Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD29 → Invasion from Below
By stencyltuo
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Theme | 450 | 3.38 | ||
| Innovation | 679 | 2.89 | ||
| Fun | 798 | 2.75 | ||
| Overall | 953 | 2.76 | ||
| Mood | 1151 | 2.10 | ||
| Graphics | 1213 | 1.89 | ||
| Coolness | 1409 | 47 |
If the submission is missing anything, please let me know. This is my first time entering.
Also, as a heads up, the game was made with Stencyl (www.stencyl.com), so the source code is non-standard, but it's still in that zip.
Fun little game! Could have used some audio though.
Wow, I played this for a really long time, my hands hurt now. Great job taking a simple concept and making it addictive!
It's an interesting concept. I'd like to see it more fleshed out.
Mini-mines indeed, impressive feat of engineering! Was expecting a Missile Commander-esque game from the screenshot and you didn't disappoint! Faced a steep difficulty wall but after overcoming it the game got way too easy so I max(x)ed out the upgrades and just let it idle. Managed to survive for 5 rounds even without the mouses lasers and bombs :D.
A little audio would've added a lot, as others have already mentioned.
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Game idea is nice and the many types of enemys also. Balancing was okay.
Negative critique part ;-):
Sorry I did really not like the graphics style and mood. Next time try using a setting e.g. robots attacking a town and not colored squares and circles. Also the little dots really looked cheap.
The laser (?) and in general the visual feedback was very confusing (the dots appearing everywhere). Hard to explain what confused me.
Don't understand my feedback that I did not liked your game but I somehow have to explain why I did not like the visuals. :-)
@Figglewatts: Thanks. Trust me, my music capabilities are an absolute zero. It would probably have made the game worse, not better :P.
@kmakai: Thanks, I'm glad you liked it. Did you have the entire screen filled up with mines in the end?
@Raiyumi: Thanks, I'm not sure if I'll flesh it out in the end though; then again, I wasn't expecting such decent feedback, so it's a possibility (especially if I can figure out a way to balance it so that it's not such an "all-or-nothing" style (either die first round or last many).
@Moosefly: Thanks, I was going for a reversed missile command game from the start; initially it was going to be done with turrets, but then the mini-mines just seemed to work better with it. Balancing is definitely a struggle for me in my games.
@Bauhaus: Your comment about balancing is a bit surprising to me; I'm glad you thought it was okay though. Graphics are definitely a weakness for me; I can only do decent graphics if I have time, which the LD does not afford. I like your idea of robots (was originally going to do different magma-elemental-type creatures but decided to go for something easier to create in such a short time).
That was fun. It was clunky to get used to, but once I got the rules it was interesting and the abilities were fun.
Not bad. It takes some getting used to, I think, but once you do it's pretty fun. Audio definitely would have helped a lot, even if it were just some sound effects, but real life does have a tendency to get in the way at the best of times.
@Jonapulse: Yeah, it's got a steep learning curve. It's something I'm working on overall as a developer. I'm glad you liked the abilities.
@PixelFeet: If I had known that we'd get an extra hour to submit (finished an hour early thinking the 48 meant submitted within 48 hours), I might have tried throwing together something... still, I'm so horrible with sounds, it may have only made it worse :P.
I think you need to put in a final wave of some sort. To test the players defense grid after they are feeling comfortable. I played this for a solid 20 minutes!
Nice concept and twist on missile commander.
I think a basic and simple graphics style can work really well with this kind of game but I thought yours looked a little too basic. A little more time making it look better would have really helped. I did not really like the little dots you created to stop the tunnels but the bombs were quite satisfying.
Shame there was no music or sound, would have helped with the atmosphere.
Overall a good attempt but needs to be fleshed out.
Interesting idea, good take on the theme. I was playing it until my laptop got so hot. Don't know why people always expect better graphics and sound on a solo entry made in 2 days. However, you can't improve graphic for the 1-pixel mines. Maybe the game should begin with larger mines, 3-5 pixels in size.
@Artless: Originally the smileys were the final wave. However, the difficulty jump was too extreme, so I lowered their difficulty and raised it for the others. If I had more time, I definitely would have spent it on balancing.
@SecondDimension: I knew from the start that I was going to have to make sacrifices in order to get the game done in time, and I knew those sacrifices would be graphics and sound as those are my weakest points. The bomb was my very last addition, partially added to have at least one halfway-decent graphic, especially for the screenshots :P.
@anvoz: Thanks for the understanding on the sound/graphics. If I do a revamp, I will indeed make larger mines; I was going to do so partway through, but the way I was going to do it was not going to work with the image API I was using as it was going to draw on the tunneled areas too (making the healing ability pointless), and at that time, I didn't have time left to change it.
Nice little shake-up on the Missile Command formula! Kind of repetitive, but still does some interesting things with the power-ups and enemies. Good entry!
This was very difficult with a touchpad. I found myself waving my finger back and forth. That worked on the regular guys, but not so much on anything else :)
@Photon: Thanks; I do agree that things get repetitive quickly; I needed to find a way to balance the mini-mines... which I wasn't able to figure out in time for the compo.
@ceosol: Yeah, I was afraid of laptops for this game. There wasn't much I could do about it though since it needed the mouse to be able to move around freely.
Made it to wave 62. Pretty fun at first, although the gameplay did get a bit tedious by the end. Cool entry!