goldenhart 2017-12-03 15:01
Publishing...
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD40 → Shoot - Keep Your Score Down.
By goldenhart
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 648 | 2.57 | 29 | |
| Fun | 606 | 2.61 | 28 | |
| Innovation | 641 | 2.26 | 28 | |
| Theme | 642 | 2.42 | 28 | |
| Graphics | 566 | 2.64 | 27 | |
| Audio | 284 | 3.10 | 27 |
Publishing...
Don't know how...eek
Done.
Fixed window size is annoying, regardless good game!
Nice entry! The gameplay is fun, but it would be better if the window size is adjustable or in full screen mode. Congratulations for finishing your first compo! :)
@owen-davies and @orcdraco that was a mistake on my part. I did not realize it until AFTER the compo ended.
once the rating is over, I will update the GitHub and itch.io downloads. ty for playing. good luck to you both.
Could you put some screen shots in your description?
I did not know how. I am new to LD. I will see if I can
Nice game my dude! It's fun to play, but it does get repetitive after a while. Music fits the graphics and the theme is implemented well :)
Good game but it needs a little bit more control on firing like a cooldown or something because its super easy. Also when the time is up it like the game its just frozen nothing indicates that its done except the times up on the right up corner... Other than that great game and fun to play :D
Yeah it does get repetitive. It is hard to find a balance between replayability and repetitiveness. I meant it to be like Galaga, where you play over and over to get better scores.
Alright Bill, if I update this at all, which I plan on doing, I will have a cooldown. I was having UI issues the entire weekend so I must not have added the Game Over in the middle of the screen as I planned. TY for comments.
Nice Game! I noticed a bug: after launch I was only able to play the game once. after the first play the game kinda froze next time I tried to play it. I'm not sure if this was intended or just a bug tho.
Nice one! With the portrait res were you planning on making it mobile? Would work well with accelerometer movement :smiley:
Hmm I did not see that bug in testing @tulipekoni I will add it to my list of things to fix after the compo ratings are over.
@Flubz I cannot develop for mobile atm. In fact, I am very limited as to what platforms I can use. TY for playing.
It is a complete project that works well. I had fun playing it, which is the most important thing.
I'm glad to hear you are going to add a cooldown. As it is, strafing back and forth while firing constantly is enough to never let a ship get by. Needs some more ships to keep it from getting too repetitive.
I wasn't really sure where the theme came in. I assume it was something like "the more score you have the worse it is," but that seems somewhat tacked on.
It looks like you've implemented your goals well with this game! It kind of feels like a soccer goal defense game in a way, they either move to the left or right. I will say that it ends up being a bit too easy to stop all of them since their speed doesn't seem to vary by much. Either way, well executed!
yeah. theme was tough to implement because originally i had code to fit the theme, but due to a Unity limitation i could not use it...now this was late Saturday and i couldnt just restart. and i didnt want to drop out.
this limitation was supposed to be the more points you score the faster the AI go i could never get the code to work and broke the AI twice trying.
my goal was to just do something, and i did something. ty for the feedback.
@goldenhart
The idea of having the other ships go faster the higher your score sounds fun. If you make that for a post-compo version I'd be interested in playing.
yes, I think i will try and implement it. Im not sure if you work with unity, but so far i cannot increase agent.speed via a math function, so i am stuck on that; i will figure it out though, as I have several things to work on post compo. Again, just needed to get something out there.
Playable and bug-free game, that's a good thing =) Could have used a bit more polishing, more graphics/less fonts, and a victory screen ? Nice job anyway.
Heyo Colisan. :D My graphics skills are way under par, so no improvements could be made there, i will try some other time to learn.
Fonts wasnt sure if i could use other fonts for the compo...im new so i didnt want to risk anything.
polishing yes...i really didnt know what specifically to polish, and was scared to break something as i did the day before with my AI, trying to add their speed feature.
Topdown shooter with a twist, enemies actually try to evade you! Cool idea, as minimalistic it is, it works.
Was gonna mention the freeze bug as well, was only able to play it once after launching.
**For people with window size game mode:** try hitting **ALT+ENTER** it might go fullscreen.
So you have the freeze bug too? I cannot reproduce it! So i really dont know what is going on.
Simple, but everything works and is implemented well. I liked the music, but no shooting sound is odd. Overall, Nice Job!
The core gameplay is basic, but it works.
I like that the enemies actually try to evade you, rather than follow a fixed pattern. I noticed that the player's starting position seems to be in equilibrium with the enemies, i.e. they don't try to evade before you move. Maybe this is intentional, maybe they just don't move before you start to move yourself? But you could always nudge the player's starting position a bit to one of the sides if this is not intentional.
I also like how you turned the scoring upside down (and reflected this in your game title). The twist of having a high score boost the enemies would have been an interesting twist on the theme.
As others have mentioned, I too had a bit of trouble with the fixed size window - I could not see the lowest part of the GUI.
I would also suggest that you allow the player to use e.g. space for firing, in addition to the mouse, so that the game can be played with keyboard alone.
I also noticed that after the timer runs out, the game seems to "remember" that your input is disabled, even if you go back to the main menu, and then restart the game. Maybe this is the cause of the freeze issue.
The graphics are simple, but workable. The projectiles seem to be spawning a good distance from the ship, but other than that, I don't have anything concrete to suggest, except perhaps some additional variation (e.g. moving "pixel" stars as background).
The music is nice, and is a contrast to the usual action-music used in these kinds of games.
**Since you mentioned you were going to add extra features, here are some suggestions:**
Collision detection with the enemy ships. Perhaps your score is penalized more if you collide with the enemy. Or you could implement "shield"/"hitpoints" as an additional lose-condition (as an alternative to the time-out).
Additional enemy ship varieties. Some might fire back (trying to hit you), some might be smaller and faster (trying to evade you), and some might be larger and have multiple hitpoints (trying to ram you).
More randomized ship spawning patterns. Instead of always spawning three at a time, at a predefined location, you could add a delay and a (slight) difference in speed and starting horizontal position, in order to add some variety to the enemy patterns.
Sound effects for firing, destruction of enemies, impacting projectiles, when enemies pass you, etc.
Some sort of cooldown or other limitation (overheating bar?) on the primary weapon, to encourage precision rather than blanketing the battle area in projectiles.
>You must stop the ships! >Do not let them evade you! >We're counting on you!
I think everyone has said everything that the game needs at this point. I can't say much of anything else at this point really. Especially @somnium there. Though I would repeat stuff. I'm pretty sure.
* Now, the fact that the enemies are evading you, that's cool! It's a concept that could be improved lots. One basic thing is acutally making the stage wider, therefore harder (but cheaply done) to actually reach them. It's a way to do it but certainly not the best way to do it. * The fact that your score is inverted makes it that it's a good way to innovate with the score being the gimmick. Yes, you keep the score down but a simple way to keep it engaging is a combo multiplier. You don't get the multiplier, The enemies do. Of course, the multiplier breaks/lowers once they pass through to balance it out.... If you don't follow the theme, that is. * Either do WASD keys to move or Space to shoot. That threw me off big time at first but... * We all know the game is too easy. It's either more chaos or a wider screen. Pick your poison. Chaos is better since it goes with the theme. * It would be great if negative score is not a thing, but stay near zero. Maybe be they can punish you for having more negative score (related to the theme) AND punish the more time they have being at the low score (related to the theme), then punish them for having more score! Triple theme whammy! * But then... You're forced to get score! Stupid blaster has cooldown! (Yes, that was a suggestion) Either overheat, limited ammo, a charge or a cooldown... or mix them up! * Variety. Variety in everything. Enemies, the player, the patterns, the bullets, the everything! * Then finally, there's the bugs... Which everyone has said before. * Game window. Fixable by stating Alt+Enter as an option or since you have a Unity game there, have them show the settings at the start like a lot of the other Unity games here. * Game lock up. You can only play once. The game locks up on the next play. I think they are right with the buttons disabled and never reverted back. You can actually patch this now! This won't break the rules and best if you do it right away. * Graphics looks like Galaga, I hope you get that feel in the future once you improve on it!
Other than that, you made your point and even if it's not good, you at least made a game that works and that's something you would be happy in its own right.
TY :P
first game jam...I know I was noob...lol
For anyone who cares, the game breaking bugs are fixed.
Simple, straight forward and chill game honestly. Good enough for a first game :D One thing i'd like to see added is a health bar and losing HP when u get hit by the enemies or something similar? add some challenge to the game. Additionally maybe spawn more...enemies or things to shoot the higher your score is or something.
Either way, a solid entry and less bugs than mine hahaha :D gg
eyyy very nice!
Check out my game if you would like! https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/40/virus-detected
Heyo vik! Ty for coming. I ran out of time to completely implement that stuff, as my first three plans did not work.