ASTRONAUTILUS

one of the best games I've played. The movement is tight, the gameplay is simple yet intriguing, and the music and graphics are incredibly well made

if you wanna have a good time, play it. There's even a demo on the itch.io page if you feel unsure about purchasing it (https://neozoid-games.itch.io/astronautilus)

It's criminal that this game has 20 reviews. There's no reason to not buy it if you like this type of game. It has everything, Visuals, Audio/Music, Style, are all on point. It's all extremely impressive.

The score chain is very rewarding although chasing around the orbiting currency in this game gets annoying. The game has mechanical and quality of life flaws that can mess with the experience a bit, but the Action Roguelike genre sets a pretty crazy quality standard that is picky and hard to meet.

The main problem is that it sacrifices a lot of readability for visual fidelity. I get hit a lot by shit I can't see as the colour of bullets and enemies constantly change. I've played a lot of these sorts of games, but even with the slower paced gameplay, Astronautilus can get pretty overwhelming.

Anyway, more people need to play the game!

ASTRONAUTILUS is a phenomenal bullet hell game with a fun chain mechanic. kind of like super mario. when i start playing this video game, my ADHD jumps for joy, does a little dance and claps its hands really fast like one of those monkeys with the cymbals.

the inspiration taken from games like Monolith is palpable, which is an absolute joy for me because I utterly LOVE Monolith.

the music is fantastic, the art is stunning, the bullet patterns are like watching sorting algorithms, the bosses are fun as hell if a bit overstimulating, pearl chains are as satisfying as i could have hoped, and pimbus my beloved and I haven't even beaten this thing yet.

i will take like one point off, because the RELAYS are very annoying to traverse- without the blink upgrade, i feel like i'm constantly averting my aim from the enemies to a node of electricity.

overall, i rate this game a solid fish

Astronautilus is very quickly becoming one of my favorite roguelikes. This game fits very nicely amongst others like Monolith and Downwell. I absolutely recommend.

The visual style & music is very charming, and having it somewhat affiliated to my infatuation of the ocean (especially the deep) makes this a very comforting game for me. The gameplay compared to typical shmups is moderately challenging, making it a perfect entry-level title for those that are interested in the genre. I also enjoyed the obstacles secluded to their own areas, helping represent what that area is all about atmospherically, such as the circuitry in relay.

All in all a fulfillingly packaged game, I'd recommend

beautiful visuals and banger music, along with really smooth and satisfying rouge-like gameplay makes for a great experience all around, I highly recommend it.

unplayable
and i cant even play it because the game is not responding to mouse and keyboard
cannot move or even do anything

a great, tightly designed roguelike shmup. fantastic art and ost, as well as a remix album thrown in for good measure (which can be bought same as the normal ost, go buy them). the gameplay is tough but fair due to being a dense bullet hell, in both its stages and bosses. buy this game and play it

easier than others in the same genre (EDF on the snes, Monolith), but really punishing. juicy!
The first level is a little slow, but the later levels and especially the bosses are so dynamic that it makes up for it.

It's pretty good. love the pearl chain system

One of the cooler rougelikes I've played! Has an awesome combo system and feels awesome to control! Also the art is incredible!

imagine if monolith was a side-scroller, and bad.
this game blatantly took numerous design philosophies that were integral to what made monolith work, and either utilized them without understanding why it was that way, or excluded it in lieu of something worse.
things were color coded in monolith, your bullets, enemy bullets, the scraps, so no matter what there was this consistency that made it easy not to be confused.
i can't play this game without being confused, bullets colors constantly change, different effects appear all the time of random non relevant colors, and the pearl system.
so for a game where you are supposed to dodge these wacky colored bullets, you're actually supposed to run into these small colored pixels as soon as possible or it'll despawn or leave the screen.
i do not know which color i am supposed to run into and dodge, sometimes the pearls utilize the same color as a enemy bullet and instinctively i completely miss it.
too overstimulating man, and i like dogshit overstimulating games, but usually thats on purpose, i think everything here was an accident because the developers do not understand creating design principles and sticking with it, the art is nice, but to fully enjoy the game you have to enable the "screen dim" feature, which dims out the background, so its easier to tell the difference between okay is this a bullet or sea kelp. so they knew it was an issue but made an optional fix.
so where is the colorblind options, the force color consistency, i am not colorblind but this game overuses colors to the point where i just wish everything was black and white.
no controller support, damn, no happiness, damn, if this game fixed the color issues, it would be aight, i'd still never touch bc monolith is clearly what this game is trying to be the scuffed version of, despite costing a whole 2 dollars more.

verdict: if monolith lacked an understanding of gamemaking philosophies that made it such a well-crafted game, and hated neurodivergent people it would be this game.

LESS THAN MID/10

This game takes a lot of inspiration from the masterpiece called Monolith. While it is much simpler in quite a few ways it is still fun and interesting.

The most different part when compared to Monolith is the way the stages work. Each different stage has a few common enemies that always show up and a few rare enemies that only show up sometimes. The various enemies and environmental hazards in each stage interact to create interesting challenges that sometimes take a lot of quick thinking to get through unharmed. Since the rare enemies only show up sometimes, they can create new situations that you are not used to. This creates some variety which helps to reduce the repetition of each stage.

The bosses are all very well made and have fun, challenging patterns. The little bits of story are nice and the visuals are lovely. If you enjoyed Monolith and want a little bit more of that sort of gameplay, this will serve nicely to satiate your hunger.

Astronautilus is a sidescrolling bullet hell roguelite that takes inspiration from games like Monolith and especially Downwell. Each stage is split into three sections that get harder as you progress, and allow you to find upgrades, weapons, shops, etc in between. One of the more unique aspects of Astronautilus is it's combo system. When defeating enemies, some of them drop pearls that move around in a whirlpool-ish pattern. Collecting them starts a combo that ends if you haven't collected any pearls before a timer runs out. Many enemies also spawn retaliation bullets on death which leads to a smooth gameplay loop where you are weaving through bullets while keeping your pearl chain to earn extra rewards (as well as money to spend in the shops). This system adds a nice flow to the gameplay, and is something that experienced players will be able to take greater advantage of.

Another strong aspect of Astronautilus is it's stage variety. Every stage has unique enemies and gimmicks that really set them apart from each other. Stage 3 for example has an unique mechanic in the form of an electrical wire going down the middle connected by various nodes that must be shot at in order to disable it and pass through. In addition to each stage feeling different, they even have different enemy pools that are chosen at random which adds even more variety. The bosses are also quite good in this game, with special mention to the final boss which is especially well done.

Overall, Astronautilus is a great game with well designed enemy patterns, a nice art style, catchy music, and a smooth difficulty curve. It's a challenging game but also very manageable with runs that last under 30 mins and a helpful practice mode. I'd recommend it to anyone who enjoys roguelites and/or bullet hells.

It's easy for a randomly generated autoscroller to feel shallow, but this game takes several different measures to stay fresh and engaging. It takes many notes from Monolith and Downwell, so this is a game with very little "cheap" difficulty, which gets its variety from the challenges the player will face, and the tools you'll have for them. It is NOT a game where you either get lucky and kill everything before it can move, or get trolled by things that were unavoidable or impossible to predict. Most things are telegraphed very well, and you'll mainly be tested on your ability to keep track of multiple things at once. The game also has some light strategic elements you can use to get an edge, mainly related to how you decide to use bombs. Get this game if you like gitting gud at games.

I, for one, enjoyed Monolith: Under The Sea edition.

check it out when you get the chance.

Phenomenal game in nearly every way. I don't know how i feel about the ending though: it's clearly reminiscent of quite a few things but it was kind of a letdown and i don't know what effect it was trying to achieve. I feel like the ending needs an extra part tacked onto it to be satisfying: sort of like how Enter the Gungeon has a past for each character that you can fight through or how Undertale has a bunch of wacky stuff going on after the extremely meta Flowey fight from the true pacifist content to the true ending to the genocide stuff.

But literally everything else was perfect. Good game, just know that one part of it is going to be a little disappointing.

Simple and tight. Nice soundtrack and artstyle.

Good level design, and a super skill expressive combo/chain system.

The side-scrolling mechanic really makes the game stand out from others.