FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD40 → Mo' Gold, Mo' Dragons

Mo' Gold, Mo' Dragons

By tvance

View on ldjam.com

CategoryRankScoreCount
Overall4343.2081
Fun2463.4779
Innovation5072.7979
Theme4153.2979
Graphics6012.4280
Audio2683.1376
Humor3452.6268
Mood4402.8870

Comments

omnipotentindie 2017-12-04 15:29

Overall, not bad. I like the system with the dragons dropping the coins they collected when you kill them

drfallos 2017-12-04 15:32

Haven't understood how to slain dragon. But it's not big problem. I think game is pretty good

darkanice 2017-12-04 15:33

a pretty fun little game, didn't understand how to slay a dragon though.

tim-eriksen 2017-12-04 15:42

Really fun and tense gameplay! It could use quite a bit of work on the UI, but all in all it is a nice little game. I really like the mechanic of the colliding dragons. It gives the player incentive to play close to the dragons. The music and sound effects were fun too :)

tvance 2017-12-04 15:43

Thanks for playing! To "slay" dragons, make them collide with each other. The player can only move. There is no attack button.

quaternius 2017-12-04 16:53

Loved the Dragon AI, and how you make them go against each other. great game!

orcdraco 2017-12-04 17:17

Nice gameplay and music+sound! Interesting AI and sprite for dragon too. Well done! :)

ale 2017-12-04 17:32

The controls and AI made this surprisingly fun (and difficult). Great work!

tom-panton 2017-12-04 18:06

I enjoyed this, it was a lot of fun to fool the dragons into smashing into each other and the music / sound effects were well done :) I would've liked to have seen a bit of variation in the enemies, though; maybe a dragon that breathes fire at you, for example.

tvance 2017-12-04 18:20

@tom-panton I agree! Adding different enemies was a stretch goal that I didn't reach. In the end I decided the game was hard and complex enough. I'm glad you enjoyed it.

fenerax 2017-12-04 18:52

really fun little game, playing was a bit confusing at first but once I got it started it was good.

tvance 2017-12-04 18:57

@fenerax, any tips on how I could make it less confusing? Some specific suggestions would be helpful. I got this same feedback on my last game so obviously I need to improve :)

gris 2017-12-04 19:01

Cool mechanics! I was not sure how to kill dragons but I was pretty close to winning anyway :b Congrats on the game!

tvance 2017-12-04 19:07

@gris, there's no attack button, but the dragons are "slain" if they crash into each other. Use their inertia against them ;)

scriptorum 2017-12-04 19:11

Nice dragon physics! I didn't find it confusing. It was very hard to force two dragons to collide - get in the middle and hope for mayhem.

misterstripey 2017-12-04 19:18

I really loved this! The dragon ai felt very fine tuned, the way they would come in for swoops. It was really fun trying to smash them into each other while grooving to that great SOUNDTRACK! This is the kind of game I love ludum dare for, maybe it's not polished with art and visual effects, but it has so much charm.

Thanks for sharing this with the world.

navot 2017-12-04 19:23

Outmaneuvering the dragons is quite fun, especially getting them to crash into each other. I did however notice a small input bug. If you press and hold left, then quickly tap right and let go again, while still holding down left, the player won't resume moving left, but stand still, same goes for up / down. Other than that, the core gameplay is really solid and well done!

tvance 2017-12-04 19:26

@misterstripey that's thanks to their competing steering forces if you're familiar with that concept. Lately I've been fascinated with steering behaviors a la Craig Reynolds' "boids" algorithm. The dragons are affected by 3 forces which seek coins, pursue the player, and avoid each other. Thanks for playing and sorry for the unwarranted technical explanation :)

rasblo 2017-12-04 19:28

Fun entry! Very enjoyable, got to 110 gold on my second try. Figured out how to kill the dragons which made it a lot more entertaining! The music fits well too.

I'd like a more detailed main character since the dragons look pretty great. Speaking of dragons, I enjoy their AI and sound effects, they're sweet as a whole. As for the theme, I'd like to see more of an implementation there, since it's not far from it. Perhaps having more gold making you slower (same with dragons).

Thanks for sharing!

tvance 2017-12-04 19:29

@misterstripey thanks so much! It was rewarding in itself to make the game in 2 days, but I'm so glad people are playing and enjoying it! Participation and feedback has been better than expected.

tvance 2017-12-04 19:32

@rasblo great ideas. In the end I thought it was difficult enough and didn't want to add too much complexity, but your suggestions certainly would have improved my theme-fit and made the game more interesting. I did want to make a player sprite but I ran out of time. Glad you enjoyed it!

tvance 2017-12-04 19:34

@navot I noticed that bug but decided to let it be in favor of other features. I hope it wasn't too much of a problem. Thanks for the feedback!

kerneltt 2017-12-04 19:39

great game but the user interface is kinda ugly

tvance 2017-12-04 19:49

@kerneltt haha I completely agree. I've never put much effort into GUI. Maybe I should work on that.

mazzletov 2017-12-04 19:50

Original concept but controls were kind of hard to control! Great work

rasblo 2017-12-04 20:02

@tvance I hear you! As it turns out 48hours is not as much time as you'd want, especially with sleep getting in the way :)

evandowning 2017-12-04 20:57

I enjoyed making the dragons bonk noggins. Felt like I was juking fighter pilots :D

raziyya 2017-12-04 21:30

I really really like this game. You can tell how much effort went into the dragon mechanics. Dodging and outsmarting dragons feels really great.

The music was simple but enjoyable, and fit the game well. Loved the dragon sound effects, which I assume was you croaking down you mic :P

Would have liked to see more work on the visuals though.

tvance 2017-12-04 21:37

@raziyya Thank you! I wanted to make a player sprite and background texture but ran out of time. You're right about the sfx. I had fun making them.

dave-siegel 2017-12-04 21:44

It's a fun concept, and the dragons work well, such that trying to lead them to collide with each other is pretty fun. I did find trying to do a 180 takes a while, so it is hard to maneuver some times. Still, I think you got the idea across. Nice job.

chyme 2017-12-05 09:43

Anything with dragons is a must play in my opinion ;) but in all seriousness, this was a cool little game and it was really fun to run around the dragons and collect their gold when they fought each other. My little nitpick is the message box that pops up outside-the-game when you lose, I actually thought the browser crashed or something the first time! But overall I liked it!

tvance 2017-12-05 11:41

@chyme yeah GUI has never been my strong suit. Quick'n'dirty JS alerts were good enough for me this time. I'd rather code dragon logic than draw buttons :) I really should work on that.

chyme 2017-12-05 11:44

@tvance well can't say I blame you there, coding dragon logic sounds way more fun ;)

korpokrowa 2017-12-05 16:10

So simple but so fun to play. Great work!

meskaline 2017-12-05 18:15

Was a little hard to figure the controls but it was nice after that. Good work.

patrick-d 2017-12-05 18:35

Fun game, really liked the music and sound effects.

mik3 2017-12-05 19:26

A simple little game. Definitely needs more polish, but the core mechanic was sound and it does what it's supposed to do.

badly-drawn-rod 2017-12-05 19:44

The dragons were great. My wife liked them so much that she kept spawning more and more as I was playing. This is an odd game in that it doesn't look like much, but it is surprisingly fun to play. I also liked the dragon sound effects.

tvance 2017-12-05 20:04

@badly-drawn-rod Thank you! I try to focus most on fresh mechanics and fun gameplay, much to the detriment of art and GUI as you undoubtedly noticed. In fact the dragon sprite was an afterthought. They were almost simple green triangles. Glad I went out of my comfort zone, if only a little.

sawtan 2017-12-05 21:16

Nice game, I had some difficulty to steer at times though, perhaps a more asteroids like steering would work better (W to accelerate and AD to steer right and left). Wasn't able to make the dragons collide even once, but I guess I'm a bad dragon tamer ;D Cheerz!

sholf 2017-12-05 21:45

Neat game! The handling of the character takes a little bit getting used to, but the game's really enjoyable after that. Crashing dragons into reach other and picking up all the gold they dropped is so satisfying! I actually spawned a bunch just so they can crash into each other more haha. Lovely game with a neat soundtrack. Well done!

reality-blind 2017-12-06 12:47

Join our dragon community, we love dragons ✌

tvance 2017-12-06 13:12

@reality-blind wish I could but I'm in a windowless house. It looks great from the video. Good luck!

cjuan94 2017-12-06 13:56

a good work! with coop( or something multiplayer) this game could be amazing

tvance 2017-12-06 14:17

@cjuan94 you just inspired me to develop the game post-LD! I wasn't even thinking about multiplayer when I made it but it would be fun to work together to bash dragons. You could even have 2P local, one using wasd and one using arrows. Thanks for the feedback!

thygrrr 2017-12-06 15:40

Hey, this is pretty goofy :) Great game title, for a start!

At first I thought I have to collect all the gold myself, fortunately I could play chicken / matador with the dragons!

It is a nice and indirect game mechanic, also to pick out the fattest dragons and get them into a head-on collision feels really satisfying.

Tips: - The music is decent. I wish there was a satisfying gold coin sound. :) - when dragons collide, make them EXPLODE (evenmaking the gold coins bounce outwards from the point of collision would be a great start) - show the dragon "corpses" for a short time when they collide - adding some shadows gives your game a mild feeling of depth. - you can make the dragons wobble up and down a bit to give the impression they are flying by flapping wings

tvance 2017-12-06 16:08

@thygrrr all good suggestions. There is a small "ting" coin sound (you can hear it better if you toggle the music) but I agree it could be improved. I planned to add dragon death visuals and animated coin scatter but ran out of time. Thanks for playing!

thygrrr 2017-12-06 16:49

I play this on my living room PC and it seems the music drowned out the coin sound. I feel silly now. :)

eldogg 2017-12-06 21:54

Good music, did you write it?

I think the turning circle the character has makes the controls a little confusing.

I like the dragon AI, they're like scaly hungry hippos.

tvance 2017-12-06 21:59

@eldogg I did write it but I used Garageband's smart drummer or whatever it's called for the drum track. The controls are a common complaint so far. I'll say it was a purposeful feature, I wanted to give the player so inertia so they can't turn on a dime. But I'm always open to feedback and will make those sensible adjustments going forward. Thanks for the feedback!

eldogg 2017-12-06 22:05

@tvance it's a good track, good on you for creating it yourself, gotta learn to hustle :)

eerongal 2017-12-06 22:47

That was really good. I enjoyed the fact that i had to use the dragons to defeat the other dragons.

valkling-friend-of-all-things 2017-12-06 23:36

Yeah, fun game! I'm also use javascript/canvas for game making. Small thing, you should cancel the defaults on the arrow keys, if you plan to use them in game, otherwise the screen scrolls around when you move. Maybe that is just a problem for me, as I don't typically use WADS (because I type Dvorak). Either way, good code, a lot cleaner than mine. :-P

Anyways, my Compo game is over here, if you want to have a look: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/40/squirrel-puncher-4000

nammflow 2017-12-07 01:05

I agree with the post above, arrow key movement is rough when its on a page that will scroll. That said, I just used the alterantive WASD movement since i'm on a regular QWERTY keyboard. I think movement of both the player and dragons is really smooth, and I like how the AI for the dragons work! It's always more fun when they actually look like they're doing their own thing than just following around the player all the time.

I also would love to see a post-gamejam version of this game with co-op like suggested above. I think it would be a lot of fun to do this in 2-player mode or even against a player-controlled dragon.

feedlipe 2017-12-07 01:16

Hey sir, liked the idea. And also the coin pickup song is very good. You worked on giving all features needed at the interface, that's nice!

IMO the controls few a bit weird, I think you should improve on that. And may change the player sprite. If you need more deep info, you can summon me here. Hope I can help you with this feedback. Also, if possible check my game too.

yngvarr 2017-12-07 03:18

Slaying dragons is so much fun, this background catchy tune make it even funnier! Also, I found controls balanced well.

tweedle 2017-12-07 04:08

really rocked the theme, controls felt wonky but I was dodging dragons like a boss so maybe they're genius. WELL DONE! get yourself an artist next go around!

arly 2017-12-07 05:02

Very fun and simple idea! Overall it felt very enjoyable to play, but I think the metric of needing to get the last gold piece could be different - otherwise, it feels like more of a waiting game. Also, I had a moment where I started the game just as the bass in the music track dropped, which would have been awesome if that was actually part of the game.

tvance 2017-12-07 12:00

@arly maybe I explained that poorly, but it's technically still game over even if you grab the last coin. I tried to balance racing for coins and bashing dragons. Dragons drop their coins when they die ;) Thanks for the feedback though. That was helpful.

javicepa 2017-12-07 16:59

Simple yet effective (and fun!). The graphics are basic but enough to get the job done. Congrats :)

eri0o 2017-12-08 01:57

**slaying dragons is hard as hell! Collected gold.**

draong

Cool idea, the music is ok. I tried really hard to slay dragons, I could do only through colliding one with another, but it's really though. It would be cool if they have an animation touting before attacking. Overall nice game.

serpentworks-games 2017-12-08 08:57

Oh my, my fingers do not know how to move the arrow in the right direction XD; This is super simple and challenging, but it's got some really awesome tense gameplay and just the right amount of challenge I think. The music is a nice backdrop for moving around avoiding flying lizards who like shinies.

Nice little dragon game! Good job!

seano 2017-12-08 12:27

The dragon attacks are cool, feels like they are swooping.

jimbly 2017-12-08 21:41

Neat idea! Nice and simple. I loved the movement, both character and dragons, they booth seemed fluid and different enough. My high score: 41.

lmb 2017-12-08 21:47

Nicey :-) Controls were a bit strange at first, then I kinda got used to them (though not completely). Simple concept that worked well in practice. Now, this is a matter of personal taste, but for me the game fits in a rather uncomfortable place: it feels too simple to make me want to spend more time on it, but too hard for me to enjoy it as a casual game. Anyway, that's just me, and I recognize that many people will find it more enjoyable than I did (and just to be clear: I didn't dislike this game! It's nicey :-) )

Music is pretty solid. The dragons behavior is interesting (thanks for the technical information about it -- long-time Reynolds fan here!), though perhaps the source of the difficulty I mentioned above. I missed a stronger connection with the theme, though.

tvance 2017-12-10 23:35

@lmb thanks for the great feedback! I'll think about the simple/hard balance. If you have suggestions, I'm all ears. I have some ideas for post-compo work and I'll be sure to ping you when I have an update.

Re: "strong connection with the theme": Valid point. It's an admittedly shallow connection. The more gold you have, the more dragons come, which makes it worse. I realized that but it was too late to change course or shoehorn something else in. I was glad to see so many other creative implementations of the theme though.

sean-s-leblanc 2017-12-11 05:53

Nice entry, though it could use a bit of polish. - the UI is fairly basic, especially ending the game with an alert window, haha - the music didn't really feel like it fit the premise of the game - the hitboxes on the dragons seem really forgiving - the dragon sprites were nice, but having better visuals for the player, coins, and ground would have made them feel a bit less out of place

stepan-shabalin 2017-12-11 14:32

Cool game! Music and graphics were great. However the whole mood was a bit strange!

asilva4000 2017-12-11 14:49

The steering is great, I wish more games followed this way of controlling directions. Damn, I wish when using the arrow keys to control a mouse on Windows or something, the behavior was this one. Anyway this is a nice little game with almost no learning necessary and the controls feel great. The music is nice too :)

adsilcott 2017-12-11 16:33

Well this was really fun once I figured out how to dodge dragons. It was also fun to spawn a bunch of them and run between them trying to get them to crash into each other! Great controls!

visperal-games 2017-12-11 16:45

Pretty cool! Simple and fun. Nice dodge mechanic!

tvance 2017-12-12 22:24

Thanks for playing @sean-s-leblanc. I'll note your feedback when I work on it post compo. Btw I LOVE your game. In my top 5 for sure.

oivin-f 2017-12-13 19:22

Intuitive and novel gameplay! Wish the hitboxes on the dragons were a bit bigger, and the music was a bit jarring.... All in all a solid entry, good job!

goat-toaster-games 2017-12-24 05:06

This was a simple, fun little game. Great submission!