FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD28 → Blue Harpoon

Blue Harpoon

By frederickk

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CategoryRankScoreCount
Coolness285
Theme1133.63
Graphics1543.73
Fun3523.07
Audio3542.79
Mood4772.79
Overall4913.00
Humor5972.00
Innovation6482.67

Comments

stenol 2013-12-16 20:12

Cool litle game with great graphics.

cwkx 2013-12-17 08:50

I especially loved the spear: 1 shot, 1 death - awesome!! 5's for overall, innovation, fun, graphics, audio.

hyoga-3d 2013-12-17 10:23

Nice game, liked a lot the main char!

phi6 2013-12-17 11:13

Really good! I like that you have to get the harpoon back, as it makes the game a lot harder especially if you miss. Great use of the theme. Art is fantastic, but lacking animation, I think if you simplified the art and focus more on animation and feel, you'd get a better result. Still - I had lots of fun playing it, and nice variety of enemies. Good job!

2013-12-17 12:28

Very nice game ^^
I miss just one thing, one warning were enemy will spawn, I die a lot of time cause some monster just fell of on my head XD
And great graphics ^^

bitdemon 2013-12-17 17:11

Fun game and nice graphics.

midnightcreators 2013-12-17 17:53

Hey Fred, congrats for the solo game development!I liked the art and the creativity you had about the weapon. Some enemies killed me when they appeared, so i think a sonorous feedback is a good thing. Good job!

leparlon 2013-12-17 23:33

Great use of the theme, it was fun and difficult having to retrieve the harpoon after each attack (even harder when I missed), making me aim veeery carefully. The only problem I found is that sometimes enemies spawn right under me. But anyway, many 5 stars.

zemmi 2013-12-18 02:11

Cool game. Definitely had good stuff going for it, like being able to smash fireballs out of the air with the harpoon and having to run around the enemies retrieving it. Biggest issue I came across was sometimes the enemies would spawn on top of me, always a bummer when a good run ends that way.

stigmawall 2013-12-19 01:44

Damn you, flying head!
I like the game design, but maybe the time bewteen the monsters respawn is too long.
I also damn you to make some great graphics.

joao-kucera 2013-12-19 03:47

Great game and fun!

lipedal 2013-12-19 04:11

Excellent use of the theme! It's gratifying to use the spear, kinda deadly to retrieve it. Awesome graphics, too! Congratulations :D

30dogs 2013-12-19 06:34

We had the same idea :)
Very nice job, the controls were very smooth and I like that you can block the enemy projectiles with your harpoon. Good audio and eerie mood as well.

One problem arises however when one of the big guys spawns on top of your dropped harpoon, making it impossible to retrieve it.

01rafael 2013-12-22 00:38

Nice graphics

linuus 2013-12-22 22:50

Cool game! Love the graphics!

arcticleaf 2013-12-23 02:26

awesomeee i like it

van-noctar 2013-12-27 22:16

Great graphics!! :D

pkenney 2013-12-28 01:23

Interesting game - you have the same basic core concept as my game, but a very different take.

My best score was 46 seconds, but every time I died it was because a monster spawned in my face, so mostly I had to learn where not to stand, and still it was a matter of time. I see that this was updated post-compo, so that's a good idea!

simianlogic 2013-12-30 06:27

Great graphics! I would work a little more on the spear parenting--have your spear point face the direction your character is facing, have it lock more tightly instead of chasing after. All in all a fun little arena battle game.

christian-s 2013-12-30 08:59

I really liked the core mechanic. It fits the theme really well.

teamflare 2013-12-31 15:14

Great music and nice graphics!

mactinite 2013-12-31 17:01

Fun game! The art is really nice! the first time I played I got really confused, two of the fat guys shot their fireballs into each others and another fat guy spawned on me and I had though I met some weird requirements of a ritual to turn me into one of them XD

ehtd 2014-01-01 00:39

Nice game, interesting concept to retrieve your weapon. As a note, I tried playing on web using xbox controller on mac. I could use the stick to move, but I could not jump.

frederickk 2014-01-01 02:05

@ehtd
Could not jump? Strange, I made first with a XBox controller too.
You tried the A button?

anvoz 2014-01-01 13:01

Really fun game to play. Good take on the theme. Nice graphics. The movement was smooth and made me feel comfortable.

local-minimum 2014-01-01 16:21

Nice game. A little issue with enemies being able to spawn almost directly on top of the character, which is a bit unfair.

pebkac 2014-01-03 11:48

Nice one. Controls are smooth. Good thing adding the particle effect in the updated version.

gfm 2014-01-03 13:21

This player graphics!

I was going to complain about being killed by monsters spawning over me, but I see that you already fixed that. Not only that, but you made the game get harder over time...

Nice fixes! Now I have almost nothing to note on the compo version... XD
Well, here goes my two cents: try to keep a consistent art style through the sprites.... The Background and the monster that fires fireballs, for example, aren't matching the style that much... (though the platforms are nice!)

gabriel 2014-01-03 13:40

Hey, Fred! Congrats, your game is quite fun!

I really really like the concept of having to retrieve the spear, and also, for some reason (maybe the bullet speed), shooting it is very gratifying, and even more when you hit the monsters.

Agreeing to some darers' feedback, I think the spawn time between monsters is a little too long (see how frantic Super Crate Box gets, I think it might be a good reference in that regard), and also it really is essencial to somehow protect the player from having a monster spawning overlapping to him when he's getting the spear. Maybe you could make that the spawn point closest to the spear becomes inactive until the player gets the spear back, and then add more spawn points to avoid losing the surprise element of having a monster spawning just beside you (but not over you)?

Other than that, I'd definitely suggest a huge decrease in game resolution! Not that pixel art is necessarily the only way to go, but because of the lower resolution, the same level of production (time invested in making graphics) results in a more balanced sense of polish. Basically, if you have to rush to put anything graphical on the game (impact splashes, particles, new props, etc), even if you can't spend too much time on it, it will end up blending naturally better with the rest! It might also save you some time to code particles and sound feedback, which always help giving a greater sense of control.

Anyway, congratulations once again, your game is really stylish and fun to play! High rates! :D

pixlexia 2014-01-03 15:49

My comments on the compo version are pretty much covered by everyone else (enemy spawn indicator etc etc), but you really did a good job on the updated version! I really like the art style especially the player character. The gameplay is fun and it's great that it now gets harder as the game progresses.

Amazing game overall! Keep it up :)

jupiter_hadley 2014-01-04 15:04

At first, I didnt get it, but once I did I liked the game! I included it in part 20 of my Ludum Dare 28 compilation video series, if you'd like to take a look :) youtu.be/O9M3TIYW4UU

frederickk 2014-01-05 09:02

Answering some questions:
@GFM
Lack of time. :P
Didn't made in time make everything as detailed as the platforms so it happened, something to be in mind next ludum.

@Gabriel
Super Crate Box was one of my references! But you right, maybe it takes too long the enemies to be summon, even for the start. The idea of deactivate the spawn seems very interesting!
About the decrease in resolution, yeah, I thought in doing. I wanted to add more details but I think like this it would be better in general.

@Jupiter
Hey! Thanks for doing so, I feel honored! :)

yapshuter63 2014-01-05 15:20

Cool game, but the controls were hard to figure out...

ltpats 2014-01-06 04:49

Fun game, the graphics were nice and the music was engaging and really helped set the mood! Good use of the theme and I ended up playing it for a while, I'd love to see this fleshed out more, it's got a lot of potential!

jfroco 2014-01-07 00:40

I really liked this game. Simple but fun. Gfx are ones of the best I've seen in this LD. Congrats.