Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD39 → PowerGem Arena
By wizard-exe
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 92 | 3.79 | 46 | |
| Fun | 29 | 3.95 | 46 | |
| Innovation | 500 | 2.70 | 46 | |
| Theme | 187 | 3.75 | 46 | |
| Graphics | 230 | 3.52 | 46 | |
| Audio | 125 | 3.46 | 45 |
Actually one of the best games that I've played so far. Great graphics and sound effects. Awesome mechanics(nice variety of pickup weapons). Difficulty level is just perfect(not to hard and not to easy). Also, this game is very polished, I've played it a little and have not found any bugs.
Oodles of fun!
Really fun, addicting but at the same time, really difficult to stay alive lol. 3 lives wouldn't be enough from the quick enemies, while your bullet is running out fast.
Nice variety of weapon. Very nice feel to the whole game. Your game is evry hard though: I retry a few times and couldn't make it past the second level: 3 life is not enough I feel (considering your power is decreasing fast and the ennemies are faster than you). Other than that: great game, I had a lot of fun.
Overall a solid concept and nicely polished for a jam game! I wish the enemies spawn on the edges of the level though as it doesn't feel good when they spawn right on top of you and you don't have a chance to dodge them. Nicely done!
FUN! My only critiques are probably just personal preference: I wanna move faster! I was craving like a little deceleration tail when you stop holding a direction, like in space, except not forever, so like a bit of friction. it's a bit hard to code, but I did it one time with just the "friction" built in variable in GMS. And finally, I played like 5 rounds, got to level 2, and only ONE TIME did I get another weapon (flamethrower), more weapon spawns!!! haha All in all, very much enjoyed. :)
Great graphics and I like the take on running out of power. I kept running into newly spawned enemies, which could spawn almost on top of you if you are moving. It would help if there was a radius around you in which enemies could not spawn. Overall really good!
Really enjoyed this take, very fun!
Quite liked it! The sprites were good, and there was nice audio and visual feedback when shooting. I liked the spin on the genre where shooting drained energy, making shots something to conserve instead of merely spam. It felt rather hard, and there were a few times that it seemed like enemies spawned right on top of me or at least that I didn't have enough time to get out of the way as they spawned all around me. I also thought the weapons were really fun! Good work, and it looks pretty polished, too!
This is a great arcade-style shooter, I dig it. The art and sounds worked well together and gave the game a cohesive whole that I appreciated. The controls felt responsive, and the mechanics really leaned on you to always be trying to refill that power meter. I think my biggest issue was the enemy spawns, which often felt like they were right on top of me while I was trying to keep moving. This was a small point though, and I happily played several rounds to try to get a little further. Great work, and thanks for jamming!
I really like the simple sound fx in this game, as well as the fairly effective simple graphics. The only problem is that enemies can spawn on top of you, so the main way you lose lives is just from rng as to the locations of where things spawn. I think someone mentioned this before, but enemies shouldn't spawn within a certain range of you.
Good job!
So, I see the other comments talking about the fast enemies and level 2 and such and go "heh... there's a second level?" Just goes to show how bad I am at arcade-style shooters.
However, their comments drove me back to the game and I had a good time being frustrated at how bad I am at this game :grin:. It's a solid game though. Nearly every time I died, it was because I hadn't moved just right, not because of a glitch.
There were one or two exceptions. When I was playing in windowed mode, I accidentally clicked outside the game and the game kept playing in the background, leading to my inevitable doom. Also, when I re-entered the game, my direction key acted as if it was pressed even though it wasn't. Though if I remember right, this may be a Gamemaker engine problem.
Either way, the game itself is good. I'm glad I could play it, even if I never finished level two.
Thank you all for playing my game and giving all the wonderful feedback!
I hear what you are all saying about the enemy spawns, I also feel they are too close and need a little adjusting. I'll be working on a tuning update to make enemies give you a little more clearance when spawning, as well as a adjusting a few other numbers for balance.
Also, I will be continuing work on this game even after the jam, I have quite a few things I want to add! More weapons, enemies, spawn patterns, *online leaderboards*, maybe even subweapons or skills, or alternate game modes. Hope you continue to enjoy!
Another vote for "too hard." I play a lot of twin stick shooters and found the spawn positions too punishing. I also thought this could benefit from just one more heart for the player.
But the gameplay is really satisfying in a way that most LD entries are not. Great job on that! Plenty of style.
This is game has nice mechanism, very smooth control, good animation and sound effects. It is just too hard. I cannot even get to level 2 ToT.
I see other people already commenting about enemy spawning. Other than that, if the player can pick up items that recover health it would also be easier.
I really enjoyed the hose-like spray effect on the weapon at full power. Something about it feels so satisfying. The whole game was a really cohesive complete experience. Fantastic work!
Nice game! Solid UI and graphics. Also the html5 link is super easy to access and the controls are straightforward so +1 for accessibility.
Really fun! Surprising strategic depth for how simple the design is. Also, really hard! (Or I just suck ...)
For a Compo game its pretty solid and addicting, I found myself saying 'ok just one more time'. I actually had to stop myself from clicking the retry button. Hard, yeah maybe so but balance can be hard. Whats easy for one person could be difficult for another. Its a very subjective subject. I think you have something great here and you should continue to work on it. Fantastic job for your first game jam!
23,000 and level 4 is as far as I could get but damn that was nice! Polished and really nice game feel. I wish my player moved a bit faster, sometimes I feel like one bump collision could end up in a whole loss of the game even if I had 3 health so perhaps some more invulnerability after hit but as a compo submission this is rad! Reminds me of my own entry!
Ahh, this is my type of game. Great SFX, nice clean art and a super addictive pace! It would have been cool to see some sort of innovation in the gameplay department beyond the life bar also acting as a power bar, but I won't lie, sometimes it's nice to have something familiar like this, just for some good-ol-fashioned high score chasing. Great job! :)
Good game, I think the game it's not really difficult but a bit unfair. It's too obvious the decay of bullet shooting once you get half your energy and sometimes enemy's spawn position is frustrating. If you have the chance you may have a really good play, but it's a random thing. Beyond that, music and graphics were perfect and I enjoyed most of the time.
Amazing game! It was very addictive and very polished. The art style and mood really added for the experience. Good job!
Fun and addicting game!
really nice game... The spawn around you + same speed as you + power up on other side of enemy group made it really had at times to actually get to the power up.
Definitely one of the best games I've playing in this LDJam. The concept is cleverly implemented and the nostalgic graphics and sounds were great designed. So much nostalgia here
I think movement speed should be a bit faster
Awesome arcade arena shooter. This game would work great as a twin-stick-shooter too. The only thing that I would add would be to make the player faster.
Really nice game! For a compo entry it's polished. It's fun but sometimes I wished the player is faster, because the enemies spawn around me and I hadn't the possibility to escape or shoot them down. Well done!
Really nice work! Very polished and I love the sound effects. It's pretty challenging too but it works perfectly with the short play sessions.
Nice job! I played through lots of times and very much enjoyed it :) As others have said it would be nice to see a little velocity on the player rather than just stop/start and personally I felt my weapons were useless by about the half mark on the bar which made me wonder why bar was so big in first place, it would be nice if the degregation was just a **little** less severe? Weapon powerups were so random sometimes I wouldnt see any at all sometimes get 2 in level 1 XD and finally I did feel a LITTLE cheated whenever a badguy basically spawned on top of me and stole a heart piece.
Aside from those admittedly minor things it was a solid entry! enjoyed it! :D
Mechanics were spot on! Definitely addicting and rewarding when you get to avoid the danger swiftly, pickup the power-up, and blast them all. Very well done
Well done and well polished! I feel like the visuals could be improved, but the game feels almost perfect. Instantly fun to play.
A really well balanced and fun game, I liked how the SFX and graphics fit a retro theme so well. The player could have been a twinge more agile, but maybe that's just because I was a crap player!
Nice entry! Audio and graphics merged well. Sometimes the controls felt slow.