The hardest game you will ever play - PYROCLYSM!

This game is so freaking difficult. You have to be a hardcore gamer to even THINK about finishing this game.

So much time and love went into making Pyrocylsm and I truly feel that we made something that looks completely different than any other game made with Stencyl.

This game is tough and it's meant to be tough. You either hate it or you are addicted to it.

http://www.stencyl.com/game/play/21534

Shoot. This is one well put-together game. So let me share my thoughts.

The game definitely has a solid premise. It definitely takes skill to sharpshoot those meteors with your default cannon. The shop offers some nifty looking power-ups too. The graphical style, general mood, and overall gameplay definitely come together to make a cohesive, engaging foundation for this game.

My biggest beef at this point is that I didn't necessarily quit playing per se because it was so hard, but because the action is way too repetitive. I shot meteors, more meteors, even more meteors... yeah, that's about it. Gameplay gets stale, especially given its a more moderate than fast pace at which you play, so after two plays I wasn't much inclined to... ya' know, shoot more of the same meteors.

Past that, it's some of detail stuff. What in the world is with the intro theme suddenly dropping into that 8-bit/electronica funk-like theme? Sweet snot, it was a total character and mood breaker for me. It was just weird. Also, stuff in the shop can be very pricy, and (as I've learned from one of my past games) working towards expensive albeit shiny looking equipment is not always enough in itself to motivate a player to keep playing.

Anyway, I think you have a very solid premise here that with a few tweaks could be a lot better. Maybe you could add some different meteor types (like ones that fragment) or maybe even space junk, and then maybe have different correlating shop items the user should buy. You could say something like "We have detected incoming (insert thing here). You should purchase the (insert weapon power-up here) to properly handle them." That's one idea, anyway.

Ultimately, I think it needs a little more flow and direction. In my experience, trying to do a "little bit better" or shooting for higher scores/stages without any other goals (unless you are an exceptionally solid arcade-style game like Galaga, but even then that switches it up some) can be weak motivation to keep playing.

Hey, thanks for the great feedback!

There are 50 levels all together in this beast and you have to play at least 10 levels before the meteors start acting differently. Every 10 waves, the level changes and there are not only different kinds of meteors, but different physics and so the meteors themselves behave differently.

As you progress, you get different meteors that break into two and then further on, huge meteors that break into two and those in turn break into two again.

The weapons aren't just shiny things, they all act completely different. In total, there are 3 different weapon types, 3 different drone types and 3 different missile types, plus the wave bombs. So that is 10 weapons in total. Each weapon also has 3 different attributes that you can upgrade making your weapons more effective. They do cost quite a bit to purchase, but the upgrades themselves are a bit less.

Like I said, this game is hard and I would venture that you never even got to the point of purchasing another weapon because it was too difficult. This game is made to be hardcore, not for the faint at heart.

Many people give up but only a select few have the skill and patience to get very far.

Haha... when I said shiny, I didn't mean to imply the weapons were useless. I meant they look shiny in that they look cool and powerful. I kinda wanted to take a shot with that dark matter laser thingy, actually.

But like I said, I felt I quit more because I got bored than because it was too hard (On my second try, I made it to like wave 6 or 7). Trust me, I've been around games for a LOOOOONG time; it's take something special to challenge me. But if I have to wait ten levels before the gameplay changes and the game only moves at a moderate pace, that's a long time to make the player wait for a substantial change-up... especially if there isn't much indication that the gameplay IS going to change at all. I don't think this is so much a matter of difficulty as it is with the overall pacing of the game.

Essentially what I'm saying is this: if you want to keep people's attention, I wouldn't repeat practically the exact same thing for ten to fifteen minutes at a time.

It's just my opinion, but I think if you could tweak that aspect of it all the other superlative facets of your game could shine through a lot more.

You have been around games a LOOOOOOONG time? How old are you exactly?

Been playing since I was like five. I'm in my early twenties now, so 15+ years. I didn't mean to sound haughty, but I don't consider myself as easy to challenge anymore.

I suppose I should clarify: the game IS challenging, but I still think its too slowly paced.

Frightening.

The fact that you compared this to meat boy and BoI makes me angry :|

Only the difficulty. The game play is nothing like either of those games 

I find it boring more than hard. I really don't want to play Missile Defense without some new twist to it.