anyone! Contains the most beginner friendly tutorial in Shmup history. * In-game achievements. Release date: 12 Jan, 2024 Categories: Bullet-hell, Real-time Combat, Character Progression, Weapon Customization, Roguelike, Single-player Story, Arcade, Endgame Content - Hardware Profile: No data Feature extractions: - Community Price: No data - Playtime Metrics: No data - Time-to-fun: No data - Player Archetypes: No data Below are summaries of things people say about the game per category. Each point is assigned a weight that represents how often it is mentioned across all reviews. What players like: - Accessible STG Gameplay (weight 1): The game is highly praised for making the challenging STG/bullet hell genre accessible and enjoyable for beginners and players with varying skill levels. It achieves this through forgiving mechanics, a reasonable difficulty curve, and a design that encourages engagement rather than frustration. - Unique & Striking Art Style (weight 0.36): Reviewers consistently highlight the game's distinctive and often bizarre art style, described as Giger-esque or erotic-grotesque. This unique visual identity is a major draw and contributes significantly to the game's captivating atmosphere. - Exceptional Tutorial System (weight 0.29): The game features an incredibly detailed, comprehensive, and beginner-friendly tutorial. It is praised for its encouraging tone, humor, and effectiveness in teaching both game-specific mechanics and broader STG genre fundamentals, making it stand out among other games. - Deep Replayability & Progression (weight 0.27): The game offers extensive replayability through its Chronicle mode with branching paths, roguelike elements, and a rewarding weapon/ship upgrade system. This addictive progression loop, combined with numerous unlockables, keeps players engaged for many hours. - Engaging Music & Combat Feel (weight 0.2): The game's soundtrack is highly praised for being mesmerizing, fitting the game's themes, and enhancing the combat experience. Coupled with satisfying sound effects and a first-class combat feel, the audio-visual presentation significantly contributes to player exhilaration. - Rewarding Aggressive Combat (weight 0.17): The game's core combat mechanics strongly encourage an aggressive playstyle, rewarding players for close-range attacks and preemptively eliminating enemies. Features like bullet clearing with charge shots and lack of collision damage make this offensive approach satisfying and effective. - Developer Passion & Immersion (weight 0.06): Players strongly feel the developer's passion and care infused into the game, leading to a deeply immersive and emotionally impactful experience. This personal touch, combined with the game's unique atmosphere, creates a strong connection with the player. Common complaints: - Poor Bullet Visibility (weight 0.12): Many reviewers found the game's visual design, including chaotic effects, overwhelming light pollution, and specific color palettes, made it difficult to distinguish enemy bullets and hitboxes. This visual clutter, combined with off-screen enemy fire, significantly impaired gameplay and caused eye strain. - Excessive Grind, Repetitive Gameplay (weight 0.11): Many reviewers found the game's progression, especially the leveling system and 'Chronicles' mode, to be overly grindy and repetitive. This led to tedium and a feeling of limited content, diminishing long-term appeal. - Missing QoL Features (weight 0.11): Players report a lack of essential quality-of-life features, such as a quick restart option after dying, and frustrating UI prompts. Additionally, issues like limited controls, a large player ship obstructing view, and missing in-game galleries detract from the user experience. - Unfair Difficulty Spikes (weight 0.09): The game features significant and often unfair difficulty spikes, particularly in later stages, higher difficulties, and specific boss encounters. This makes the game overwhelming for new players and frustrating for others, leading to a sense of discouragement. - Frequent Crashes, Lost Saves (weight 0.07): The game suffers from frequent crashes, poor stability, and critical issues like inexplicably lost save files. There are also reports of the game being unplayable on Steam Deck, severely impacting player progress and experience. - Convoluted Localization (weight 0.04): Players experienced initial language barriers, with the game defaulting to English and requiring convoluted steps (like reinstallation) to enable other languages like Chinese. The interface logic for localization is also described as messy. - Tedious Inventory Management (weight 0.03): The process of consuming 'junk weapons' one by one to gain stat points is described as needless busy-work and time-consuming, as there is no option for bulk selection. - Polarizing Gore Visuals (weight 0.02): The game's visual style, particularly its depiction of gore, internal organs, and fleshy elements, is highly polarizing and may not appeal to all players, with some finding it disturbing. Gameplay feedback: - Deep Chronicle Mode (weight 0.15): Chronicle mode serves as a substantial, extensive progression system with branching paths and a significant grind. It allows players to unlock story elements, customize weapons, and explore a rich world, greatly extending the game's replayability and content depth. - Extensive Tutorial & Difficulty (weight 0.14): The game features a very thorough tutorial that guides players through both basic STG mechanics and the game's unique systems. Despite the initial "VERY HARD" label, this difficulty is designed to be an accessible introduction, making the game less daunting than it appears. - Unlockable Ships & Customization (weight 0.1): The game offers a wide array of unlockable ships, each with unique characteristics and loadouts. Players can further customize their ships with different weapons and attribute bonuses, providing significant replay value and strategic choice across various game modes. - Varied Arcade Mode (weight 0.1): The game includes a distinct Arcade mode offering a more traditional bullet-hell experience with balanced difficulty settings. It features multiple campaigns, unique levels, and bosses, providing a classic STG challenge separate from the main progression. - Strategic Charge Shot (weight 0.09): A key combat mechanic is the charge shot, which is primarily used for bullet cancellation and creating safe zones. While it has a wind-up and low damage output, its ability to clear bullet patterns is crucial for navigating intense encounters and setting up close-range attacks. - Vertical Bullet Hell SHMUP (weight 0.07): The game is a vertical scrolling shoot 'em up (SHMUP) with classic bullet-hell gameplay elements. It adheres to the core principles of the genre, focusing on intense bullet patterns and strategic evasion. - Clear Bullet Pattern Design (weight 0.05): The game's bullet patterns are designed to be numerous yet clear, avoiding visual clutter that obscures the player's hitbox. This design philosophy allows players to strategically find safe zones and avoid meticulous dodging at the screen's bottom. - Leveling & Life Recovery (weight 0.05): Leveling up provides significant benefits, including increased life and temporary invincibility. Life recovery is also facilitated by collecting specific items like "green hearts" and a slow auto-regeneration, supporting the aggressive playstyle. - Flexible Progression & Restarts (weight 0.04): While the game features a "game over" state with no continues, it offers player-friendly restart options. Players can choose to restart from any cleared level or stage, reducing frustration and encouraging continued play. - Challenging Endgame Difficulties (weight 0.04): Beyond the initial difficulties, the game introduces truly challenging "Extinction" and "Final Extinction" modes. These higher difficulties are unlocked later and provide a significant test of skill for experienced players. - Experience-Based Progression (weight 0.04): The core progression system relies on experience points, which also double as score. Gaining EXP by defeating enemies, especially at close range, directly increases firepower and overall ship strength, replacing traditional power-up collection. - Weapon Level Drives Progression (weight 0.04): Weapon level is a critical factor in progression, directly influencing damage output and the ease of clearing stages. Advancing through the game allows players to acquire higher-level weapons, which are essential for tackling increasing difficulties. - Green Heart Recovery Mechanic (weight 0.03): The "green heart" or "green blood orb" mechanic is central to player survivability. Collecting these orbs restores life, fills the V.O.M. (bomb) bar, and can grant temporary invincibility, directly rewarding aggressive play. - Hitbox & Penalty Mechanics (weight 0.03): The game features specific mechanics related to the player's hitbox, which reportedly shrinks upon leveling up, though some reports conflict. Additionally, taking damage incurs a temporary score and experience penalty, adding a layer of strategic risk. Performance notes: - File verification ineffective (weight 0.01): Players attempted a common troubleshooting step, verifying game files, but it failed to resolve an underlying issue. This suggests that the problem is not due to corrupted files and requires a different solution or developer intervention. - Sporadic performance slowdowns (weight 0.01): Players experienced intermittent periods of performance degradation, characterized by sporadic slowdowns. This highlights a need for further optimization to ensure consistent and smooth gameplay across all scenarios. - Strong technical performance (weight 0.01): This point indicates a general positive sentiment regarding the game's overall technical execution. While positive, it lacks specific details about which technical aspects are strong, making it less actionable for developers. Recommendations: - Highly Recommended Game (weight 0.24): Reviewers overwhelmingly recommend the game, often calling it a masterpiece and worth its full price, citing its fun gameplay and overall quality. It's considered a strong entry in its genre and a worthwhile purchase. - Demo Available (weight 0.02): Players are advised that a demo is available to try before purchasing the game. This allows potential buyers to experience the atmosphere and gameplay firsthand. - Arcade Mode Recommended (weight 0.02): For a more balanced difficulty and a standard firepower experience, players are advised to play Arcade mode. This suggests it offers a different, potentially preferred, gameplay flow compared to other modes. - Purchase Timing Flexibility (weight 0.01): Reviewers suggest that interested players can either wait for a discount or purchase the game at full price, indicating that its value justifies either option. Other player notes: - Deep, Unique Lore (weight 0.15): Despite being a bullet-hell shooter, the game offers surprisingly rich and detailed lore, exploring complex themes of a future apocalyptic "perfect society" where humanity has eliminated intellect and desire. While some plot elements might be predictable, the overall world-building is a significant and appreciated aspect. - Unique Grotesque/Lewd Art (weight 0.14): The game's most striking feature is its highly unique, grotesque, and sometimes lewd art style, characterized by detailed gore, bizarre creature designs, and explicit imagery. This aesthetic is a primary draw for many players, who appreciate the option to disable censorship and often request art books. - Desired Feature Additions (weight 0.04): Players have expressed interest in additional features such as a multiplayer mode, a music room, and future DLC or art books. Specific requests include a triple laser cannon for tower climbing mode and merchandise like figures. - Niche STG Genre Appeal (weight 0.02): Reviewers acknowledge that the STG (Shoot 'em Up) genre can be challenging to attract new players in the current market. Some personally find these games difficult, but express hope for the genre's future. - Intense Heavy Metal Music (weight 0.02): The game features passionate and intense heavy metal background music, composed by Sakaba Haruo. This distinct musical style significantly enhances the game's atmosphere and is a notable positive aspect for reviewers. - Impressive Solo Development (weight 0.02): The game was developed by a single person, handling all aspects of its creation. This fact is frequently highlighted by reviewers as an impressive achievement, drawing comparisons to other notable solo developers. Emotions: - satisfaction (weight 0.35): Emotion: satisfaction - excitement (weight 0.17): Emotion: excitement - frustration (weight 0.02): Emotion: frustration - surprise (weight 0.03): Emotion: surprise - enjoyment (weight 0.03): Emotion: enjoyment - disappointment (weight 0.03): Emotion: disappointment - appreciation (weight 0.1): Emotion: appreciation - amusement (weight 0.02): Emotion: amusement - joy (weight 0.07): Emotion: joy - admiration (weight 0.02): Emotion: admiration - Satisfaction (weight 0.02): Emotion: Satisfaction}