shashwat 2017-07-31 03:39
Reminds me of classic Asteroid! Nostalgia :relaxed:
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD39 → Powerless
By g-o
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 511 | 2.96 | 33 | |
| Fun | 524 | 2.74 | 33 | |
| Innovation | 460 | 2.80 | 33 | |
| Theme | 434 | 3.32 | 33 | |
| Graphics | 577 | 2.41 | 33 | |
| Audio | 165 | 3.31 | 34 | |
| Humor | 401 | 2.03 | 28 | |
| Mood | 429 | 2.73 | 32 |
Reminds me of classic Asteroid! Nostalgia :relaxed:
I was struggling with the game at first then it hit me: it's a bullet hell. I did my best dodging those pesky pink boxes.
- The music was soothing - The controls were quite smooth
- The music could use more tempo to match the movement of the 'bullets' - There was no way to measure my progression. I wish there was a counter that showed me how long I lasted
- Not to play the game with a trackpad.
@shashwat Yup! Thanks for playin
@gnerkus Actually there is. There's nerration and downgrade checkpoints you just gotta survive for about 1000 power points. Actually I thought it was obvious its ending at 0... (its like countdown to death)
I do agree about the music though. Haha playing with trackpad is a bad idea .. the game is honestly pretty hard already. Thanks for the thorough input.
I'll play both ur games once I get internet connection back (typing from my phone)
A loading bar would have been nice, it was unclear if the game was actually loading. would have been nice to know what the abilities (that can be disabled) do and how to use them... I only figured out shooting by trying to click on one of the abilities after I made it to the 'must disable an ability' step.
@jason-kennedy That's why I put instructions and controls section in the entry post ^_^
Nice LD in-joke right there! :-)
Nice music and I think I head some sfxr soudn effects ;-)
An in-game tutorial or even instruction set would have been nice. I write that comment for all entries that rely on people reading the game page top to bottom to find the instructions, I want to be able to just start a game and go from there.
The hitboxes seem a little off, I don't think those squares should be able to hit me from so far away ;-)
One major complaint is the controls, pressing Ctrl plus either of the movement keys is fatal, Ctrl+W will even close the window!
Overall good game, unfortunately I haven't gotten to the end of it.
@gonutz Thanks for the feedback. I think I'll add instructions in the site's launcher before actually launching the game. In-game of course would be better but I obviously can't anymore haha Oh god I forgot about the Ctrl+W thing! I was so sure I'm gonna make the options menu and then internet problems popped up and I bearly succeeded uploading the game that it slipped my head.
As of hitbox - yeah I was having a struggle deciding if they should kill you the instant their *glow* hits you or their sides. I kinda went for the about where the glow is bright and I guess it was kinda dumb XD
Thanks for playing and noticing the jokes =]
Good game! I like the idea that it gets harder not only by more and more asteroids but also by you getting less and less moves to do! Nice work!
@logflames Thanks =)!
Liked the music and the downgrades and then other mutations of gameplay. kept things interesting :)
Overall I felt it was a bit challenging to understand at the start, but after a while I started to get my head around it. I liked it after all! Well done! ^^
It was a fine game until you reversed my controls. with the collision system as unforgiving as it is and the sheer size of the big squares eating space up fast, the experience degraded quickly.
@Infernal That's cool, this kinda game isn't for everyone ^^
A fun little game. Took me a while to get into it and understand the controls, but felt really smooth and fluid. I liked the idea of downgrading your powers as the game went on to make it harder. Inversing the controls was just mean though :(. A solid, fun game!
@Porkeh I'm so sorry for all the mean stuff there XD
Part of the idea is running out of [mental] power of the player as well... kind of a two layer meaning. Thank you for playing and sharing your experience =]
First things first: please don't require me to memorize the contents of a 20-line dialog box before even starting playing. Why not, instead, just let us know what's non-obvious (key mappings, and some vague one-liner goal)? It's ok to have some upfront explanations, but you just put too much IMHO.
However, I'm glad I started playing anyway because the game is fun - but really hard.
The music is also very good, more sound effects (preferably in the same key than the music) would have been welcome! However, the mood created by the music doesn't fit the humorous/discouraging random text messages.
I really disliked the font (reminded me of the default Windows font of my first MFC programs). More generally, I wouldn't have used a "serif" font for such a game, this feels too formal and serious.
One last thing: thanks for *not* using a physics engine :-)
@ace17 Dude, I obviously would've made a simpler tutorial but I had no time. It was quite gentle when it was in the entry post.. but no one read it! =] So I thought a more striking change and one that doesn't break the rules [by creating launcher] was also in mind. I guess I can't please everyone unfortunately and that's all I can do =]
As of the font - it's in an ariel. I actually quite like this font I don't think anything stylized would work great... it's supposed to be serious looking to have some effects on your mentality when approaching. If you felt unsettled / uncomfortable by the combination of the music and the text it means it's working =D
I'm really glad you enjoyed! Thank you for playing !
Can you please explain just what you meant by "thanks for not using a physics engine :-)"
A game like yours, which already has gameplay value, makes it tempting to stick a physics engine to get smoother motion, collision response, etc.... except that it would, I think, only diminish the playing experience, by making the square harder to control.
I see physics engines getting abused, to the point that they're sometimes put in charge of the game play. The more I play indie games, the more I think that physics engines are the "autotune" of game development: they make things look professional, without providing actual artistic value.
A lot of indie games I played (not necessarily LD) were just 3D models, attached to rigid bodies with inertia, a concept that you could also call "cow-on-icerink simulators" :-)
@ace17 Oh I hear you man =)! Same here, especially because I'm so used to progamming mechanics and engines from scratch, it seemed like there's lotta games that share the same elements just because the popular engines make it REALLY easy for them to make those elements. And then you barely get diversity in indie games sometimes... anything that deviates from that requires programming skills / knowledge of the engine. Same thing with assets (I don't even wanna start about the whole asset-flip issues). But then there's also what you talked about with making engines fit mechanics. Totally an issue for the programmer when making games with engines. Since I'm using my custom engine I'm free to customize my stuff and also I very much don't entangle the mechanics with the engine in any limiting way. My engine supports in full manuality of everything! You can even use merely as a rendering tool etc... Even still engines make great job in allowing freedom, still, with complexity sometimes limitations arrive and are not always trivial. So overall I'd say it's pros and cons and the ones to blame are the 'cheap' market-flooding developers rather than engines. That's just my opinion though.
I played on a Chrome and so i couldn't use the shield because ctrl-D would make the bookmark box pop-up.
As for the gameplay I could stay to the far right and win without moving by only shooting :3 so you might add some more angle to the bullets.
One thing I found annoying was that to restart the game I had to take my hand off the mouse to press the enter key to reset the game. It ruined whatever focus/immersion I had every time. The spacebar would be a good restart key.
As and everyone else pointed out, the music is amazing!
@bunrun11 Good call on the spacebar!
The keybinding issue is known had no time to change them. You sort of need to press the ctrl, leave it and the move freely.
As of gameplay - yeah I thought of adding sideways attacks but it was already really hard (perhaps I just suck at this haha). Perhaps you had a 5:4 or something, in 16:9 (even with the game scaling down) it's freaking tough! Perhaps it's really something with the scaling system... lots of factors could come in I guess I just gotta test it more =) Thanks for liking the music and for playing =] !
Good idea, for the future I think that after the enter should have a few seconds of waiting while one picks up the mouse, in general it is a good game
@olmes-daravina Yup, been suggested to have space instead =]
Damn this is hard! But once you get in the right flow it is really hypnotising. Controls are really responsive, and the music and SFX are cool too! It would be nice if the start of the game was a little bit more forgiving so you can get into the right mindset.
Good entry!
@drtizzle Thanks for the feedback =) Lots of people told me it was hard to get into, thanks for pointing out a solution or a fix to try =)
Difficult, but weirdly hypnotic. I like the concept of losing mechanics as you lose power, but it could stand to be a *bit* more gradual! All in all though, an interesting game (and props for making it without the internet to call on, I know I couldn't... although I also couldn't build my own framework!) Good job!
@mahton Thank you very much! Haha I had already been told about the difficulty function being steep, thanks for playing =]
I really like the mechanic. Didn't understand what the downgrades were, and it got very hard very quickly after that. I'd like it more if the power reduced as you moved, from what I could tell that was time based.
Very simple game to understand and get into, but was quite difficult. Soundtrack was fitting too.
@garethjenkins Thanks for playing ! The downgrades are the abilities you use. Note that their background turns red in cooldown.
@norakio Thanks !
Simple game but polished with good mechanichs for this theme :)
I really like the concept of this game. Losing power as the game progress is a great way to use the theme. It isn't the first time I see this concept in the jam, but is the one that best implements it. The whole game have a fell similar to portal and to Tower of heaven. Good job!
fun, although pretty damn hard, like the minimal square style. Seemed teh enemy boxes spawned too close to me on screen rather than coming from off screen, which would be nicer. i found it pretty impossible to find fingers to trigger any abilities so they didn't really come into play, was playing left-handed, but even the other way i think it would be tricky. Music fit well with the graphic style.
@dragojt @pedro-romero Thank you so much ^^
@automatonvx Hmmm yeah I didn't really think about left-handed people.. sorry for the discomfort.
Thanks for playing!