thehen - In the tutorial for Delta-time and Framerate Independence, there is the following note under Advanced Considerations - seems related:

"At very low framerates, dt can become very large. For example, at 5 FPS, dt is 0.2. An object moving at 500 pixels per second is therefore moving 100 pixels per tick. This can cause it to "teleport" through walls or miss collisions with other objects.

Games are usually unplayable at such low framerates, but it is even worse if they become unstable like that. To help the game stay reliable even at very low framerates, Construct 2 does not let dt get larger than 0.1. In other words, below 10 FPS, dt stays at 0.1. This does also mean below 10 FPS the game starts going in to a slow-motion effect (described earlier as one of the issues of framerate dependent games), however this is usually a better result than the "teleporting objects" problem."

I'm guessing the slow-down is due to the minimum dt (to prevent the collisions from failing).

edit/ Argh, can't post links yet - here's the tutorial: scirra.com/tutorials/67/delta-time-and-framerate-independence

2nd edit/ Hmmm, after rereading your post, I see you're not going below 10fps, so maybe that's not the cause...

level1sb - Got to agree with what tchem said - very creative and unique. Having said that, after reading the instructions and playing the game multiple times, I still have no idea what I'm doing. I think I understand the concept, but too many elements feel out of my control, leading me to "spam shooting" (the very thing you warned about).

I think a big part of that is readability. Don't get me wrong - I really like the visuals. It kind of has an indie 'zine quality to it that I really enjoy. But the "messy" graphics (for lack of a better term) combined with the speed at which things move makes it really difficult to plan any shots. I get the idea that the player shoots from the eyes in the direction he's facing, but I find the spinning is often so out of control, I have no idea which direction that is. It becomes very difficult to even keep track of the character, let alone which way he's turned. Is there a way to control the angular velocity of the character that I'm missing? Maybe something like a way to apply an opposite force while spinning to slow him down - might be kind of an interesting mechanic...

Another suggestion I would make is the possibility of adding (very) sparse colour accents, generally just when something particularly good or bad happens. As an example, I'm pretty sure I hit one of the doodle blocks with the photons, which should have turned it into a photon, correct? Or at least make it behave as one? Either way, I really didn't notice any discernible effect. If it had changed colour while it was charged, it might become more obvious to players that it was a good thing. It might also leave some interesting patterns when it draws to the canvas.

These are just suggestions, though (and probably not even great ones) - it is a really unique concept, and I wouldn't expect someone to stray too far from their vision just to appeal to the masses. Just be prepared for people to not "get it" though - that's a big part of any experimental artwork (which is what I would consider this to be). :)

RandomFellow - very cool. Getting a Boy and his Blob vibe from it.