Empathy Swap

xoidberg 2017-05-02 10:11

pretty fun! destroyed a friend of mine several times :D

zelos 2017-05-02 10:20

I couldn't get someone else to play with me, so I'll just critique the parts I've seen so far. **Graphics**: These are pretty good and make it clear what's going on. The effect when swapping looks really cool. The planets in the background (or are they supposed to be stars?) could be a tad darker though. While it's not a problem to make out foreground from background, it could be a bit clearer. I personally would've turned down the size of some of the particle effects, since the blurry nature of Unity's standard particle effect clashes a bit with your vector graphics. **Audio**: Actually really solid. The music is good and the sound effects are as well. I like the voiceover when Empathy Swap occurs. **Gameplay**: Not going to say that much because I just controlled one of the planets. The controls feel really weird and I would've preferred to have two pairs of buttons next to each other instead of WASD. WASD just feels like it should be movement only to me. Something like AD GH would've worked better I think. The mechanics seem really fun, but I'm not sure how to strategize the swapping thing without having someone to play with. But I like the idea, so this made a positive impression on me. I really feel like you can abuse it by just not building much though, which makes the game stand still if I understand the whole mechanic correctly. Overall it seems like a really good entry. Good work!

By the way: You should probably just start with the 'two players on one keyboard' from the beginning next time. If I hadn't seen V1.1 I would've just moved on to the next game, since most people will probably not have a gamepad attached to the PC when judging LD games. And I certainly didn't. :smile:

buck-supergoose 2017-05-03 19:48

Thanks for the reviews. I agree with points raised. I definitely could improve the particle effects and background planets in the ways suggested and I did wonder about the control scheme when I asked a friend to playtest and they wanted to hit something else to shoot. Strong critique and useful feedback - thanks!

diegoctorguet 2017-05-04 12:01

This is a solid entry. It has every point of a complete game and I like a lot the multiplayer part. I felt that the bullets are not big enough sometimes, but maybe it's just lack of habit. Good job!

dray 2017-05-04 12:11

Wow really nice entry! the game is really fun to play and the idea of using our health as a weapon is a really cool concept. I managed to loose with an empty swap right before my missile hit the other planet :p

2017-05-07 21:16

Neat little game! I included it in my Ludum Dare 38 compilation video series, if you’d like to take a look :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VA-2r5Ryiv8

ocarson 2017-05-15 15:50

Really cool game with some interesting ideas. I did a little video with my thoughts. https://youtu.be/2E_VB598v2c

csanyk 2017-05-19 01:51

I like the strategy implications of the swap mechanic. It makes the game tricky and yet balanced. Great idea!