kreshi 2022-04-03 17:44
5/5 Stars
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD50 → [HTML5/WebGL] Be the Inevitable
By leorid
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 651 | 3.55 | 30 | |
| Fun | 141 | 3.94 | 30 | |
| Innovation | 1318 | 2.44 | 30 | |
| Theme | 1368 | 2.48 | 30 | |
| Graphics | 1169 | 2.80 | 30 | |
| Humor | 844 | 2.68 | 27 | |
| Mood | 946 | 3.24 | 29 |
5/5 Stars
Overall was fun, do feel like the link with the theme was a bit weak though
Good twist on the theme and I thought the maps were well designed.
I felt like it was good overall. I would say just slight difficulty tweaks and you would be good to go.
@tellyhead The grey and empty levels are a perfect representation of my ideas for this theme. I think my brain had a short circuit when it got announced and then continued to only yield the same endless-runner idea I didn't want to execute. Even now after playing a dozen games there's nothing but void when I think about combining the theme with anything else than an highscore-game. (which seemingly 99% of the entries are EDIT: which isn't bad at all, just not something I'm interested in developing. Playing and enjoying them has nothing to do with creating such games ^^)
@tiny-pig Thanks :D
@kidderttv Difficulty up or down? I heared both suggestions as well as keeping it as it is xD I'm very confused about this one already xD
Had a lot of fun with this one, well designed. Difficulty was on point, IMO.
Had a giggle when I read the "you are inevitable" :laughing: Overall quite fun, some camera shakes to give tactile feedback maybe? The shotgun was satisfying AF!
shotgun knockback was fun. difficulty is too easy BUT i had a lot of fun going for a pacifist speedrun using shotgun knockback! fun game
I love the music and sfx, it fits perfectly in my opinion. But what i really like in this game is the weapon feel, it is simple, but i like a lot, i dont know why exactly xD
@savidu-karunaratne, @farzher, @shaktal3 Very happy to hear that you liked the knockback, I actually had to rewrite the character controller for it to work. Instead of setting the rigidbody.velocity, I had to use Vector3.MoveTowards, so it can be affected by external forces (knockback). ^^ At first it was just a camera-shake but then I went for actually moving the player and increased the values quite a bit until it felt very impactful.
Solid entry!! The music was a bit too loud for me, I had to silence the tab. I love how if you place the mouse right above the head you becom a bayblade haha. Weapons feel nice and responsive, they add a lot to the gameplay. Congrats on your game!! :D
I eventually started using the shotgun knockback as a bit of a dash which was a fun perhaps unintended use.
I see a lot of comments on the difficulty - in my opinion it was just fine. My jam games usually turn out too difficult or too easy and this one was neither to me.
My playthrough for if you find it interesting to see someone play your game (no commentary): https://youtu.be/HY6woN0PBeQ
I liked the knockback of the various guns. It was interesting to try out the different weapons. Machine gun ended up being my favorite. I would say the game could benefit greatly from a bit more visual design. I like the mirrors edge/superhot sort of vibe going on here. I think if there was just a bit more variance in the elements that show up in the areas. It is just cubes which felt bland after a bit. I would also like to see a second and third enemy type. But honestly, I did have fun with it and I finished it.
This was fun, it's been quite some time since I've played a top-down shooter. :-)
For me, the controls were a bit problematic at times but I believe it was mostly due to my mouse cursor going out of the play area somewhat often which prevented me from shooting. Also, the health bar and chosen weapon indicator are quite big and can sometimes hide an enemy in the left upper corner.
But these are small things. :-) I think the music was pretty intense which fit the game nicely. And the recoil effect was a nice touch!
Hi there. This is a great game! I have had a lot of fun) I think that machinegun is overpower think so maybe you should balance it more accuracy. For example maybe you should make accuracy of machine gun more less than accuracy of pistol. And for my story ends quite unexpected. Sadly, that I haven't seen treasure(( And for me it was quite low difficulty. Maybe if you have added enemies with shootgun, it would be harder and interesting? But for LD it is a great job! Well done!
Really had fun with this game. Strong Hotline Miami vibes. I really like how the shotgun knocked the player back a lot, I was using that to dash around and dodge enemies. I think the last levels could have been a bit harder but still enjoyed them a lot. Graphics were pretty minimal but did the job and the gunplay felt great. Definitely best shooter genre submission I've played!
I had a good time sprinting through these levels. Agree with commenter above it strongly reminds me of Hotline Miami. Difficulty and pacing were on point for me, I was able to keep moving the whole time and ended each level with a sliver of health. I think the minimal graphics were effective, and the laser looks awesome, it made me enjoy swinging the gun around the screen to watch the laser.
Awesome game! Love the 2.5d effect on the walls, the knockback, and the particles. Sound effects and music were amazing as well. If you ever want to experiment, limiting ammo might be a great way to encourage the player to keep switching between weapons, finding the right tool for the job - and making a spray-clearing of a room all the more satisfyingly when you are willing to spend the rile ammo doing so.
Really well done, a very satisfying play Time to go play Hotline Miami for the thousandth time! 😉
@webox I'm sorry, I think I had my system volume turned down when making the game, still glad you enjoyed it :D
@ayced I love to see gameplay, thanks a lot for recording and uploading :)
@tanner-shelton Yes, I agree 100% that more visual elements would've made it a better entry. What hindered me from adding them was mostly the lack of a proper story/theme. "Be the inevitable (grudge of an acient treasure, while fighting modern military with weapons)" was something I didn't really know what environment I should create. It could be a spaceship or an office space or a weapon facility or anything. Unable to make a decision I went with nothing instead which wasn't the best choice tbh.
@mikropiru Thanks for the info. I will definately test my next jam game in different resultions (I played it only in 2k and 4k where the UI is very small)
@krakadushka Treasure, right, I should have added one but at the end I was just thinking about giving it an overall theme (for the whole environement), but couldn't really make a decision and uploaded it instead. Next time I'll try to write those things down and then randomly point with my finger on the list to not get stuck on a decision. xD
@lvl99chicken I haven't played Hotline Miami myself but watched some videos during the jam for inspiration purposes (because everyone keeps mentioning it, I think I'll just buy and play the game now xD )
@macs Unity Line Renderer + Raycast FTW xD Glad you enjoyed it :D
@ugly-robot I thought about adding ammo and reload but remembered LD 46 where those things really went wrong, costing a lot of time to implement, so I dismissed the idea. This was supposed to be a compo entry but I failed at creating the sound effects, so I had to go with Jam instead, still uploaded it within 48h and wrote/made everything from scratch (except Audio).
Nice and fun top down shooter.
First of all, the music was very impressive. It added a lot to the pacing of the game and gave it a sense of urgency. But since you did not want to be rated on it, was that an external composition? Would have been very impressive if it was yours.
A few thoughts about potential for improvement
You already thought about a few things to add some game feel, like the push-back on the assault rifle, but I think an action-focused game like this can use a lot more juice. In these situations I like to recommend this talk by Jan Willem Nijman of Vlambeer, it was an eye opener for me in terms of what to do to make a game feel impactful:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJdEqssNZ-U
Some specific things:
* Wall gliding could be improved so that the player does not slow down when moving along walls * Guns should not shoot much further than the camera visibilty. I was able to cheese myself through the third level without being hit a single time because I could just spray the enemies from off screen with the assault rifle * The camera should move towards the direction the player is facing or walking so that forward visibility is improved. I already know what's behind me, but I would like to see what's coming up so that the enemies do not jump me. It would be different in a horror game, but this is a classic shooter, so visibility should probably be a bit better. * Having to collect the gun right at the beginning of each level was a bit weird, especially after the intro guy handing over the first gun was an important event within the game. This broke continuity a bit. * I found the theme to be a bit underemployed. I understand that we are the inevitable and I liked that twist, but I didn't feel I did a lot to delay it, quite the opposite.
All in all it was an enjoyable game and I would encourage you to try juicing the crap out of it post jam just to see how far you can take it and see how that feels.
Good job!
@cerno-b I actually tried making such music within the compo, but with no prior experience in music composing, I failed horribly. xD Then I thought if I should just add my small little Techno-Loop and thought about the other Sound Effects like Gunshots and had absolutely no idea how to make them. That's why I switched from Compo to Jam. I still uploaded it in 48 hours but all the sounds are 3rd party. The music is from Wikipedia btw.
Maybe I can learn how to compose such cool tracks till the next jam.
Meanwhile I'm using the Game for prototyping some stuff as it is my only project that doesn't use any navmesh (a good starting point for procedurally generated levels).
Ah right and about the theme, it's a bit weak but generally, "the opposite" as you say it is the correct one. Enemies try to delay you and when they kill you, you get the message to create a new physical body, so they succeeded in delaying you, but they can't stop you. It's not your job to delay anything, it's theirs. Your job is to push through. ^^
I could've explained that way better. Next Jam I'll try to do better (like before) in terms of theme in general and storytelling.
Thanks a lot for your elaborate feedback. :D
@leorid Crap. I wrote a long paragraph on tips for music generation and then Firefox crashed and I don't feel like typing it all up again, sorry.
The gist without the wall of text (all the content of my original comment without the fluff):
* You can use sound generators (bfxr, sfxr, chiptone) in the Compo. They don't fit every game, but you get results really fast * Bosca Ceoil is a great sampler for beginner composers. The options are limited but the learning curve is really good * I recently learned of 1BITDRAGON which is tailored for people with limited music knowledge. It costs $20 but it looks really impressive. They have a demo video to check out if it is a good fit for your style.
Both these music tools produce a distinct 8-bit style, so it may not entirely fit a more modern looking game, but it's a great place to start before you graduate to other tools like FLStudio or other DAWs which can be overwhelming for beginners.
@cerno-b I used SFXR before (I think that was the name of the thing) but it's not really for music. And mixing my techno-loop (which wasn't impressive at all) with 8-bit sounds would've been non-cohesive I think.
I'll check out 1BITDRAGON.
Bosca Ceoil .. I think I looked into this one or a port of it for web-interface? IDK. I could make music with them that fit with the 8-bit sounds but it won't lead me to something like the track I used in the game.
Thanks for all the suggestion, I'll see where my curiosity leads me in terms of music. ^^
I enjoyed the game and all the weapons had their own flavor. The shotgun was really impactful and satisfying - good job.
I am not 100% sure I like the twist that I was the inevitable but I have not played any other LDJ50 game that has this twist so it was Unique, at least for me :)
GOOD LUCK!