Go ahead and try to get to 15000 and buy the shotgun without any of the patreon codes/cheat codes, I'll wait (
v0.4.254 normal mode). I'm straight up not even sure it's possible to do it without godly rng at this point, would love to see somebody try. I can usually get around 12000 or so without any cheats. I'd happily accept some error I'm making or strategy here that could make it much more viable, haven't seen anything like that yet in the thread but people telling you to use codes/cheat. Seems mostly like all you can do is pray for copious amounts of crits once you have the gameplay down.
"But it's optionallll", then don't make it seem like it's possible to do anything there without codes. Why is the level even available? These are the types of gimmicks that gacha games employ to trick people into buying. Make it seem like you can do everything for free, and then you come up just short time and time again. "Oh, if I just paid a bit, I could do this".
Yes, the cheats codes are in the thread, yes it's an optional level, yes you can use cheat engine, not the point of my messages. This is a critique of the game itself, not what I can/can't do. When your cheat codes are necessary to clear shit, maybe time to take a step back and reevaluate shit. Sacrificing game design/balance for your patreon tiers probably isn't the wisest thing to do. Could have easily put costumes instead or even special levels or some shit on patreon tiers. I'd care less if the level was just straight up locked without patreon contributions than allowing people to play a broken, unbalanced map.
Feels like I wasted all my time getting good at the game, feels bad. This is the first time I've seen somebody try to use a patreon gimmick like this. I think I'd actually rather the game just not be available to play for free at this point than having this p2w shit in it. Wouldn't be annoyed right now for sure, lol. Soured my impression of these devs real quick.
P.S: The game also froze on me repeatedly in the second map, which is why I started running the first map as much as I have in the first place.