FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD47 → Stasis Break

Stasis Break

By 3mpty

View on ldjam.com

CategoryRankScoreCount
Overall4413.7539
Fun3633.7139
Innovation5663.5439
Theme6853.7340
Graphics1624.3040
Audio2733.8139
Humor1
Mood4833.6837

Comments

literally-void 2020-10-05 16:00

For anyone else running this on linux, you need to `chmod +x StasisBreak.x86_64` before you can run it.

edit: '+X' is wrong, '+x' is correct.

literally-void 2020-10-05 16:05

Great game feel and effects!

yhy-games 2020-10-05 16:31

I understand the mechanism of the game, but I think the enemies are too hard. The graphics were amazing.

3mpty 2020-10-06 02:04

@literally-void is that due to me renaming the folder? I think I can fix that

tennotako 2020-10-06 04:23

really nice job. great graphics. if found the stasiz mechanic quite innovative but really confusing to play.

lihpten 2020-10-06 05:31

This game is really cool! I do agree that the enemies are a little bit hard right off the bat, but I think that's mainly due to my inexperience with the game mechanic. I also think the stasis visuals when traveling back make it a little hard to tell where the enemy bullets are and keep track of what ship I'm playing as, though that may be more my sleep deprived eyes' fault, and I think the more I play this, the more used to it I'll get (I have very similar issues with other shmups anyways...) Overall, I think this game is very well put together and quite a lot of fun to play!

theseusinabottle 2020-10-06 05:49

God this game has a look that I think is simply to die for

nillard 2020-10-06 09:07

Amazing look. Cool way to start the game. Took me a few rounds to really understand the loop mechanic but got pretty far afterwards.

malai 2020-10-06 09:12

Mac Build does not open for me, have you selected 64bit for the mac build (and only 64bit). I'm on catalina

3mpty 2020-10-06 09:14

@malai I'll investigate tonight, thanks for the report! (I don't have a mac so I can't test these builds properly, huge apologies)

martin-delemotte 2020-10-06 09:19

I like the graphics, really good job!

jakob-reborn 2020-10-06 10:09

Solid entry for sure. If I was a Schmup Lover I would be ecstatic!

aquanim 2020-10-06 14:53

The enemies' attack patterns have a bit of a Galaga feel to them that I appreciate, but *your* movements definitely have to be quite different to make best use of the time warp mechanic

It took me quite a few tries to get through it, but then again I am not all that great a shmup player so the fact that I beat it at all probably means it's not too hard.

The aesthetics are lovely and the game as a whole feels smooth, great work :)

holtzzy223 2020-10-06 17:12

Graphics are fun! love the shaders! rough mechanics at first takes a bit to get used to! fun overall!

blue05 2020-10-06 17:17

Great job on this game! It's fun to play and looks really good. An interesting take on the theme too.

dragonzbw 2020-10-06 17:18

Really cool once you get the hang of it. Starting level should be easier, the boss was easier than the first two levels. Also it felt a bit weird to have the ship's hurtbox be the whole sprite but it does sort of make sense considering the mechanic. Graphics are perfecto *chef's kiss*

edalbung 2020-10-06 18:17

I'm not a big fan of shoot'em up games, but I really liked your game!

Here are my feedback:

_Positive points - Beautiful graphics - Nice music and ambiance - Clever usage of the theme, it allowed me to appreciate the gameplay style of your game - Controls really well

_Negative points - The player attack felt a bit weak compare to the enemies attacks

Overall: very nice work!

eugenik 2020-10-06 22:38

Great!

3mpty 2020-10-07 01:17

@aquanim thanks for sticking with it and getting through the whole game! it's definitely a little challenging but I wanted to really make the player have to use the mechanic to get through

3mpty 2020-10-07 01:19

@edalbung thanks for your comment! Enemies are intentionally spongey to encourage you to use the time warp, if you could just dodge bullets and kill every enemy without using the time warp it wouldn't really be as important if you know what I mean. Idk if there's a better way to encourage the mechanic, the scoring system rewards you for good time warp use but I don't think scoring systems are strong enough encouragement to get people to play in the most interesting way

etrealjunior 2020-10-07 09:46

I liked your game my congratulations, I also did one if you want to know, and give me your feedback I am very grateful, this is the link https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/47/resurrection

marcmagus 2020-10-07 14:39

[For other Linux people, it also runs fine out of the itch launcher with no need to adjust permissions]

Solid arcade game. To my limited experience of the genre the special power was interesting and innovative. There were a couple of places where visual indicators could be tuned to make things a little clearer for the player without reducing the visual noise.

Specifically, I'd make sure enemy attacks always stand out from other element, and the glow indicating that you're about to regain control of your ship during a stasis break could be a touch clearer.

ninjacatz 2020-10-07 14:44

It turned out very cool. The game reminded me of my childhood when I played a lot of similar games. The graphics look fresh. When you lose your life due to the abundance of effects, it is difficult to find your current spaceship, so I never got through the boss.

afroant 2020-10-07 16:03

Outstanding visuals! The core gameplay was a lot of fun. Maybe just have the ship autofire instead of pressing the mouse button (won't somebody think of the fingers?). Less enemy health, more enemies exploding! The loop mechanic was confusing in that I didn't know how to use it best. Maybe it's just a nice bonus for dying? Great work, and thanks for sharing!

joedev 2020-10-07 16:32

Very fun arcade game! I dig the core concept for the mechanic, and it was quite enjoyable to hit a perfect stasis break where your 'ghost' ship acted exactly how you wanted. Really enjoy the 'retro' aesthetics too :D

ancient-pixel 2020-10-07 19:45

What a neat idea! Unfortunately once i died, i couldnt stop dying, but bullethells are not my kind of genre^^ Maybe if you would give the enemies another color, it reads better. The music and graphics were great!

ursagames 2020-10-08 03:41

Your game was played on my stream ( https://www.twitch.tv/ursagames/videos ) on 10/7. Thank you for sharing your game with us! You can find the timestamp of when your game was played here: https://tinyurl.com/yy4oycvv

herman-chau 2020-10-08 05:42

Really cool game, the level/enemy design feels very professional and in line with the genre and I loved your particle effects a lot!

I didn't fully understand how the scoring mechanics worked, but if there were some sort of multiplier for killing enemies with copies of yourself, I could see the high score runs being incredibly strategic and requiring a lot of skill.

Great game!!

3mpty 2020-10-08 07:08

@herman-chau thanks for the comment, and I'm really glad someone paid attention to the scoring mechanics!

(Scoring spoilers) Score is determined by a few things:

Kills (Kills that happen multiple times due to rewinding time DO count, so rewinding after a bloodbath can increase your score, each ship is worth 100*base hp points)

Reflecting bullets (when you phase back in, bullets near your ship turn into missiles, you get a multiplier for each projectile you reflect in one 'batch', so big reflects are worth more)

Picking up hourglasses (1000x the number of hourglasses you have after picking it up)

You lose 4000 points on being hit by an enemy

With these rules I'm not actually sure what the skill cap on scoring highly is, but I think a skilled shmup player (with a bit of practice) could easily smash my high scores, which sit at around 40-50k per level. Having an interesting score system was really important to me and I think I did an ok job, but I think the general audience of a game jam don't really care as much about score as more hardcore shmup players.

I wanted score numbers to pop up to make the system a little more transparent, but it got cut at the end in favor of making the 2nd level.

elemental-zeal-game-studios 2020-10-08 14:18

I really liked this entry. I thought the double purpose of the time pickups working as your special weapon, but also your lives (and triggering when you get hit) was really clever.

Overall a very solid shoot-em up, with a good take on the theme. Well done. :)

gonzalol 2020-10-08 14:26

I love the art, it reminds me to the classic R-Type. It's a fun starship shooting game.

fatsheep 2020-10-08 19:35

PLayed it live on https://www.twitch.tv/fatsheep__ Loved the artstyle of this, gave me real arcade vibes. Pretty cool but also very challenging, solid entry. Pretty much the only thing i could think of that would improve it would be powerups and more variety of enemies

jharler 2020-10-08 19:51

I really like the visuals of this game. The effects were spot on and really cool. Great job!

etrealjunior 2020-10-10 01:16

Congratulations to the best innovation I saw in a space shooter, I believe it would increase if the enemies had an energy bar,then if you make upgrades to the project associated with your excellent idea, a very successful project can come out, there is a good market waiting, big hug.

aljon 2020-10-10 21:32

Great job man, you took a cool existing genre, executed it well and added the theme to it!