So I've been sitting here pondering for several days now. Scratching my head, and wondering if I have any clue what I'm doing.

My design pillar from the start has been 'Double Dragon with Laser Guns!' and any time I've strayed from it I've put myself back on track by saying out loud. Early prototype tests showed that people had no problem with my control scheme and I myself enjoy the way it feels and plays - like an old-school style beat 'em up... except, you know... with laser guns.

Fast forward several months and now I'm starting to hear about frustrations with the control scheme, specifically with the lack of ability to shoot north and south. What's more, when I watch others play it now they seem to completely forget that a jump button exists. I've even watch a few people that never make it past the first road block that was intentionally put there to let them know they needed to jump.

Perhaps this is just a sign of poor level design and pacing. That can be fixed with timing, practice, and testing. But I'm really starting to think the entire concept may be fundamentally flawed. It appears that Mr. Spock's observation may be correct. I may be relying on a dimension of space that players simply don't consider. I've re-enabled some code to allow the player to fire omni-directionally more like common twin-stick shooters. The whole thing feels completely wrong to me but maybe I'm just weird (actually I know I am but that's not my point).

Anyway, I've put the twin-stick version up as another prototype. if anyone would care to give it a shot and compare it to the original I'd be interested in knowing your thoughts and feelings. (keep in mind, this version only properly supports gamepads at the moment and is still very rough).