It came to mind that having asymmetrical game play could solve the issue. I decided to split offensive and defensive duties between the players.

I made one character invincible and gave him only defensive and movement abilities. The other one is in charge of all the shooting, but has only one hit point, which means he must be constantly defended.

What worked:

The game got very nice reception in the early playtest. It combined the nostalgia effect of old school games with the new “carry/support” paradigma popularized by MOBAs. Each player could choose the role they liked the most and both seemed to appeal a decent number of people.

Controls are quite tight (part of the credit goes to the Construct 2 gameplay engine) and gameplay can get quite fast and exciting. In Survival Mode players found it hard to put the gamepad down; it only required a few precise mechanics and an interesting pacing. And an HI Score indicator.

What didn’t work:

Turns out it’s pretty hard to tune a character with a purely defensive role. It required giving them enough freedom to use and enjoy their abilities repeatedly while making sure those abilities don’t trivialize the game, ruining the experience to both players.

As it stands, the game has a pretty clear – though not trivial – optimal strategy which defeats its purpose. I am currently trying some methods to remove it, or at least make it harder to execute.