It's about time we got a mediocre review. Ol' Game Tunnel's (http://www.gametunnel.com/html/reviews-59.html) was just on the borderline but finally we've got this beauty from Anifactor: (http://www.anifactor.com/article/?newsID=108)...It is fun, but I've better things to do with $20. Go pick up one of those gaming classics packs at Wal-Mart for $4 and waste your time there.

*snif*

Not even worth 20 bucks for an evening's entertainment to Sean Murray :(

How can we compete with retail games going for $4??? Or, is that like saying, why bother paying $45 for Unreal 2 when you can pick up Doom for $4?

Cas :)

Well, it's an anime site, and Alien Flux doesn't have a single half-naked Japanese schoolgirl in it anywhere. What did you expect?

Do you really call the player object in the game a "mecha"?

My, they certainly don't have very many game reviews.

How did they end up covering AF?

I honestly can't remember how they found out about us.

Cas :)

game tunnel's article was quite a good - maybe you should try to implement joystic control there?

btw - I love your puppy games logo, it is just superb, but somehow it strangely looks much like moonpod's ( http://www.moonpod.com ) logo... hmm... is it original?

Originally posted by princec

How can we compete with retail games going for $4??? Or, is that like saying, why bother paying $45 for Unreal 2 when you can pick up Doom for $4?

Cas :)

And how about the excellent Earth Worm Jim at 99 cents :s ( seen it at micro center chicago )

pat.

Well i've had some really bad and violent reviews / user comments on forum sometimes, and these games are selling well, you'll get used to that, just take heart medecine before reading for the moment :)

pat.

Alien Flux embodies all the addictive properties of old school shooters like Space Invaders and Galaga, with slightly more up to date graphics

This is what too much anime does to your brain, I guess :D

"Is it worth the $19.99? Well, you just have to ask yourself whether the 5 or 6 hours you'll spend playing it every day are worth it."

Twenty bucks for 5 to 6 hours every day sounds like a pretty sweet deal to me. The reviewer would likely pay double that for a 2 hour anime DVD and only watch it once. It's also ironic to see an anime fan complain about shallow story lines. In the end a 6 out of 10 review isn't that bad and I bet it's about as high as that reviewer would be willing to go for a shareware title.

Ultimately even a bad review is okay as long as the site links to you so people can download the game even out of curiousity. There's no link that I saw and that should be what's distressing, not the review itself.

It does seem awfully silly to say you'd get that much play out of it and then complain that it's not worth $20.... but don't you be knocking the anime. It's not all Pokemon and DBZ you know. :)

Cas, just do what we do and quote a section only.

Im sure:-

"very entertaining and highly addictive."

will do?

May as well take what you can out of it. Movies & novels have been doing it for years, with single word reviews like "STUNNING", when in context the sentence actually went "its STUNNING just how bad the acting is"

Cheating? ... maybe, but in your case the reviewer actually admited to the game being 'very entertaining and highly addictive'

Stuff linking to his site, and just post the comment!!

It's not all Pokemon and DBZ you know


It's the ones that aren't Pokemon or DBZ that make me cringe. :)

Not to sidetrack the thread too much - the only anime that really blew me away was Metropolis, but in the end it was still about a little girl with super-duper powers and lots of robots (Key the Metal Idol, Cat Girl Nukku Nukku, etc.). Gunsmith Cats was funny but not much different than Airbats, Dirty Pair, etc.

I like anime but I'll admit the depth and quality of stories can be shallow and repetitive. Every now and then there are some really amazing standouts, though.

This really isnt that bad of a review...

It simply wasnt his cup of tea.

I thought it was pretty fair considering, much more fair than Game Thoughts review on SomethingAwful.

No worries mate :)

Alex

I would have to agree, there wasn't any real derogatory comments in there at all and while 6/10 isn't the highest score in the world it's certainly far from the lowest - I know if I'd read the review before I'd heard of the game, I'd be inclined to download it from both his comments and the screenshots.

Well, here's the strange bit about both those reviews I mentioned... the words and conclusions and ratings are all oddly contradictory.

As a punter I have plenty to choose from and I tend to just subconciously apply a load of filters to cut out a lot of searching and crap. I made a quick shortlist off the top of my head on what I use to dismiss games, and it goes something like this:

1. Demo > 10Mb. I'm on 64k ISDN, and I just don't have the time or inclination to wait.
2. Exceeds my system spec. Usually this means DX9, which I don't have.
3. Timewaster games (like Solitaire, Minesweeper, Tetris, etc). I just don't like those games.
4. Gameplay poorly received. I value gameplay above all else. Psychologically I consider anything under 7/10 to be considered "mediocre" and so I ignore it. On that basis I wouldn't be interested in AF if I saw Game Tunnel's review of it even though it got 8/10 overall. Game Tunnel's review is especially confusing because with so little else in Alien Flux apart from the game play it's hard to see why it got an 8 and not a 6 overall.

It's not like I'm particularly upset by either of these reviews at all - we've got links to both of them on the new site which will be up in a very short while. But I still find it frustrating that they don't make sense. (In fact I seem to recall I had a moan about this ages ago before we even had a game out, and posted this review (http://www.puppygames.net/articles) as a finger-in-the-eye to the various "pro game review sites out there). Even the good reviews we've had kinda annoyed me with the juvenile x out of 10 rating scales.

You might think the punter "just wants to get an overall impression" and that a nice simple score out of ten is essential but as BongPig has pointed out, a simple soundbite will do the trick instead.

Of course, there's nowt any of us can do to get reviewers to change their simple ways to something a bit more mature. Or is there? I'm going to write some more reviews of games I've been playing lately and get them up on my site. They deserve the publicity, I think.

Cas :)

Hmmm... this review is kinda silly. I mean, he's complaining about an atrocious story?! Without maligning the anime genre, I could point out that some of history's most notable games have had similar stories:
While looking through the game's documentation, I found it had the most atrocious story! The game is about two Italian brothers who are plumbers and go around stomping on mushrooms and turtles. All supposedly to rescue a princess from, of all things, a giant turtle with horns! Ridiculous! How many of you aspire to be plumbers? Me 'neither.
I mean, get real.

Oh, and count me in the group that says 5-6 hours of gameplay PER DAY is wel worth $20!

Dan MacD. pm'd me a few minutes ago with a quick note on "gameplay" and it occurred to me that no-one really agrees on the concept.

Dan thinks that gameplay describes the mechanisms in the game to achieve whatever objectives there are. In my case it's shooting aliens, rescuing fluffies, getting powerups, and scoring points, the ultimate aim being to score as many points as you can before you're dead. For him, he said it's the interface (ie. using a mouse) which is getting in the way of enjoying himself.

This is worthy of more exploration!

Firstly: if gameplay really is merely the description of the mechanisms in the game and the objectives, it's pretty difficult to give it a rating out of 10 in any case. And how does one separate "gameplay", "fun", "concept", etc? If it really came down to it I think perhaps the only valid criteria for games is "fun" - and again, there is simply no such thing as a finite scale to rate "fun" with as it's a totally subjective viewpoint.

Secondly: I myself consider gameplay and the interface to the game to be so intrinsic to each other as to be inseparable. Consider the extreme interface: a direct neural link. You simply think about blowing an alien up, and your ship shoots it. Consider the another extreme interface: you have to type in a series of Logo commands to turn your ship and get it to fire at enemies. Now think about how the gameplay would be affected. The objectives and mechanisms in the game are still identical, but I somehow think that both those control mechanisms would render the game severely un-fun.


Cas :)

I think you have a valid point here Cas, and I think the point is this. The games interface is indeed an element in the gameplay, but in my opinion it doesn't define the gameplay.

For example, when I think of dweep and try to describe it's gameplay I come up with something like this.

The gameplay in dweep involves leading dweep from his starting location to his destination where he is re-united with his children. Along the way he must collect, place, and manipulate a set of objects to clear a safe path to his babies.

The interface in dweep is so simple to use it's virtually transparent. (I’m convinced this is one of the reasons dweep is so successful) You don’t even think of mentioning it when you think about the "gameplay" in dweep.

As I see it a games interface is what's referred to as a "hygiene factor" in the psychology of motivation.

Hygiene factors are things that if done poorly can be a determent to your experience. But the best they can be is transparent; they can never actually be a positive motivator.

The classic example is you office. If your boss puts you down the basement with a crappy desk and poor lighting, man you're going to hate it. But if you have a nice window office with good furniture then you'll be content. The thing is, after the first few days of excitement, the novelty of your office wears off and it is no longer a motivational factor in how positive you feel about your job. It doesn't cause you grief like the basement office, but it also doesn't make you excitd to come into work. It becomes transparent. Things like hours, assignments, co-workers, and the like become the primary sources of contentment/discontentment with your job.

I believe game interfaces are the same way, the best they can be is transparent, where they are so simple and obvious they don’t even bear mentioning. If they are awkward or un intuitive then they actually detract from the whole gameplay experience. In this sense the interface is a gameplay element in so much as it has the ability to detract from all the other gameplay elements.

I believe the interface in AF appeals to a certain group of people, specifically those who have past experiences with this type of shooter. For a lot of other people though, the controls are awkward and frustrating. I wouldn't be surprised if you see reviews split between the two camps, 10/10 vs. 6/10 especially when it comes to what people feel about the gameplay.

The interface in dweep is so natural it would really wouldn't gain anything from having an option for a keyboard or joystick interface. However in game were action plays a more prominent element such as AF, or even my own Katsu's Journey, I think it behooves us to allow our users to choose the interface they want to play the game with. An overhead game like KJ plays very naturally with the keyboard arrows, however KJ appeals to people who are older and have arthritis in their hands etc. They really can't play games with a keyboard interface. That's why we currently are testing 4 different mouse control schemes to find the most natural way to control Katsu with the mouse.

In your case, I believe you have a definite audience with people who have played this type of shooter before, but you also have an audience who aren’t as familiar with this type of interface and would love the game if they had an interface that was easier for them to use. I know I fall into that category.

You always win when you can meet the customer’s needs, even if it occasionally violates your own principles :)

Well, here's a competition for y'all then:

Design an alternative interface to Alien Flux that doesn't break the gameplay

All suggestions welcome! I'll see Dan's greenbacks! I'm determined to get my hands on his filthy cash.

Cas :)

Maybe a keyboard + mouse style interface. Move the cursor with the mouse as usual but use WASD for movement. W flies towards cursor, S away from it. A and D circle strafe around it. Don't know how it would affect gameplay though. Might make it too easy or it might be too confusing. I kinda doubt it'd pass the Dad test. More for the Quake veterans

Drop the mouse entirely and stick with an Asteroids scheme. Forward, rotate left, rotate right, fire.

I didn't have a problem with the mouse, but I think that Dan has a point in that it's different enough to be distracting.

My $.02 on controls goes against alot of what I've seen written in these forums in the past. For me a joystick approach would work fine. I have a dual stick joypad and it seems that using a left thumbstick to move and the right thumbstick to aim with a trigger to fire would save my hands a ton of work.

However, again, many have mentioned on these forums that it is important to make your game playable by those who have basic systems without joysticks, wheels etc. For me, I've always bought the joysticks to make the game better. I bought a flight yoke when I first tried Freespace. I bought a wheel when I bought Midtown Madness 2. I bought my current Thrustmaster joypad after playing Mutant Storm and deciding my 4 daisy-chained MS Sidewinder gamepads had seen their day pass. Anyway, my only reason for mentioning that is that I, for one, am willing to get things if it makes the gaming experience better. It is the games that drove me to buy those items. I didn't buy the items expecting a cool game to come along that would use them.

Is my idea for controls on AF realistic...I have no idea, it might not be. I don't program...outside of HTML and the occasional javascript/php/cgi peice. So I really don't know how reasonable my ideas are. I'm reminded of the Simpson's episode where Homer designed a car and it was an atrocity... :) I just know that the mouse is keeping me from fully enjoying the game.

Hope that helps some.

There are a couple of things you might want to try with the mouse:

1. fiddle with the mouse speed settings in the Options dialog
2. change the thrust control to use a keyboard key. Several people have said that works well for them. You might want to adjust the other keys to suit.
3. are you using an optical mouse? I discovered that an optical mouse gives really nice precision compared to a ball mouse, and the game has a nicer 'feel' to it

We are going to put the joystick control in, but it'll still control only a crosshair; thrust and shoot will still be part of the game.

I think one thing for sure that we'll do is add a slider to adjust momentum and inertia to how you like it. The gameplay is then unchanged; but the ship will handle how you like it.

Then you can review it again :)

Cas :)

Certainly would enjoy seeing the new ideas. Though currently my policy has been not to review a game again unless it re-released itself. Such as Marble Blast being re-released as Marble Blast Gold.

The main reason is that the independent community is such a cool group that they try to change things after we review games. While I appreciate the changes and the devotion to making the games great, the never-ending waiting list of games to be review (84 as of this afternoon) doesn't let me go back and check things out again, though certainly I would put it into consideration as we hit the end of year awards...

I do have an optical mouse, so I'm hopefully experiencing the game at its best. I may play with the settings more, but purely out of a for fun aspect.

Ok, I went and tried AF again. I still experienced the same frustrations as before. For me it seems like the ship is always out of control, all I could do was do short bursts to move me a straight line direction. Anything more and I was bound to crash into something. I wasn't even able to use full acceleration on the ship because there was just no way for me to whip on my shield fast enough when I was about to run into something.

I tried mapping the thrust to a key, and made the left click fire and the right click shield. It was a slight improvement but I constantly found myself panicking at the controls,

"Agg moving to fast, fire!..No.. Shield... Agg! too late... Firing, firing, moving.. too crowded.. must use shileld... woops forgot to fire... Dead... What? there's smartbombs too??"

I'm constantly wondering what dang key I’m supposed to press next.

If I was to change the gameplay, I would make the ship accelerate slower so it would be more controllable and I wouldn't be flying out of control at 20% acceleration. I would also make shields automatic, is there ever a time when you would rather die then use your shields? Probably not. Is it really fun to know that you could have saved yourself with your shields but you didn't? Not really, it’s more frustrating for me. Does it really add something to the gameplay to be able to turn my shield on and off? For some people maybe, but for me it's just one more thing to micro manage.

I'd rather it just turn itself on when I get too close to an enemy, or a bullet gets too close to me. When it runs out, I’ll just have to modify my play so that I’m playing a little more carefully. For me managing the shields on top of everything else just adds anxiety.

I realize that you weren’t really looking for gameplay feedback though, more control feedback. So this is what I came up with for control.

Taking a look at what the ship can currently do.

It can face in any direction
It can thrust in the direction its facing.
It can use its shields
It can use a smart bomb.
It can fire a specified distance in the direction it is facing.

So facing in any direction could easily be done with the left and right arrow keys or their equivalents at w,a,s,d. Thrusting could be accomplished with the up arrow. Simmilarly Ctrl and Alt could be bound to shield’s and smart bombs respectively. Now the only problem we have is firing. Not the firing itself, that part is easy, but firing a user specified distance in the direction it is facing. That’s tricky.

So I look at that ability, the ability to specify how far the shot will travel and I think about what that actually adds to the gameplay. I can’t come up with a really good reason why that’s a necessary feature for this game. In fact when I played it, I found I would often put a few shots right in front of my trapped fluffy before realizing that my targeting cursor had to be exactly on the fluffy or somewhere beyond it. Now I can see a reason for the targeting cursor, precise aiming is critical to the game. But I think the same thing could be accomplished with a “laser scope” effect coming out of the front of the ship, showing the exact path the bullet will follow when it comes off the nose of the ship.

This could still work with the mouse interface as well, except the “laser scope” line would exactly intersect the center of the mouse targeting cursor.

I think this would change the core gameplay very little, but it would make the game more accessible to other interfaces like keyboard and joystick.

Well..

I am one of your customers :D and I have to say that the interface/steering mechanism works well for me and might be one of my personal highlights of the game.

But...

It *is* hard to learn. I am an experienced gamer and it took me quite some time and frustration to bite through the 5 level demo.
By then, I was hooked.

But...

I love challenging games, sometimes just for the hell of it. People have started cheating and yelling "unfair!" at points where I still keep trying.

So AF, being as much fun as it is for me (I still havent seen level 11), might deck out too much frustration to novice or intermediate gamers.

::emp::

From what I can see, AF either retains its control method, or becomes a different game. AF deserves to exist. To change it ‘may’ appeal to more people, but the flip side is that the original ( and better ) AF would disappear. In my opinion, that’s not a good thing.

This ( and any other indie dev forums ) will always end up back at this issue. Art or Money. We talk of innovation being the strongest feature of the indie market. Well AF is damn innovative, but somewhat inaccessible to certain types of player.

Why is that a problem? Cas, when you released AF, did you actually expect ALL gamers to like it? If the answer is no, then don’t concern yourself with turning it into asteroids ( innovative – not! )
If the answer is yes, then you should change the game to suit.

Somehow, I think the answer is NO!!

Must all games be easy to play?
Must all games appeal to all gamers?
Is there no room for tricky, but highly satisfying titles?
Do all indie games HAVE to sell 100,000 copies??

Changing AF might make more people like it, but it will also stop the few hardcore types from loving it. You gotta ask yourself, whats more important to you?

We had this same conversation with Mutant Storm. Some thought it WAY too hard, and others fell in love with it. I simply couldn’t ruin a finely tuned game in order to please gamers it simply wasn’t written for.

Cas, who did you write AF for?
I would concentrate on getting AF ( as it is ) to those who would like it for what it is.
The rest of the gamers have plenty of other titles to choose from. Why turn AF in one of them?

Wow, that was a bad review. Not a particularly derogatory review, really, just a bad quality review. Anyone who is going on and on about stuff like the quality of the storyline and the lack of opening cinematics... well, do you really respect this person's opinion?

And anyone who compares Alien Flux to a flip book, or says that it's only a slight improvement, graphically, over asteroids... pah. Alien Flux is beautifully presented.

So I would ignore it - it's annoying, but only in that way that hits you when you realise that no matter what you do, some people just DO NOT GET IT.

I've slept on the problem and as usual the answer has appeared to me in dreams.

Apart from customizing the inertia and momentum of the ship, I realised I've already segregated AF into 3 different game modes, effectively giving the player 3 different games for the price of 1. Most importantly from my perspective it gives me 3 opportunities to sell the same piece of code.

Following on from that reasoning, I can very easily add another game mode without having any effect on the other modes. Not sure what to call it yet but it's going to be "custom" or something like that.

Custom mode pops up another quick dialog asking you:
- if you want your shields to automatically turn on when anything nasty is nearby you, and at what distance this occurs.
- if you want your smartbombs to automatically fire for you when a certain number of enemies is in range.
- if you want Jelly incursions or not
- if you want bullet-proof fluffies
- if you want to use Mutant Storm keyboard control style (WASD) to move the ship. Actually bugger it, these keys can be available at all times in all game modes.

Custom hiscores of course get their own section on the online hiscore table so fair will still be fair.

So, Bongy, I'm effectively doing a week's extra work on the game to sell what amounts to a completely new game to a bunch of new people. The original game is still there; this is just like releasing a completely new game without putting hardly any effort into it. Nice! And yes, it would be nice if it sold 100,000 copies instead of 24. I'm still a bit concerned about the conversion rate; we've had now well over 15,000 successful downloads excluding the mirrors which is a conversion rate of 0.16%. Wow! Bad :(

HOWEVER right now I've got a bizarre bug in the game that's screwing all the graphics up and preventing progress :(

Cas :)

Cant disagree with anything you say Cas. The custom modes sound cool.

Sorry if I sounded a bit sensationalist on the 100,000 sales tip, but my point was that you probably set out hoping to sell between 5-10% of that amount, am I right?

I think that’s well within the capacity of a game like AF. Its just finding them that’s the problem!

All your ideas sound cool by the way … except … WASD to control the ship?
Do you mean:-
W & S = thrust forward & backward / A & D rotate left & right
Or
W,S,A & D = up, down, left & right

???

I mean WASD to simply control the ship up/down/left/right + diagonals. How long do you think you'd last if you had to rotate and thrust? Not bloody long I fear!

In a way it's a bit sad because I think the AF controls are probably the first totally original control method in a 2D game since Robotron. I was planning to use it in a bunch of games. In fact I still will, but I'll bear in mind that some people never could figure out mice and make sure there's a keyboard option from now on!

Cas :)

Cas, yep, i figured that was the case. :)

I agree with your second statement. Its sad when a clearly inovative way to control a spacecraft has to be downgraded ( as I see it )

Sure, it makes the game easier, but that could also be read as less challenging.

Making an overhead car game stop using steer and accellerate, and simply use up, down, left & right would make it easier too .... but at what cost? Its no longer feels like a car!! ... in the same way the AF craft would stop feeling like a craft, with alot of scope for skill and mastery.

BUT, seeing as these are all going to be added modes, and not changes, I guess my moan is over.... for today ;)

In a way it's a bit sad because I think the AF controls are probably the first totally original control method in a 2D game since Robotron. I was planning to use it in a bunch of games. In fact I still will, but I'll bear in mind that some people never could figure out mice and make sure there's a keyboard option from now on!



You have to realize that "original" doesn't necessarily mean "better".

Or perhaps it's something that people will have to slowly grow into. I remember transitioning to a mouse when going from DukeNukem3D to Quake. It was frustrating for a while, but now I can't imagine playing a shooter with just the keyboard.

If using a mouse in AF gives you an advantage, or if it's more natural, then people will eventually move towards that. If it's just "different", then few people are going to use it.

Having the different modes seems like a good idea. If AF is fun with a more traditional control scheme, then the mouse ought to be icing on the cake.

Puppy Games...

I think you should just make it possible to use a key to thrust, and left mouse button to fire.

I "got" the controls, but it took me a while. I kept wanting to use left to fire, and right not at all.

I went and looked in options to see if I could use the space bar to thrust instead of the mouse button, but alas, no.

I don't think you need to do any more redesign than letting the player pick either a key or a mouse button to do the thrusting/firing. It's a very innovative control concept, but the two mouse buttons are, I admit, a little tough to get used to.

LOL! Steve Jobs has been saying that for years! Hehe.

What version of AF are you playing by the way? Because I don't remember releasing a version where you couldn't change the thrust button to any key you liked on the keyboard...

Cas :)

Cas, I think that using AD to rotate and W to thrust sounds perfectly acceptable... Micromachines has been doing it for years... the only added thing to learn would be the mouse control for fire.. Maybe you could encourage a two-player esque mode (ie one steers, the other fires)

Or perhaps alongside with using the mouse to aim, have a button which automatically fires in the direction which the craft is currently facing?

/*
What version of AF are you playing by the way? Because I don't remember releasing a version where you couldn't change the thrust button to any key you liked on the keyboard...
*/

I get the dunderhead award... I was looking in options, and never even noticed a "controls" button, because a "controls" button is so rare in games these days.

Anyway, okay, so... mission accomplished!

It's a great game, btw... very fun and professional looking. How are sales, if I may ask?

BTW, the only possible improvement I think you could make to your game would be to eliminate lives altogether-- with getting 'killed' just losing you some time. I'd enjoy the game a lot more, myself, if the only 'danger' was losing all the fluffies. Just my two cents.

:D
I did consider removing lives altogether and having it so that losing all your fluffies was the end of the game (after all, it needs an end!) but I soon found that keeping fluffies alive was no mean feat!

In about half an hour I'm going to upload an alpha of 1.4 with all the new controls in. I haven't even bothered to stick it in a new game type - I don't really see the point! Right now with acceleration set to max and deceleration to maximum and using the arrow keys it plays quite like Crimsonland. It's actually quite nice and I already prefer playing it myself with the sliders changed. The mouse is quite a different experience when the flying-a-banana-skin feel is removed - I think y'all are going to like it!

Stay tuned...

(Sales btw are a staggering 24 copies in two whole months and 15k downloads. I would expect to sell a few more, even for a new title, with that number of downloads and enough time, so I think it's time to address the conversion rate with some of these suggestions eh?)

Cas :)

You should be selling more than that. The game looks fantastic.

My one and only complaint is the lives thing. At worst, you can just defend one fluffie, if you're a really crappy player, and keep going on.

I always lose all my lives before I lose more than 4-5 fluffies. At that point I usually quit and do something else, instead of coming right back at it.

I haven't had any problems running Alien Flux, but I've heard several who have, so perhaps the only thing really keeping your sales from taking off is technical issues?

Do you have that auto-error reporting done yet?

I've got it implemented in the latest versions of my apps I'm working on, and I think it's really going to help me spot problems "in the field". ;)

The changes sound like they have potential Cas, I look forward to checking them out. Keep up the good work.

I wasn't able to play Alien Flux the first time around due to some errors, but now, after redownloading, it works well. Here's my test report.

1) The graphics are obviously excellent. By comparison, the laser rays look plain bad with their hard edges - some soft hot glowing edges would fit much better.
2) The high score shouldn't come empty. No matter how bad a game I play I still have a highscore - highscores should be a reward not a formality.
3) A minor glitch: after finishing level 3, the buy screen appears - and over it the highscore messagebox.
4) The "use your shields" hint during the fights is useless unless without also mentioning the key for shields.
5) The "use your shields" hint is useless if the player has been using his shields frequently - and therefore is aware of their use. The hint should dissapear after a while.
6) FWIW, I prefer using the right mouse button for thrust and the left one for firing - in the good tradition of FPSs. Unless there's a good reason for it (which there may - I didn't play many 2d shooters like AF) they should be reversed as the default option.

The main problem with the demo is that it is way too short. The three levels are extremely easy on the rookie level. Took me about five minutes - all I felt like saying was "Is that it??". I expected more after half an hour of download. Today I played the normal mode - and apart from being very similar to the rookie play it was pretty easy too - and that was before I realised I didn't need to save on those smart bombs. To make things worse, the buy screen doesn't even mention the exact number of levels in the full version. I felt the full game must be tiny.

My advice is to can the rookie mode and replace it with some more replayable, more open ended special skirmish mode (no fluffies - just fight): a time limited level with aliens coming in waves - as soon as you destroy half of a wave the next wave with better aliens arrives. Also add more levels to the normal mode - and give the player less smart bombs than in the full version - and make the game harder altogether. Give the player a chance to get good at the game.

Ha, I was finally able to play "Alien Flux" on my computer! I downloaded it a few times already (wasting you some bandwidth ;) ) hoping it will finally work and this time it did.
Really cool game( even my mother thinks the same!), but I have two remarks. First - you should definitely give the user the option to put the icon of the game on the desktop. And second - pressing the 'Buy now' button (I just wanted to check what your ordering pages look like :D ) exits the game and nothing happens. I know there's a 'txt' file with instructions, but I think it can be difficult for some people to find it. Anyway, good luck with your game!

I wouldn't worry about a review from a mostly anime site. They only look for storyline, complexity in character, or just like someone else said, half naked anime schoolgirls. If the game concentrates primarily on gameplay, then only a true gamer can appreciate it. Oh well. I thought it was a pretty good game myself.