FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD47 → Broodmother

Broodmother

By sludgekey, leon-oost, Wouter Yntema and Rens Koning

View on ldjam.com

CategoryRankScoreCount
Overall4233.7735
Fun2533.8336
Innovation1164.0335
Theme9263.5136

Comments

codehacher123 2020-10-06 15:37

The graphics are pretty good, although it's a little confusing controls wise, I think next time also put the controls in the game somewhere.

ayxs 2020-10-06 15:37

Nice game, I like the music and sound design of the game. The game fits the theme nicely but I couldn't really figure out how to kill enemies, my "children" only kept walking around and doing a lot of nothing. It seemed I could kill the blue monsters by walking past them so they detonate, but the bats seemed un-killable. Also I think the portal did not spawn for me, I walked around the entire map and found nothing (maybe I missed it, it might be a nice idea to add a graphical indicator of what the portal should look like or an arrow pointing towards it).

Very nice entry for this jam though, keep up the good work!

zest-is-best 2020-10-06 16:03

You have such nice images here but you forgot to give your game a cover image for the homepage!

zest-is-best 2020-10-06 16:11

Played for a while, had to keep coming back to this page and reading how to do anything - was very confused. Unfortuantely never got to summon anything, just picked up some meat occasionally and got lazer'd down. Could've been awesome, but didn't really get to play it I guess.

astrid 2020-10-06 16:22

I love it!! Congratulations guys :smiley_cat:

elbbard 2020-10-06 16:38

I was a bit confused at first, because I couldn't figure out how to kill enemies. Then I found out that the bats kill each other when run around them. I liked the music/sounds and the animations a lot. It was funny giving birth to myself when each time I died! Thank you :)

error-ff 2020-10-06 20:38

This is a very very interesting game. I wish it was finished. The art is beautiful and the sound is nice.

But there a few problems there.

First there are some problems with movement between the rocks if they are too close. And walking around the corners is unpleasant. You kinda stuck in the colliders I guess.

Space dash doesnt make you immune to damage. I just dont like it :)

The Eye's attack speed is too fast. There is no problem to die even with 2 Eyes around. And thats pretty impossible to kill another mob withiout taking damage. I mean when you try to make Eye shoot another mob.

The main problem is I cant play this game from the beginning cause google chrome remember my last session (wtf). And even if I reload the page I start from my last session. But in this session i have only 3 Eyes on the map and thats it. Nothing more around. No portals or whatever. I hope that issue happens with me only.

Very nice game anyway! Congratulations!

sludgekey 2020-10-07 09:46

Thanks everyone for the Feedback! Great insights into issues (that will appear in a jam ;) ) Eventually you get blind for your own product without being able to playtest with people outside. I will do a quick patch to solve the following minor issues to make it playable:

Arrow indicator towards portal @ayxs

controls on screen @codehacher123

nerf eyeballs @error-ff

COVER IMAGE on Ludum Dare!! @zest-is-best

Instructions can be found in game if you press the i in the right top corner but it should also be on screen @zest-is-best Will be on screen too!

Collision with rocks (will try to tweak it a bit. It seems to be a bit hard with the player controller) @error-ff

Invulnerable dash + cooldown @error-ff

Create new save game / new loop (we actually made it save every time you die so you get stuck in the first loop you ever start. If that breaks the game however than it's a very sad story... I will create a new loop option if I can fix it fast and easy) @error-ff

Sometimes people seem to not be able to find the last spawner or the portal because a wall seems to have spawned at the same location. I will have to double check why this happens and fix it. @error-ff

Thanks again everyone for playing and for the awesome feedback. It really helps a lot!

sludgekey 2020-10-07 20:22

The game has been patched!

dotsquare 2020-10-07 20:35

Graphics are great ! Well done :) Congratulations !

dotsquare 2020-10-07 20:36

Why didn’t you allow graphics ratings ? I was gonna give a 5 starts haha

sludgekey 2020-10-07 20:38

@dotsquare oh no where did graphics rating go :S :( I was sure it was selected... Maybe something didn't save. It can't be changed anymore I assume...

dotsquare 2020-10-07 20:40

Haha I gave you good ratings anyway don’t worry, but that’s a shame cause the graphics are seriously awesome ! ;)

sludgekey 2020-10-07 20:42

Thanks a lot @dotsquare ! We had a lot of fun making it all!

dmitry-kaidash 2020-10-07 22:09

A very strange world and no less strange creatures :)) but at the same time, quite interesting gameplay, a kind of survival with cool graphics and soundtrack. It seemed to me that in some places I was stuck between the rocks. But it's a very fun game anyway! Thanks!

sludgekey 2020-10-08 09:47

Thanks for playing @dmitry-kaidash ! The rocks haven't become my friends either. Maybe in a future update I will give them some more time and love (they deserve it).

caeonosphere 2020-10-08 15:44

I definitely like the idea of poopin' out an army from the meat you collect. I wanted those flying laser eyeballs on my team, but when I got them to shoot each other and picked up their DNA, all I was able to make were some walkin' guys? Aw, man! I was able to kill two spawners, but without the dominant species with me, I wasn't able to get the third. A little bit of progression could go a long way, I think!

harksa 2020-10-08 20:02

It's a nice game. I like the idea that the eyeballs enemy thingy can litteraly kill their own kind lol. I don't understand why you opted out of graphic and audio, didn't you/your team did it ? :o I think they are very nice and suits well to the game. Keep up the good work !

sludgekey 2020-10-09 11:55

@caeonosphere thanks for playing. The eyeballs were added in the last 20 minutes before the deadline. I'm glad they actually work as enemies. Didn't get to af them as your own yet. Might do an after jam patch/version with more creatures and getting all as your own as well. That and new environment when you go through the portal would help a lot with the progression you mentioned. Thanks for the feedback!

sludgekey 2020-10-09 11:57

@harksa I'm not sure what happened with the opting out. I'm pretty sure we did check all the boxes. We are pretty happy with the graphics and audio so it's a bit of a bummer. Thanks for playing and the positivity!

joh 2020-10-10 17:44

This is an interesting game. Though, getting started is a bit hard due to the fact that we can't attack (?) Anyway once I manged to make enemies kill each other and could birth my own babies, it got more fun. Its weird how ugly everyone is and yet, it looks great. what a monstrous game. Good job!

abdurrahman-khallouf 2020-10-10 20:28

Hello @sludgekey ! maybe you remember me from the latest jam. I played your family tree game after my wife told me about it :D

I really like the concept of this game. but it lacks the strategic depth that would make it a game in my opinion. if you can achieve that it would make a fun little game.

I really like the art here. and the little animation you do when you make a baby lol

I can't really give you a rating since I am not in this jam. just wanted to say hi!

future-labs-unlimited 2020-10-12 18:52

This has great visuals and a unique style, it's one of the games I wanted to play immediately after taking a look at the screenshots. The animations are well done, too, especially the smooth birthing animation.

At first I had a hard time figuring out how to kill anything, but as soon as I got the first chunks of meat it became fun to fight the spawners. The second level with lots of laser eyes and exploding enemies was really hard, though, and I kept dying a lot, so a less steep difficulty curve would be great.

sludgekey 2020-10-13 07:57

@joh Thanks for playing. Some explanation of how to defeat enemies and spawners might have helped in hindsight. Anyway glad you liked it!

sludgekey 2020-10-13 07:59

@abdurrahman-khallouf Hey! Thanks for hopping by and checking out our game. We had a lot of fun making this game but it sure has some rough edges. Never the less happy with the result. I did the art for Noble and did the programming for this game (I'm normally an artist). Maybe see you again next Ludum dare! :)

sludgekey 2020-10-13 08:33

@future-labs-unlimited Thank you! Cool that we hooked you with our weird graphics :D.

The spawners are selected randomly at the moment so the difficulty curve is a bit random at the moment (game jam style...). Might get patched if we do some more after jam patches.

Thanks again for playing!

bentebent 2020-10-17 15:50

This manages to be bizarre, intense and quite a bit of fun. The style really comes together with the music, graphics and sound effects. The gameplay is nice, especially when you start chaining some really fat explosions with the exploding egg creature. I got a bit annoyed/confused by my minions sometimes seemingly just walking away to nowhere but with better placement they managed to be quite effective. I wish I had a bit more agency and/or urgency to gather stuff, as it stands I was able to mostly just spam eggs from a corner and go back in when all the enemies were dead. Overall this is a very solid entry with a cool style, well done :)

sludgekey 2020-10-17 16:17

@bentebent Thanks for playing! Good solid feedback and if we ever do another small jam for some extra patches we really want to look at the agency and difficulty curve to make it more of an experience. Thanks again and I enjoyed your game as well ;)

kaafirookie 2020-10-17 16:53

The game is quite unique, Took me some time to understand what to do, Would suggest to introduce things one by one to teach the player what to do.

Had fun playing it once I understood what to do. A bizarre and fun game, congratulations on the entry and all the best!

sludgekey 2020-10-17 16:56

@kaafirookie thanks! Yeah the creatures can spawn randomly at the moment so introducing them gradually and not random would help in understanding what the objective currently is. Thanks for playing and for the feedback!

garet 2020-10-17 17:14

That was really weird and really fun haha !

Too bad you opt out of humour, you would so so much more ratings ! So, this was a nice sound design and nice graphics too (I think you selected all categories to opt out actually, the tick box at submission were to opt out, not to select^^')

I had trouble to figure out how to kill the first enemy, but once I did, I found it clever ! Congrats !

codertrevor 2020-10-17 17:24

Wow it's super addictive! It's very innovative, too. It's like a strategy game crossed with one of H.R. Geiger's nightmares. I sometimes feel it's too hard to find blood and especially DNA and I wish the eyeballs dropped DNA. But overall It's absolutely bizarre and I love it. My high score is 1158. The music, art, and gameplay all go together for a zany mood. Great job!

jakobthequizguy 2020-10-17 17:39

A strange game with fun gameplay? I'm sold! Love the graphics and audio. I like how you have to strategize by having the enemies hit their own spawners. Great job guys!

meatball 2020-10-17 19:45

FWIW Audio is a 5/5! Great job all around, really liked the 'egg' restart idea.

snowinn 2020-10-18 00:52

Overall very fun! I liked the mood set by this wacky game of becoming a brood mother. I would’ve included more of a tutorial at the beginning about what you can eat and birthing monsters to fight for you, but overall great job !

jenny-bourke 2020-10-18 01:45

I wish that I, too were a little nudey guy rolling around

sludgekey 2020-10-18 11:40

@garet We regret whatever happened to the opting out :(. Our main focus was the ones that we accidentally opted out of. I must have interpreted it the wrong way around (that's what hectic game dev and 10 minutes before deadline stuff does to your brain). Good one to focus extra on next time we join :D Figuring stuff out was way too much for a new player and we could have focussed more on that. Thanks for the feedback and for playing!

sludgekey 2020-10-18 11:41

@codertrevor Eyeball characters were added in the last 20 minutes of the jam, so I'm happy they ended up in there but yeah not adding them for the player is a lot of sad frustration for the players who reach that point. I'm glad all the weirdness came across ;) . Your high score is quite a nice one too :D! Thanks for playing!

sludgekey 2020-10-18 11:42

@jakobthequizguy glad you liked it? Haha it's a weird little game and for a game jam it works :D . Thanks for playing and for commenting!

sludgekey 2020-10-18 11:44

@meatball Our audio artist and graphical artists who went rogue and recorded the effects with their vocals were going absolutely bananas. Was a joy to add the sounds when I received them. We did struggle quite a bit with how to do something else with the loop so I'm also very happy with the weird little egg cycle. Like a weird version of the phoenix, without all the majestic charm :') . Thanks for playing!

sludgekey 2020-10-18 11:45

@snowinn Tutorial is a big one to reserve proper time for with the next jam. We just wanted to add more stuff (that people wouldn't see because they wouldn't understand the game ;') ). I'm glad so many of you did find out what you could and should actually do! Good job on all of you players. Thanks for going through the rough and gritty start and thanks for playing :D!

sludgekey 2020-10-18 11:47

@jenny-bourke Our artist Rens can visually show what we all desire! Enjoy those little things. (I'm going to check out your game after reacting to all these lovely commenters. Your game sounds interesting!) Thanks for playing/rolling!

jam373 2020-10-18 12:04

Love the cutesy/grotesque fusion with the art, really excellent job. The audio suits the tone perfectly too. Gameplay was interesting and a unique take on an rts. Really fun interacting with hordes of monsters, basically getting them to kill themselves. Though starting from stratch without any attacks or spawns was quite confusing and awkward to get past (though that may have been the intention!). Aside from that, this is just filled with so many details to love.

By far one of the best games I've played this jam, unique and fun and polished too!

guimoliveira 2020-10-19 22:36

hahaha fun game :smile: graphics and sounds are really nice. Good job! :)

sludgekey 2020-10-22 21:47

@guimoliveira Thanks! Next time we will include those in the voting :')

sludgekey 2020-10-22 21:49

@jam373 Cheers! The weird art vibe is something our artist Rens is the King of! He toned it down at the start but we told him to go all out and he embraced it. We gazed at that lovely egg laying animation for too long.

It's cool to see that you see what we were sorting going for. It's still rough around the edges and more info surely would have helped. Thanks for going beyond that start.

Calling it polished is a compliment for sure.

rialgar 2020-10-25 12:40

Disgusting, but also strangely satisfying. I mostly used the enemies against their own spawners instead of laying lot's of eggs, mostly because my eggs where either too far away to be usefull or immediately shot down. I had a lot of fun that way, though.

sludgekey 2020-10-26 09:55

@rialgar When a comment starts with Disgusting and immediatly interpret it as a compliment. The focus was planned to move towards eggs more when you were playing but that emphasis is not tweaked polished and balanced. It ended up being more about the experience you described (the player doesn't get informed though). Glad you had fun! Thanks for playing.