FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD26 → Squeeps

Squeeps

By ryusui

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CategoryRankScoreCount
Coolness1100
Humor873.09
Audio2592.94
Fun2612.93
Innovation2732.96
Overall2873.09
Mood3322.74
Theme3663.02
Graphics4772.42

Comments

epaik 2013-04-30 05:05

Cute game, love the sound effects.
I laughed out loud when my little guy barfed his stomach out.

eedok 2013-04-30 05:10

Fun, feels a little bit like flow. It sucks to have a downtime where you just have to wait between eating though.

chuigum 2013-04-30 05:12

Love the word Squeeps, nice game.

fueelin 2013-04-30 05:23

Really cute, cool game. Enemies were pretty creepy, especially contrasted with the cuteness.

maxszlagor 2013-04-30 05:46

Funny! I liked the look, the squeeping, and trying to run away with a full belly while excusing myself.

threeup 2013-04-30 06:08

Great theme and it was a fun beginning but after a short while I'm not sure there was much point to do much else even though my first guy got too old? or fat? idk.

cherrynukacola 2013-04-30 06:19

Very cute!

dick_claus 2013-04-30 07:53

Big thing eat me :( Nice rotation world around player!

netguy204 2013-04-30 11:12

This is good game design. The interplay between your mechanics shows it. You have a difficulty ramp (I'm growing slower and there are more beasts as I consume potatoes), a short term goal (lay an egg), and a longer term goal (live forever through my offspring?) And, via the death of the parent, you have something of a level progression since I get to be small and fast again in this more-hostile world.

Your outer loop (survive forever) could use some more interest sprinkled in as time goes on. For example, at each new generation or so, the squeeps evolve (and so do the beasts.) After I've laid my egg, there's no reason go continue with that generation since I can't lay another. You could let me lay more eggs to get a higher stat next generation or you could just force kill me after I've laid my egg. The "don't eat potatoes too fast" mechanic didn't really add any value or interest. I'd remove it.

Your graphics and sounds are appropriate and cohesive. Your controls feel good.

Good, simple, fun, solid entry. Well done.

dalbinblue 2013-04-30 12:04

Cute game. Didn't feel too challenging. Your comments seemed to imply that more predators would keep coming, but I didn't get overrun after playing for a while, so I don't know if there was a difficulty ramp up in the game as it progressed or it just went very slowly.

ryusui 2013-04-30 19:02

Thanks for the feedback, everyone.

1. All the SFX were made with my own voice modulated with Audacity. The egg cracking was made with me crunching cereal in my mouth.

2. Yes, your squeep can grow old and die. You can't DIRECTLY die by overeating, though overstuffing your squeep leaves you vulnerable by slowing you down and increasing your risk of throwing up.

3. You can actually lay at LEAST two eggs per squeep - it's just a matter of surviving long enough to do so.

4. The predator spawn rate is supposed to increase over time; conversely, the potato respawn rate is supposed to decrease. That said, eating potatoes doesn't permanently slow you down - though growing extremely old does.

mrexcessive 2013-05-01 04:03

Most amusing... I felt like a flea on a post apocalyptic snooker table... Potato!... Would like more to do while waiting for enemies. Good job with Stencyl. Like the cam.

jigxor 2013-05-01 05:02

Awesome game! I laughed out loud when I saw how fat my little guy got, and then eventually threw up! And I liked the camera movement as well, it made walking around quite interesting. Great job!

monxcleyrproductions 2013-05-01 05:10

I threw up while being eaten. First time I've ever said that sentence.
The playing eggs mechanic is interesting, along with the various ways to gain/lose speed.

ryusui 2013-05-01 05:15

The cam was a variant on a trick I picked up for implementing "Z-ordering" in Stencyl - the objects are hidden, loaded into a list, and then drawn manually using the draw "sprite" block. The rest was coordinate rotation, plus a little bit of trial and error. XD

tyro 2013-05-01 07:20

I don't want to make a squeeping generalization, but I'm betting anyone who plays this game will squeep with delight. Definitely a squeeper.

lotusgame 2013-05-01 08:05

Brilliant game design !! The conditions of life and death are excellent ! Eat, grow, survive, getting old or be wounded, and finally lay an egg to survive upon death with a new generation. I adore this idea. Bravo :)
My best survival time : 14:23 ^^

tehskull 2013-05-02 07:19

I almost feel like this would've been better for the Evolution LD.

ryusui 2013-05-02 08:00

Funnily enough? I WAS planning a Squeeps game for the Evolution LD. XD Not this exact one, mind - originally I had in mind a sidescrolling platformer with an evolution mechanic. That said, I might go back to that idea sometime, and I'm definitely planning on creating an expanded version of this game with an evolution mechanic (and a way to actually win!)

tanius 2013-05-02 08:56

Nice idea. It would be nice to have a timer that tells how much time you have till the next potato. Is the area where you can walk unlimited? I still haven't get to te right age to find the nest. Anyway i really like the concept, keep working on it.

tanius 2013-05-02 08:58

ps: i love 'squeep' sound *-*

ryusui 2013-05-02 10:22

Thanks. It was fun making those squeep noises. :3 (Trivia time: the "squeep drown" and "predator drown" noises are the same sample, just sped up/slowed down, respectively.)

The walking area is theoretically unlimited, but you'll only find potatoes, ponds, the pit, and predators (sheesh, how did I end up with such alliteration in my game?) within the borders marked by the little white rocks.

The sniff-radar will tell you where the nearest edible potato is. The respawn rate for each individual potato increases by a minute each time, so even if you dodge the predators, the game does have a hard time limit of sorts: the potatoes will eventually respawn so slowly your squeeps will inevitably starve. Though I have no idea how long that will actually take. ^_^;

bernhard 2013-05-02 17:29

Cute well made game. Fits the theme well especially with the simple controls and no on-screen UI. Good design overall!
I survived 16:16 on my first try :-)

stqn 2013-05-02 18:06

Cool; it was a little hard to know if I needed to eat / how was my health, but that's part of the fun. It was nice discovering I could drown the baddies.

stqn 2013-05-02 18:22

Oh, I had no idea that after dying the game continues from an egg that was laid earlier! I had to read the comments to learn that. I thought the game just restarted in a loop, and that there was no score whatsoever.

ryusui 2013-05-02 22:54

Here's a tip: if the little guy is going "Squeep! Squeep! Squeep! Squeep!" instead of "Squeep...squeep...squeep...squeep...", you should probably go eat a potato or two, because he's either starving or bleeding.

A bit more transparency on the mechanics: your squeep will actually continue to take damage while he's bleeding. Multiple bites don't reset the bleed timer - they EXTEND it. So if you get ganged up on by a bunch of predators and still escape, there's a good chance you might die anyway. However, eating potatoes does restore your health, and if you're not bleeding, you'll regenerate health over time.

When I first implemented bleeding, I was planning on making it so that the predators could actually follow your trail, but I couldn't quickly think of a way to make it work properly, so I ended up removing the feature. As it just so happens, I've since come up with a nifty implementation, so whatever post-comp edition I do will probably have more dangerous predators. :3

gatechgrad 2013-05-03 03:44

The growling was so creepy!

thatwhichis 2013-05-03 13:35

I loved the reproduction as respawn mechanic and all the sounds were very well done! Great little world, and it looks like you have big plans for these little squeeps. :-)

avidgamernino 2013-05-04 07:10

Its great how you can set hom many continues you get by how many eges you laid. I died randomly for some reason.

ryusui 2013-05-04 07:57

Squeeps eventually die of old age. They start to turn gray as they get old; eventually they'll slow down, and before long, they'll simply squeep their last. I'll probably make the aging mechanic more forgiving in the future, though.

ohsqueezy 2013-05-04 08:20

Great sim! Great sound effects! I laughed out loud when the baby started squeaking. The spawn points are so scary when you encounter them.

philz 2013-05-04 15:08

Short cute game. Not sure what the point of the game was, but I still enjoyed it.

philz 2013-05-04 15:09

Short cute game. Not sure what the point of the game was, but I still enjoyed it.

I'm not sure if I posted before, so I'm reposting this.

zim-the-fox 2013-05-04 20:18

First of all, thank you for commenting on my game!

Your game and the squeeps are adorable <3 The game isn't very challenging however, but it is fun and cute.

*Squeeps*

Also, the game you were planning for the evolution theme reminded me a lot of a game a friend made for a previous LD, maybe you want to check it out: http://www.kongregate.com/games/tilman/a-d-a-p-t-i-o-n?acomplete=adaption

lasergans 2013-05-06 20:10

Cute :) The rotation makes my head explode :D

crazygage 2013-05-06 20:12

Nice, cute game. I enjoyed the game play of it, and the take on the life of your children aspect. Good work!

cakencode 2013-05-08 07:11

I remember playtesting this! :D

Loving the eating mechanics, or overeating mechanics anyways. It's pretty clever to include that kind of realism for balance! Well done

_alts 2013-05-08 08:23

I'm a sucker for ecosystem games. I never did manage to lay an egg, though. Not sure what the conditions for it are. I got fat. I got old. And I got eaten. But never an egg. Nice game. I'm not sure how well it fits the theme, though.

ryusui 2013-05-08 08:53

Heh. I'll admit I was hoping my "minimalistic Atari-style graphics" would fit the bill, but that's probably too much to hope for. XD

Once your Squeep gets old enough (i.e. near maximum size), AND if you're not close to starving, the nests dotted around the map will pick up a pink heart icon. When that happens, you can lay an egg simply by touching an unoccupied nest. If you're good at surviving, you should be able to lay at least two eggs per "life."

phocker 2013-05-09 04:48

good fun -- love the whole eating and laying eggs bit -- great job!

paulsb 2013-05-11 15:42

Nice little game! Nice interplay between the mechanics creating the cycle of life from birth to death. Very basic presentation but hey, there's your minimalism I suppose :)

misaelk 2013-05-14 03:03

What a cute little squeep! The sounds are the best. :)

spiridion 2013-05-15 22:53

Great audio, neat mechanic to have the world rotate around you. It did get kinda monotonous after a while, so some additional goals would be nice.... Post compo. For an LD game, remarkably complete and entertaining.