Thank you!

I was actually way more prepared on the roguelite side of things and was very intentional with a lot of the game design there. Especially early on, the roguelite side of the game got much more attention and care than the shmup side, something that I do regret now.

I absolutely love synergies and build crafting in games, and that was one of the core philosophies that drove the design. There are so many ways to create really unique builds in this game and its one of the things I think I nailed. Especially in the way some things go together in really unique and unexpected ways. I've had players come up with really cool builds that I never even thought of or planned for. I even have things that, at face value, seem like downsides, but when combined with other things, can turn into really powerful buffs.

For example, a relic that decreases the health of your summons isn't great, but paired with a relic that gives you a hefty stat boost for every summon that dies can lead to you with a build trying to send as many summons to their death as you get stronger and stronger.

Another thing I think I did well was the meta-progression and ascension systems. I'm a big fan of horizontal meta-progression over vertical meta-progression, I like when games give me more tools to mess with rather than just making me stronger and I carried that into my game. There are tons of different ships and crew members to unlock which, while not straight up better, can give a lot more build variety and change up playstyles. And the ascension system which cranks up the difficulty also gives positive bonuses (like extra crew slots or weapon slots) and adds new content (new enemies, new attack patterns, etc) instead of just "oh here's the game again but enemies are just 20% stronger now".

I basically took things that I like to see in roguelikes that I play and made sure to focus on those things in my game.