Realy nice game! I mean the name by itself is great. Haven't finished it yet since I'm too unskilled to beat the Kraken…

Realy love the pixel Art. Especially the Kranken is peutiful. The small details like the water splashes when the canon ball drops into the water are well done too.

The reaction time of the pirat ships are a bit to quick for my personal taste. Maby a small (random) delay before they fire would be an improvement. But than again it made it more tactical since it is quite hard to avoid the canon balls.

Thanks Theras! I think I ended up making the gameplay a bit more challenging than I usually would: probably because my memory of old games is that they were always much more challenging than modern games :) … thanks for the tip: I will experiment with a delay in the pirate ship cannonballs.

Excellent game! The version I played was perfect in terms of balancing. Quite challenging, but beatable especially if you use diagonal shots against the pirates. It's never easy though, and it takes a few attempts & retries before we learn the layout of the map and figure out what we have to do. So yup great balancing, great level design, and the art + music play well together to give a great retro vibe.

I was super impressed with the final boss as well, which is quite clever and well animated. The only bad news is, after a while the kraken just stopped appearing, leaving me alone before I could kill it. I was left stuck in the boss room with nothing apparent to do!

Despite the issue I really enjoyed your entry. Btw my very first impression upon starting the game was mixed, because at first didn't check whether I could switch screens by moving to the borders, so I stood for a while waiting for something to happen. Then I tried reaching the top & left borders, which did nothing, so I had an eyebrow raised by the point I found the screen exit x) The game kept on getting better & better as I figured things out so no problem in the end.

God damn that was difficult, but the right kind of difficult.

I think this is a great game. Firstly the music was on point. Both the world music and boss music were fantastic, I really liked them and they fit the theme perfectly. Graphics are nice, great retro vibe and the kraken looked awesome. Gameplay was tough but progressively easier as you took more attempts. Reminds me of old Legend of Zelda on the GBC where when you fight a boss for the first time you know you're going to lose because you don't know the mechanics but every attempt gets easier as you work out whats going on. Thought the different phases of the boss were very good and I liked that it changed and got harder. Took me quite a few attempts to finally down him but was a great feeling when I finally slayed that octupus bastard. Level design was good. Took me a few attempts to get to the boss.

My favourite feature was that you didn't have to play the whole level over to get to the boss again if you died to it. Without that I don't think I would've played to the end.

Congratulations on your awesome game :)

Awesome game and great retro feel! The super sweet pixel art and the 8bit soundtrack (even multiple tracks) and sfx add a lot to the overall impression. The difficulty was exactly right, and I thoroughly enjoyed kiting the enemy ships. However, I had to give up on the last stage of the kraken. But having a kraken in your game itself is awesome!

I had some small issues with level switching as enemy towers would immediately shoot at me. Also I couldn't shoot in the top left direction, but that might be my keyboard?

All in all: Awesome job! I would love to see this ported to a retro console.

Thanks guys, and sorry about the bugs: needs some polish.

Great game, as @Wan had said there are some early impressions which could lose the player a bit, hiting the sides where you can't go, but its not visible is kind of annoying. It took me a while to realise I could shoot also, but thats probably just me. But once i got going I was really enjoying it, took me a while to figure out the right route etc. but all pretty retro so shouldn't complain. The boss was great and an unexpected surprise, very cute. Still didn't manage to beat him, but so close, so nicely balanced. Really liked the music too.

Your game really gives you a retro feeling, the pixel art, the music and sound effects all match. Also the challenging but absolutely doable difficulty reminds me of old games. :)

I was also a bit confused in the beginning as what I need to do next after killing the first ship but quickly found the exit to the next screen.

Great game!

Very cool game. I like the retro feel while still being very original. Like I say about a lot of these retro games, high difficulty doesn't need to high frustration, so I love that the ships have a guranteed heart drop. I feel like it is a little harsh at times, like when you first enter a screen the forts will sometimes fire right away before you have any idea where you are which can be a little frustrating. Overall though, I thought it was great. Well done!

Also good pun in the name :)

Thanks for all the comments so far!

Apologies for the confusion at the start of the game; I actually didn't think that one through too well, but on reflection it's a bit funny that the water in one direction is an obstacle and in the other leads to the next part of the world :).

I'm happy with how the difficulty turned out: my idea was that the first time you play through, you get "jumped" a bit by the towers etc. because they hit you by surprise, but hopefully the next time you play after dying, you learn when/where to be ready. I don't necessarily think this is a good quality for a game in general, but it's how I remember alot of old games when I played them as a kid.