danyvk 2023-10-02 19:42
I did not smoke enough. Very good art, very good gameplay. 420 4ever
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD54 → Calamari Odyssey
By samuli and OlenIkimid
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 930 | 3.13 | 25 | |
| Fun | 826 | 3.10 | 25 | |
| Innovation | 995 | 2.71 | 25 | |
| Theme | 1097 | 2.52 | 25 | |
| Graphics | 808 | 3.15 | 25 | |
| Audio | 432 | 3.41 | 25 | |
| Humor | 268 | 3.52 | 25 | |
| Mood | 750 | 3.30 | 25 |
I did not smoke enough. Very good art, very good gameplay. 420 4ever
What did I just see? Not gonna lie, the large wall of text scared me off a little bit. However, the game was much fun. A really liked the art style.
After 5 minutes I got a headache. Nice idea, nice graphics but maybe too confusing!
Nice idea but colours are awful
JUST GO FOR THE BARREL ROLL! LOVE YOUR ART STYLE!
@nathan-d yes the colors are awful, but that's actually the point! :smile:
[This is the effect that is being played with](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromostereopsis)
Basically, if you own a pair of [ChromaDepth glasses](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ChromaDepth) (or similar) it makes all of the graphics pop into and out of the screen (red sticks out the most, green is in the middle, while blue looks like it's "inside" the screen). The effect isn't perfect but it's our first attempt.
It might also be more obvious if all the enemies were colored the same pure RGB way but I completely forgot for the first one I made (it's supposed to be a cartoon version of Ripley from Alien, but it ended up looking like a tall Morty from Rick & Morty - I normally do sound, not graphics :sweat_smile:)
@crygos ah yes you clicked the "story" option to see the very important lore for our game :laughing: - glad you enjoyed the rest of it!
The story is written from the perspective of the squid, it's basically this:
You are a ravenously hungry space squid that "wakes up" just as its about to be chopped up for food by the station's chef/cook (the tooth is a knife, and all humans are simply meat to the squid). You grab the knife that is starting to cut into your mantle and kill the chef. You're a picky eater so you only eat some of them. You start to explore the kitchen and spot another cook (but not armed with a knife). You attack them and eat a bit. You wonder if the humans ("meat") are hungry like you. The door to the kitchen opens, a human sees you and starts firing its laser/blaster weapon at you (hence the heat and pain). You wonder why the humans are doing this to you. You kill and eat some of the human. You are still hungry.
(Then the game starts and you keep eating :wink: )
This is like a hallucinogenic fever dream... in the best possible way. I imagine if H.P. Lovecraft took a lot of mushrooms and designed a video game - it would be this one. The story alone was a trip! I loved it. The controls are responsive (although you move so damn fast), the music and sounds were great and the aesthetic was garish but eye-catching and consistent.
I starved a lot, but I really enjoyed it!
Haha, this was great! I can tell you had a lot of fun making this, it really shows through in the final game. I liked the chaotic nature of the plot and the art, it really fit together in a really fun way. It was a good feeling playing once you picked up some speed and the music really kicked in.
I liked how you were incentivized to keep killing enemies fast with the constantly ticking timer on the top of the screen and the theming of a savage monster really complimented the manic soundtrack, repulsive sound design and bright, high contrast visuals. Controls felt pretty responsive and nice aside from dodging which because of the flipping felt really disorienting.
The art style is very impressive!
i only wish the attack range was wider and it would be easier to eat people
otherwise a solid game but i have to vomit real quick
Very fast game. It literally goes from zero to 100 in no time flat. It might be nice to have the difficulty ramp up a bit , so players can easily learn what the goal is. But apart from gameplay, and this is coming from someone who grew up on DOOM, this first person billboarded game is really cool ! :D
@dioinecail it was a bit tricky balancing the attack radius to ensure some skill is involved - if there was more time I would have happily made a “slaughter” mode where the hit radius is basically half the screen so you can just run endlessly gobbling up the humans 😅.
@javasaurus technically the game does ramp up the difficulty if you keep playing (it roughly peaks after 2 full loops of the theme have played), but yes perhaps the beginning could also be less crazy so you have a moment to learn instead of immediately getting blasted at and only have about 20 seconds to live XD
I like to think of it like in that BBC documentary where the baby iguana hatches and immediately has to escape a bunch of snakes trying to eat it.
i think the "slaughter" mode would fit in perfectly here :smile:
very unique game art style ,and game play is like many old games,nice work
Great graphics, took my eyes a minute to recover. The controls feel a little too slippery, but I liked the unusual lower down perspective and being a rampaging squid.