diadem-games 2023-10-02 17:40
I had a bit difficulties understanding what the bars were actually related too.
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD54 → NarrowLabs Rumble
By stmate03
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 304 | 3.09 | 38 | |
| Fun | 305 | 2.94 | 37 | |
| Innovation | 306 | 2.87 | 37 | |
| Theme | 326 | 2.81 | 37 | |
| Graphics | 243 | 3.25 | 37 | |
| Audio | 226 | 2.95 | 37 | |
| Humor | 211 | 2.41 | 36 | |
| Mood | 222 | 3.17 | 37 |
I had a bit difficulties understanding what the bars were actually related too.
@diadem-games Yeah I forgot to explain that the bars are bound to 1,2,3, made sure to say it on the itch.io page :/ but basically they are 3 basic bars all depleting with no relation to anything besidesthe more modules you have on the more defense and less damage you do, if I ever update the project I will make the mechanic better :sweat_smile:
This game is impressive for a compo game, let alone your first project, Nice job! I have a few things that I noticed though, and I'm just gonna start listing them: The menu was a bit difficult to look at; the bright green lines kinda made my eyes hurt (but that's really just a nitpick). And, during gameplay, a crosshair indicating where I'm going to shoot would be helpful. My only big issue is that the game kept crashing on me... Not sure what caused it. It might have to do with the eye lasers, since the game would crash some time after shooting certain objects or missing an enemy. Other than that, nice job!
Like the visuals, but I don't understand how to restore these bars (maybe I need to interact with the oil barrels but don't know how to do that), also it would be better if there can a visual notification for incoming attacks so I can dodge the bullets in advance.
@seam00se Thank you! I tried my hardest to make something presentable, had to cut a lot of stuff sadly! As for the issues: -I will fix the menu if I update the project into a proper game for our "company" -Yeah forgot the crosshair will add it in the full version -Might be a nav mesh issue... fixed that quickly, if it still crashes then I will have to change up the bullet code up... got ideas but stupid ideas :/
@passbykamenrider Thank you! I made everything myself in blender, and used some settings in GODOT! as for issues and questions: -they are bound to 1,2,3 I added the keybinds to the tutorial now -Will make sure to telegraph enemy attacks better when I do make a full version for the game with my "company"
Just a heads up: Compo category requires the source code to be open source and linked to this page.
Also you've written that all versions are available on itch, but I found only the "fixed" version. Which is a shame because it seems that all robots are broken in this version: nobody is moving, nobody is dying, nobody is shooting at me, etc...
Can't rate the game this way properly :(
@nozomu57 this is why you always test builds... I fixed the issue, now it should only crash 30% of the time, as for source code: idk how to export it from godot so I dropped the project files as a zip, easy to import into godot to check code... (it was written in GDScript so only useful for GODOT anyways I think :/) however I did add it to the itch page as source code :D
An interesting concept but I feel like you needed just a little bit more time fixing bugs. Sadly I couldn't get to see the ending because of the crashes.
Despite that, shooting at robots is always fun. I felt that the game is a little bit too punishing when I had to wait around corners to wait for my health to refill even though I've killed all the enemies already.
The mechanic with managing 3 health bars is quite interesting. Usually in shooters you're deciding which weapon to use, but here you're deciding what kind of protection to equip.
Good job making the game!
@woona Thank you! and yeah I really needed a few more hours... worst of all my game refuses to crash so no clue why it continues crashing... but the absolute worst part was when I wasted a few hours fixing enemy AI to reduce lag while the incredibly large amount of objects in the rooms caused the lag... but thank you, I will hopefully eventually fix the game up with my team and make it actually playable :D
Nice game! I love the music it really fits the theme, the lasers feel like they clip through the walls tho - might be because they are really small or smthn. other than that i really liked it, the idea of managing three bars is really nice!
Sorry but I can't launch the game...
There is nothing but black in the screen:(
Congrats on your first LD! They room with the first group of robots might be a bit of a high difficulty spike since you only fought 1 before that. I did manage to beat it after a couple of tries and went on to finish it. Definitely felt cramped when getting hunted. The biggest problem I had with the game is the lack of feedback, especially in combat. I really needs some visuals and sound for hitting the robots.
@rubatotree Hey there! you are the second person to report this and I genuinely got no clue why it does that, you can bring the game to life by using the DebugStart.bat which loads the game usinf openGL, ofc for some odd reason it is more prone to crashing but atleast the game becomes playable :/ I plan to rewrite the entire game to make it work better in the future after LD is over... sorry for the inconvenience... ran out of time to fix bugs (also can't reproduce the bugs) :sweat_smile:
@silkworm-sweatshop Thank you! Yeah I realized that the difficulty spike is extremely large, congrats on beating the game tho! The feeling of crampedness is natural it was my second way of making the game a "limited space" first being the modules system, also yeah I should've added a hit sound for the robots, I will be sure to make that happen when I rewrite the entire game :D
@op-orange either an optical illusion or it actually does that, why thank you I made the music myself in beepbox, after you commented (forgot to reply whoops) I wanted to make a 3rd music for later, it's not complete sadly because I lost the groove to make it sounds good :T
Game was really fun to play, I enjoed challenging battle, but disliked, how hard it is to hit robot. Is it intentionally hard? Or maybe hit detection is just a bit buggy...
I liked the atmosphere in your game. These abandoned and dark office rooms have something unsettling to it. The combat against the robots could be a bit more responsive, but I liked the mechanics with the different types of energy(or what the bars are). It's surely not perfect, but something you can build upon.
@archeroffaith Thank you! Yeah the game has a huge difficulty spike, and if I had to guess the hit detection is buggy, when I update it I will rewrite the entire hit detection algorithm (and game itself) :D
@brokenbridge Thank you! I messed around with the environment to make it sort of like a dark creepy horror game, also yep I need to fix the hit detection and combat, and the bars are getting quite a rework, already brainstorming on the reworked gameloop with the bars, and fair to say it will hopefully be more engaging
I really liked the concept of having to do some light resource management while fighting, made for some pretty hectic moments. Played to the end, and by then I really hated the enemy robots (that's meant in a good way). The dark hallways and the red eyes make for a nice vibe and the music is catchy. I think some indicators about your attack and defense, e.g. larger or smaller explosions depending on which modules are equipped, would go a long way to make the game concept more clear. All in all well done! 💜
PS: I appreciate the Linux build. 😊 Had a few crashes though with "FATAL: Index p_index = 0 is out of bounds (shapes.size() = 0)."
@noya Thank you! I plan to add more indicators and refine the bar systems in a full game build, also appreciated that you like the music I made them all myself in beepbox, and already cooking 1 more track for a boss for the full build! ALSO YOU ARE A GODSENT FOR SENDING THE CRASHLOG NOW I HAVE AN IDEA WHY THINGS ARE CRASHING! THANK YOU SO MUCH!
It hits hard very quickly)
Robots has this color markers, not quite sure what they are for. You can kill it with any bar selected.
@mozokevgen The color markers rn refer to what type of damage they deal to you, but later (and you caught onto my post-jam schemes) they will actually have weaknesses based on colors! like green ones will be more resilient to blue and red attacks but will be weaker to green attacks! for now that is just their damage types, but already started on some post-jame upgrades :D
An impressive amount of work for a compo game! I've only made an FPS once, a long time ago, and I remember it being a difficult experience, plus I've made less in a week than you have in just two days. :D
I like the visual design of the rooms, they reminded me a lot of old-school Doom (maybe because of the barrels?) - only more cramped, which would fit the theme!
Sadly I didn't manage to get to the end. I've tried playing around 10 times, but every time the game ended with a crash. Furthest I've managed to reach was to destroy all but one of the robots from the second room. The large group of enemies took me by surprise, but if felt nice trying to fight them all while slowly trying to retreat back to the start. And trying to manage the resources at the same time made it a really hectic experience.
To add to all the feedback you already have, I think it would be good to make enemy projectiles a bit more visible. Maybe adding some lights to them, so they're clearly visible as they travel through the dark rooms would work?
@lcstark Thank you! I mostly just followed intuition and whatever online resource I could find to glue together code to make everything work as intended, I already started working on the post-jam version that probably fixes the crashing issues (maybe), adds more responsive combat, and now has the enemy projectiles being more clear added to the list, unfortunately it introduced a whole new can of issues that I need to remedy before I can release it properly... (it became incredibly laggy when I added the proper collision checks for the barrels, I have ideas to remedy this, along with easier way to make maps so I can expand to more than 1 map/floor easily)
Nice!
Nice entry, impressive for a compo! Had difficulty to spot the enemy laser shots to dodge, and it was too difficult for my to beat the room after the second door (although I tried often).
The game crased 2 times, but most of the time it was working properly.
The 3D models did a good job for the athmosphere.
I haven't seen any FPSs so far, and this one is quite fun! It took me a few tries to get through the whole thing, which to me is about the right level of difficulty for a game of this size. The robot models were cool, and the space felt tight and cluttered, which believe was intentional.
I agree with the other commenters that a crosshair and a sound when the bullets impact the other robots would be helpful. The robots also seem to make a beeline for the player, which is unfortunate because rather than enter the rooms to fight them I would get swarmed immediately and resort to slowly backing down the hallway while shooting and dodging. Maybe the robots could be "powered off" when the door opens, and "power on" once the player is well within the room?
@gilborn Thank you! I already begun working on most of the issues you mentioned and I feel like soon I can release a post-jam version to make the game more playable, tons of fixes including enemy bullet visibility, also rebalancing the levels a bit and maybe some new things too :eyes:
@henk Thank you! yeah the enemy AI rn is basically: "OMG GET TO THE PLAYER'S POSITION ASAP! GO GO GO GO GO!" which was the easier approach to get the game done in 48 hours, I plan to overhaul the AI soon (after fixing a ton of other bugs, and learning how to do so) so they will have more interesting attack patterns and enemy types, along with some overdue overhaul of basic features the game was missing due to time constraints, also I will consider your approach of powering robots on and off, and might also experiment with "spawners"
Very interesting idea. As is, it felt very difficult cause all of the enemies just sort of swarm you, but it looks like you might be working on that. Some suggestions I'll make are when an enemy is hit with a laser to have it make a noise so the player knows it is actually doing damage. An extra step would be that the enemy stops moving for a short time after being hit to make your shots feel a bit more impactful.
As for what actually was made, I liked it! The idea of having to essentially modulate your lasers to do more damage to enemies and also balance 3 different health bars is quite complicated, and I could see getting good at that system being very satisfying.
@phlip45 Thank you for your insights, yeah I'm fixing most of the issues raised here in the comments, I base my initial bucket list off of the comments here, but the project has come a long way since the jam release, still fixing some bugs that re-introduced themselves due to some coding issues on my part and I had to redo a lot of the Map assets for the same reason but it's looking better now, the idea to stop robots for a second upon getting shot might be something to consider so I will tinker around with that too!
As for the bar system, I'm still working on a way to make it more crucial to use, by introducing proper resistances and all that, trying to balance between some of the feedback in the comments and my ideas too, I have a few solutions but I need to figure out which one is the more applicable to make the bars easy to use but complex to master
Well, the graphics were good. Same with the sounds, but thats about it unfortunately. It seems like this game is marred by poor design choices and unclear mechanics. It also keeps crashing.
The main menu is kinda hard to read with the bright green with scanlines and white text.
The meter management is kinda simple, but it doesn't seem to do very much besides make the player have to press 1 2 or 3 every now and then.
A crosshair would've been nice too.
Shooting and movement is alright though, and like I said, the graphics and sounds are pretty good. I can see a good game in here, but it needs further work. It's not the worst thing I played, but it could certainly be better.
@real-flamingicecubegames Yeah, you basically pointed out all the design flaws, I could've done better, and will try to do better next time, however you are right, it needs more work, and I will work on it more, most things you said I already begun working on, we got a crosshair, I will replace the menu when I finally get a good idea for it (which is why the screen with the bright green was thrown in there), meter management will be more crucial, however thanks for saying the graphics, the sounds are nice, I will still make them better but good to know my simple music and blender skills are decent, so yeah I will be working hard to make this that "Good game" you wanted to see with further work!
A very nice compo game!
Audio is nice, the graphics are good at conveying the right mood, and the gameplay works and has an interesting mechanic with the three bars, what more can one want? :) (oh yes, the answer to that is maybe a different menu background, I agree with the people who mentioned that!)
I'd say this is an excellent first game for LD, welcome!
Nice that you got all this to work in the short amount of time! I'm especially impressed by all the 3D assets, great job!
@frank-gevaerts thank you! From the comments I deduced there is a lot more one can want but glad you like the game as is :smiley: and yes I will replace the menu background... it was the last thing I made so I was creatively bankrupt by that point :sweat_smile:
@freeworld Thank you! I had some prior experience in blender so I just threw my knowledge at the wall until it worked... you wouldn't believe me if I said I had to painstakingly put the map together into 1 model because I learned gridmaps after the jam :sweat_smile:
Great work putting this together! I think the models for the crates and barrels are looking really nice. Unfortunately the game kept crashing on me so I couldn't get super far into the game.
I also really struggled with the enemies, their shots are brutally accurate and deal a lot of damage.
Overall I think you did good job for your first LD! Keep it up!
@ciobeni Thank you! I made the crates are barrels in blender based on my vague memory of both in games, barrels almost got some classic green sludge too but never made the cut, plan to model and add more objects to the full version tho, and yeah I know of the crashing issue and I think I fixed it for the most part! Also yeah the enemies are a bit harsh so I will tone them down and bit and make their AI more intelligent so they can be toned up and down based on difficulty :D
I really like the graphics in this game, especially the 3D art style and the gameplay has also impressed me a lot. Congratulations on your first LD experience:)
@dsk thank you! :D
Fun and impressive game, really felt the effort put in it! Didn't find any problems that weren't already mentioned earlier.
I liked the graphics a lot!
@naphalm thank you! I tried to make it as high quality as I could with my limited knowledge, also didn't have much time concepting the game out in detail so I designed as I went, still glad people like my silly 3D models :D
I like the unique ideas presented here, the three different health bars are fun to manage, and I like how you can see the types of damage a bot will do based on the colors on their chest. I found the bullets a little hard to see because of how small they were, and my slow projectile speed made me miss a lot of shots. I also found it hard to quickly switch between what things I'm healing while in combat. I think it would be interesting if instead of having the healing reduce the power of bullets all-around, it only reduced the power of the bullets against the colors that you're healing. So if you're healing blue, you do a lot less damage to enemies shooting blue at you. Then you'd have a more active prioritization challenge as opposed to just turning everything off in combat. Either way though, the ideas presented here are strong and it would be really cool to see this game expanded upon. Nice job!
@aurailus Thank you! also would you believe if I said I already have theory behind implementing your idea of bar management? ideally iteration 3 (yes I had 2 iterations before) will have the bar you activate deal more damage to other types so blue deals more damage to red and green this applies to both sides... so you either have blue on to defend blue or you take more damage to deal more damage, I'm unsure if this approach is perfect if you have feedback to write a comment here, also I made the shots bigger and better looking, and I may buff projectile speed
Grats for your first LD! It's a good entry as your first one. The graphics is looking good and I like that. I agree with others that the lack of feedback is probably the most notable issue with your game. Anyway well done and keep up with the good work!
@tanis thank you! I'm working on improving the feedback to the user with particles and proper crosshairs etc etc I will keep up the great work! :D