Hi.
Played a few games tunight, longer than planned ;). Game runs now without creating symlinks, well done :). Also, the humor of the game is cool. Gogo!
UX/Metastuff:
-Move the little ship icons from the bottom left corner to beneath the "1 up" and "2 up" sections. They might confuse the player, or replace them with a smaller icon.
-Lock the game over screen for a short time and discard the input that you get meanwhile. Didn't saw the game over screen a single time, even though I tried. (Or do you mean the one with the"The Evil FEZ have won" message? It only appears in the non default sprite mode)
-Maybe somewhere hint toward the alternative sprite mode (that you enter with arrow up in the menu)? I prefer the default one, but having it is cool.
Some ideas:
Gameplay:
-Reduce the hitbox size of the player a bit. There was a evolution in shoot em ups that shrunk the hitbox size below the sprite size. This let to a higher-skill ceiling for pros (that could surf around bullets) but also easened up entering the games for the newbs (that instantly felt playing better) See a few examples here
https://nitter.net/STGshmups/status/1323365277921325057 (scs4 the source, didn't find a better fastly). No need to go full bullethell, but it will improve the play; atm it is a bit of an upgrade-lottery on higher levels.
Visuals:
Give player 2 freckles!
