2017-12-04 11:59
The music is strange, but gameplay is good
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD40 → Abstraction Blaster
By antagonist
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 491 | 3.09 | 24 | |
| Fun | 430 | 3.09 | 23 | |
| Innovation | 528 | 2.75 | 24 | |
| Theme | 656 | 2.29 | 24 | |
| Graphics | 464 | 2.97 | 24 | |
| Audio | 365 | 2.83 | 23 | |
| Humor | 518 | 1.94 | 20 | |
| Mood | 516 | 2.66 | 23 |
The music is strange, but gameplay is good
Very fun gameplay - I love me a good shmup. The abstract art really drives it home. I had to play both players, but the premise is clear - take down your opponents :)
I think positive feedback could add a lot to the feel of the game. Specifically, it's hard to tell when the bomb is charging up; games with "bullet grinding" mechanics usually use particle effects or something to make it really obvious when you're in range. I'd suggest doing more to show when enemies are taking damage too (particles, flashing, etc).
The enemy designs are fun, the umbrella that causes rain-bullets made me laugh!
@fudge, I agree completely. I was planning to, and would have loved to, have stuff like that. Feedback is pretty make-or-break for quick arcade-y games like this, I think. As it is, all the details in here are pretty much just what I threw together as I went; I never got around to a "polishing" phase.
Mini Post-Mortem: I lost a large amount of time on the first day, and then spent another large part of the last day working on a boss fight that I never really finished, and which ended up being unreachable anyway due to a bug. I would have preferred to get the actual game finished 50-75% of the way through, and then spend the rest of the time on menus and options / game balance / particles and sounds and special effects, but, well, that's not how it went. I hope to manage my time better in April.
The game have a very interesting concept. Is a very fun game to play with a friend. The graphics remind me some really old (and excellent) games like Asteroids and Galaga, the music helped to sell this felling. Overall, it got a lot of potential. Never stop creating. =D
I'll echo what was already said about feedback of sorts being important, but past that I really enjoyed this entry. Well done!
Added links to my work in progress updated version. Try not to play it if you haven't rated the entry yet, but if you just want to have fun, it's the better version.
I added particle effects, a start menu, and a couple bosses (one of which was already created but was inaccessible). Can't remember what else. I optimized the bullet stuff so it should run faster, but that's offset by the particles which are as inefficient as is possible. If it runs slowly, try setting particles to "low."
It still needs: gamepad support, better default controls, custom control schemes, three-player, sound effects, better music, more balancing, more bug fixes. And also: netplay, more content.
This was too hard. I only tried the single player mode. I like the AI for the eye-ball-like enemies since they keep hiding behind another enemy which makes them feel more lifelike. More polishing and menus would be great. The music is not that bad imo. I think it would be great as an online multiplayer too (since I hate to share my keyboard). In addition, I think more feed back for the actions would be great since It took me sometime to understand that the halo from the "?" key kills enemies since i didn't see any damage indicators to tell me that it is working. Overall, good job.
innovative bullet patterns and these eye hiding on top of other ennemies is also great. The music is ok, but some sfx when ou die, spawn back would have been great too. I could only try the one player mode.
There's a lot of stuff going on and it seems like an interesting game, but I had a hard time getting into it. Maybe it's the lack of feedback and controls that I don't really understand. I didn't have a second player to play with either, so I don't feel like I can give meaningful feedback on the play experience.
Nice one, I especially liked the players' shot pattern. Unfortunately I was only able to play it alone, so I missed the effects of competition. The enemy shot patterns were neat and tough to avoid, as it should be in this genre.
There are a few things that I would suggest to improve the game:
- Offer higher resolution. In Gamemaker this is a one-liner (unless you want to be able to switch between resolutions, then it's a little more effort, but nothing serious). Full screen would have been nice
- In a bullet hell shmup, visual effects are king. Especially when it comes to registering enemy hits, which is completely missing in your game. Often I didn't realize whether I was damaging an enemy or not.
- I always recommend this presentation about game feel, a lot of the points discussed there would improve the fun factor of your game a lot.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SkgkIXZ_13Y
I liked it a lot! The different enemy types were really nice and provided a lot of variety of play. I didn't have an opponent, which I don't think broke the experience, but for solo play I wish it had a fail state that was a little... I don't know... more consequential, I guess. I see that dying is part of it for the 2 player game, which is nice, but it would probably need to be tuned a lot more for difficulty if death was more consequential. It would also be nice to make the hits feel more impactful. Some sound effects, or explosions, or screen shake would be nice. I actually really like the music a lot, don't sell yourself short. Great job!
Weird shooter; I like how the graphics are more pixelated as you scroll up. The music is bonkers and some of the enemies are very... strange :)
The really trippy enemy and pattern design makes this game one of my favourites this jam. I find it surprising that it has not attracted more ratings. Sincerely hope you manage to get over the 20 ratings threshold.