FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD38 → Polar Protector

Polar Protector

By alexhoratio

View on ldjam.com

CategoryRankScoreCount
Overall1263.6948
Fun773.7348
Innovation1653.4348
Theme913.8948
Graphics2353.3948
Audio1333.3747
Humor2032.8140
Mood1973.2943

Comments

shodanon 2017-04-26 14:59

The game is fast, fun and understandable, the graphics are nice and the controls are responsive. I don't really understend the mechanic behind losing health, otherwise a quick, cool experience.

avavt 2017-04-26 15:14

No highscore? No monument honoring how I sacrificed half an hour of my life shooting fried egg protecting a giant pole?

I really love the concept & design of the game. And the music went well with it. Thoroughly enjoyable. Well done! :thumbsup:

alexhoratio 2017-04-26 15:30

@Shodanon

Thank you! Yeah, I agree that I should have made the health bit a bit more clear. Basically, if the aliens/eggs/avocados/rocks touch the poles, they begin to deal damage to the planet.

@avavt

There *should* be a "Best:" field on the in-game UI which serves as a high-score counter, though if it's not working... oh dear. Thank you so much for playing, though!

takusan 2017-04-26 17:03

Oh, oh, oh! First godot entry I stumbled upon! I love that engine. Haven't made much in it, but I love it nonetheless.

This is a great game. Simple to pick it up instantly, yet has a more complex mechanic, intuitive (Everything's quite clear after the first fail: when to switch elements, what makes you lose health etc) and nice visually. You even did the screen shake effect I failed to produce in my entry :)

For me it's not missing anything. Great job, saving for the voting sime!

Cheers!

alexhoratio 2017-04-26 17:58

@takusan

Thank you so much! I do love Godot, it's especially good for prototyping which comes in very handy for Ludum Dare. I'm really glad you enjoyed my submission, though!!

richard-michael-smith 2017-04-26 23:44

"My hometown is a tourist attraction!" - I like that!

Great game - once I re-read your instructions above and learned about the F key - it made more sense! Music and sound fit the game very well. Very enjoyable.

move127 2017-04-27 00:16

I love it! The game plays great and sounds great. It is super stressful trying to manage both sides of the planet. Having to absorb the elements is a fantastic idea.

Nice entry!

veralos 2017-04-27 08:22

Really nice game. The graphics and sound are both great. The mechanic of absorbing different elements to combat enemies is also very cool and it makes for a fun and hectic game as you have to constantly be going back and forth to get the right element. Another thing I really like is the encouraging messages that show up: "Your grandparents would be proud"! "Your hometown is a tourist attraction!"

One thing you could add is having the enemies show up on the mini-map in the top right. That might make it a bit easy though.

alexhoratio 2017-04-27 12:03

@richard-michael-smith

Thank you!! I'm glad, I did a few iterations of the music and I am definitely relieved to know it came out well!

@move127

Thank you!

@veralos

Thanks so much! Yeah, I was planning on having the enemies show up as blips on the minimap, but the time constraints were a bit too tight for that! ^^

huvaakoodia 2017-04-27 19:40

"You are a modern day Adonis", good to know!

Quick and technically competent, yet the gameplay left me cold.

In the end you cannot keep up with the increasing amount of enemies as the two monuments are, indeed, on the polar opposite sides of the planet. I'd much rather have a single point to defend and ultimately succumb to the enemy hordes than lose due to the fact that I simply cannot be in two places at once.

The enemies are rather anemic too, after all they don't attack you directly. This gravely limits any kind of evasive action potential. It is all just too simple really.

So, yeah. Not a lot of positive thing to say beyond the craftsmanship. No bugs either, that's mighty fine.

fouralex 2017-04-28 16:16

I like the mechanic, the art style too. I thought: what does the character and the enemies represent? I don't no but they looks good. It's really fun to play, nothing to say :smile:

chaseplays 2017-04-29 01:08

This was cool! It didn't have too much depth, and some of the mechanics were a bit confusing (I'm still not 100% sure how health works...), but the base mechanic (the elements) was fun! Some variety would have been nice, but overall, good job! I enjoyed this!

samurai-spark 2017-04-30 12:02

I REALLY enjoyed this one! Great pixelart and simple but fun mechanics. Took me a while how to absorb other elements but after that it was awesome :smile: Still hearing the soundtrack, really catchy. Oh and cool time laps btw.

Well done!

jushiip 2017-05-01 05:26

Yay! Love the smooth controls and also sound effect for shooting, very juicy combined with the screenshake. Got 89 points!. Good job!

richard-michael-smith 2017-05-01 10:04

I just gave my ratings.

sebastian-lague 2017-05-01 11:11

Great work! I enjoyed the absorption mechanic, the catchy music, and the rather literal interpretation of the planet's poles. Was completely baffled about the damage mechanic until I read the comments though, perhaps you could add that info to your main post?

zarkonnen 2017-05-01 12:04

In a world... menaced by giant alien avocados...

t-mw 2017-05-01 12:33

I enjoyed it, good work. It starts to get a bit frustrating when the enemies spawn right next to the poles, which means no matter how good you are you'll always lose within X minutes. But the encouraging text popups make up for it!

gfm 2017-05-01 12:37

Pretty fun game!

I would usually expect this to be a game about finding the enemy's weakness, but using the enemy's own element worked really well and was really intuitive!!

The way that your health works doesn't seem all that intuitive... I only understood it after reading your note. Perhaps, if the enemies played a little sound effect and the particle effect were less subtle (like, small explosion when they deal damage) it would be more noticeable.

takusan 2017-05-01 12:45

Since the voting is up, I've added rating to my earlier feedback. Cheers!

mutfak-studios 2017-05-01 13:03

Took me a while to understand how the game works , but after that it was pretty fun!

mathype 2017-05-01 13:13

Pretty fast to grasp, quite fast paced and fun to play. A nice little game that I'm glad I spend a few tries in! Nice enemy graphics and quite a catching tune! Carry on!

chronosv2 2017-05-01 13:38

That was awesome! Really fast paced, and the elements mechanic is really interesting. Took me a moment to realize like destroys like but once I figured that out the game was an absolute blast!

Congratulations on an amazing game!

tombishopspg 2017-05-01 16:44

Thoroughly enjoyed it. I was hoping people would do the running around the world style of game. I also love games that involve switching weapons (elements in this case) to defeat different enemies. Good concept and execution.

drmargarido 2017-05-01 17:18

Awesome game, I really enjoyed the shooting, the various types of element and of course receiving cool incentivations from god :smile: .

loktor 2017-05-01 20:23

Nice work :) Great work with the soundtrack as well as the art style :) One thing that was kinda confusing for me that the game just started without any kind of explanation inside the game (a small tutorial would have been nice), also like others mentioned it wasn't fully clear what was causing the damage Overall really great work with your ludumDare entry :)

bookworm31 2017-05-02 05:23

Really cool game! Once you get the hang of when to switch elements, and where each element is, it makes things much simpler. I really enjoyed the idea of swapping elements to fight, though the fact that the planet wasn't symmetrical made it a bit tricky figuring out when to swap. I also appreciated that your health regens over time; lets you come back a bit if you manage to clear out most of the enemies. High Score: 128

iron-leonem 2017-05-02 05:55

Great little game! Controls were tight, and the aesthetics were really well put together. the gameplay was a lot of fun, but I was a little confused by the idea until I played it a couple times. I'd love to see some kind of progression in the game, aside from what I assume was more rapidly spawning enemies. Aside from those minor problems, the game was excellently put together! Thank you for sharing it.

szczebel1995 2017-05-02 06:10

Great entry :D I love the simplicity of the gameplay, shooting feels natural and killing the enemies is rewarding :) I like the concept with changing powers but at first, i thought that I need to pick opposite element to kill a monster :P great game overall.

zeriver 2017-05-02 14:28

Fun simple game with engaging gameplay. At first i thought that you need to chose opposite element to the enemy (like you need to use water on sand enemies etc) but after few tries i realised that i need to match enemy element. Graphics are neat and give this 'light / chill' feeling to them, audio is also pretty nice. In overall pretty solid entry.

realitycheck 2017-05-02 15:20

A fun little game. Liked the concept of shooting the different enemies with their own elements - however, it would have been nice with a little tutorial screen in the game telling me the controls. Couldn't figure out why some of them wouldn't die, until I got back and read the instructions here. Also, there should be a key press available to start the game, so I don't have to grab the mouse and click between games (I may have missed it, but I tried a bunch).

Graphics were simple, but did their job. Sounds were nice and the music catching. Good work, and congrats on your first Ludum Dare.

wevel 2017-05-02 16:24

Very fun game. Really liked that you had to change the element you where using to kill enemies. The art on the planet worked really well and the music was good. Might be even better if there where "power-ups" that could be picked up to get more health or kill enemies.

maldo19 2017-05-02 21:01

The change elements mechanic is a nice one, it really gives this game more depth. About the controls my hand began to feel weird after playing a little while as the change between "F" and "Space" I would have liked to use the mouse to shoot and the secondary click for absorbing the element. (It may be a little nitpicky but well it could help) The graphics were simple enough and worked and the audio was good enough. Good job! (Oh, I forgot to say nice job on the planet's orbit for the bullets too)

kroltan 2017-05-02 21:27

I really liked the idea of multiple elements, but F is a really weird keybind. Got 174 points!

One thing that confused me is the "bullet penetration". I'm not sure how many layers of unrelated enemies a bullet can go through before disappearing, it seems to vary. A bit more consistency there would make all the mechanics much tighter.

As for graphics, I'm still not sure what those sprinkler menirs are.

2017-05-02 21:30

Great game! One of the best ones I've played this time around! Love the mechanics of it and it is really intense. One thing I did wish it had though was a highscore. But other than that it is fantastic! The graphics are awesome, the sounds are great (and funny), and the controls are great!

scriptorum 2017-05-02 21:38

This was fun! My high score was 126. I'd have liked it if there were warning indicators to where the closest enemies were. A little music or ambient background would have taken it up a notch. The different ammo is a great mechanic. Good work!

spiteful-fox 2017-05-04 04:25

Interesting game mechanic. I got a high score of 85. I think I didn't do very well. xD

anna16 2017-05-04 06:16

I like the idea of the gam. And also the style. I spent at least 30 min playing it) Music is also cool. Good job! I olny wish the charaters were more detailed.

tompudding 2017-05-04 18:59

Fantastic game, probably my favourite entry so far. The music is fast paced and appropriately bleep bloopy, the movement feels spot on, and it's a unique idea and gameplay mechanic that is both fun to play and easy to grasp. Great job!

fueelin 2017-05-04 19:22

Nice game! I particularly liked the sound effects and thought it was an interesting mecahnical/setting idea. Fun to play and definitely tried a few times to see how well I could do!

High score: 147

toonteamj 2017-05-06 00:29

Trying to collect the correct elements is challenging, but that adds to the fun.

ace17 2017-05-06 09:44

It took me while to grasp the game rules, but then it was fun, responsive and punchy, I like it!

testlab 2017-05-13 10:43

Great game. It reminded me a bit of Reus.

mikethewayne 2017-05-14 13:11

Lovely game, got a bit challenging (not that that's a bad thing), ended up being lots of fun! Some music would've been nice, but the smooth controls make up for that. Great work!

skoggy 2017-05-14 17:12

Did you make the sound fx with your mouth? :P Kind of fun game, didn't really understand how it worked so I died a lot. But it was fun!

ketchupcoke 2017-05-16 19:20

Simple yet genuinely fun gameplay, completely fits the theme and a nice atmosphere and music. Apparently you're proud of me :)

wan 2017-07-23 09:44

Here's the gameplay video made for Alakajam's Feedback Fortnight:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0zRarn8yrg

Our review:

**PROS** - Hectic and challenging gameplay - Good balancing - Awesome messages pop-up as we increase our score :D

**CONS** - If even Nikola Tesla can't repel the attack, who can??