Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD55 → Pulse of the Ethereal
By dzejpi
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 167 | 3.52 | 43 | |
| Fun | 137 | 3.54 | 43 | |
| Innovation | 269 | 2.95 | 43 | |
| Theme | 346 | 1.97 | 43 | |
| Graphics | 169 | 3.50 | 43 | |
| Audio | 60 | 3.75 | 42 | |
| Mood | 186 | 3.26 | 43 |
This is a very impressive compo entry! Music and sound fx are great. Unique control scheme separating shooting from moving. In terms of constructive feedback, I would love a target reticule telling me where my shooting target is rather than having to rely strictly on shooting lasers and watching where they go.
Not quite sure about the theme bit but otherwise had a blast, good job!
My best score was 281986.
This is such a cool game! It looks fantastic too, and controls almost like starfox. I found it a little hard to shoot where I wanted without a crosshair, but eventually I settled on a kind of straffing tactic that seemed to work, but I would like to have a crosshair.
I love that you even included bosses!
Wows, it's impressive submission for a 48 hours game jam! I dream to be on your level one day. Agree with @candlesan, a simple crosshair/pointer would remove a lot of frustration. Great job and good luck
Ahhhh!!! Intense controls, enjoyed the challenge! I like that you don't have to worry too much about flying around/outside of dodging out the way. Great game!
It's challenging to aim (might agree with people on having an optional crosshair), but learning the controls is so fun and rewarding here! Props for implementing this 3D from-back view in Godot, so impressive! (and in 48 hours, compo? Wow)
Great game!
This is a great entry! I love the controls - really innovative!
First of all, thank you **ALL** for playing and for your great feedback! :heart: I was working, but I am here now!
@candlesan true, the reticle would make it a little bit easier. There actually is one, but invisible, and the ship is shooting towards it. It's pretty far away though, so I would have to bring it closer, and I didn't have the brain capacity for that, but I agree. Thank you for the comment!
@atomicptr enemies have been summoned from the depth of cosmos, but... yeah, you're right, it's a stretch for sure, lol!
@magnusfurcifer yea, strafing tactics works the best. I agree with the crosshair, I can bring it later when the LD rating is over!
@freakyzelga you're too kind! We will all get there, and much better!
@impalpable glad you liked it and enjoyed the challenge!
@risminator glad you found the controls revarding in the end! 3D in Godot in 48 hours sounds more challenging than it is, but there have to be some corners cut for sure, and you have to be confident with Blender. But it's a great challenge and I can recommend it, it's my fourth game in 3D. I still have to get much better with vector math, because the way how some things are implemented is pretty disgusting, but that's what we do when we have only 48 hours, haha!
@bewelge thank you very much!
Rated all of your games back, thank you again!
Really, really cool, I'm addict. Not sure it's in the theme but the overall experience is really cool, I specially like the controls
Thank you for the comment, @dams333! It touches the summoning theme relatively lightly, premise is about those monsters/ships summoned by the cosmos, but otherwise yeah, it's a stretch. Rated your game back!
Hello
Amazing compo submission! The music is right on spot, I was imagining myself staying in front of arcade machine playing it thanks to the music.
I was trying to play it with a mouse, it was a bit challenge, but I manage to get used to it.
Thank you for playing, @snory! It's true that the music was a little bit arcad-y. I imagined some different one, but it never turns out that way. :) Rated your game already!
Very very cool! Strong Star Fox energy from it, but in its own way doing its own thing. Solid controls (I didn't realize the mouse aimed at first, and once I did it was like playing an entirely different game - fun experience!), good music, very decent graphics given the format and the time constraints.
It would have been cool to have some particle effects or other visual/sonic feedback for when you hit different targets, but there's only so much that can be done in a weekend.
Great job!
Loved the graphics and the overall art style ! It took me back and for that sweet nostalgia, you have my deepest gratitude !
I agree that crosshairs would've gone a long way, but I still enjoyed playing it and it only took a short while to get used to the aiming setup.
Digging the music too!
The music is awesome !
Dripping with style and creativity. I was struggling with the aim mechanic and felt blessed anytime my bullets actually hit a target lol.
Hey thanks for sharing your game, I quite enjoyed it.
I did struggle with the aiming controls as there was no crosshair to show where exactly I was shooting which made trying to target the enemies flying at me very difficult and the lack of a clear indication as to the position of my ship in relation to the incoming attacks made figuring out if I was about to be hit or not very hard until it was too late. I'm not sure if this is down to the camera angle, or just the flat lighting but it was hard to tell what the 'depth' of objects was on screen. Perhaps some additional background parallax effects (ie a moving starfield or similar) would help here.
That being said, the controls felt smooth, moving and shooting felt good, and when I did eventually start hitting things and making them explode, this also felt very satisfying. The music and sound effects are also pretty great, not too loud, not too distracting, and fit the gameplay well.
Other than the poor fit for the theme, this was a solid entry. Well done for making this in a weekend!
Thank you all for playing!
@pete-valeo oh yeah, particle effects would be great, that's a great suggestion! I was actually struggling a little bit the particle system, because I wanted to use it for explosions. I normally use Godot 4 where it works a little bit differently. I didn't want to spend too much time with figuring it out, so, explosions are just billboarded 3D sprites, ha! I will definitely have a closer look at the particle system beforehand. Or hope that they will improve HTML5 export down the line so that I don't have to use 3.5.
@laniph glad it envoked these feelings! My friend told me that it reminded him of Star Wars: X Wings from 1993, but I will be honest, Star Fox was a bigger inspiration to me.
@olenikimid & @fataljg glad you liked the music! I was relatively happy with it in the end, but I was originally planning much different one. Thankfully Nexus makes everything sound pretty good.
@the-neon-shark oh yeah, I was struggling a little bit with making them more reliable, but I felt that it was close enough lol. Have to get better at proper vectoring!
@historymaker118 those are great suggestions, especially with the depth of objects. I have to look more into some shading in the future, I usually do either flat 3D or pixel-art 3D, so, I never dealt with shading much. Noted the poor fit for the theme. I thought I was clever by having an excuse of enemies being summoned by cosmos, but clearly not, haha!
Thank you all for your amazing feedback. Played and rated all of your games back! :heart:
Tough game! Barely managed to beat it with 10HP left with a score of 534629. I found it hard to aim, and the fact that you continuously had to jiggle the mouse just to keep firing didn't make things easier :D things got very chaotic in the second half of the game, shields carried me through to the end I think.
Pretty solid game overall :D well done!
Top notch audio and great game idea. This ones my new favourite! It took a while to get used to aiming with the mouse but I think that's just me. Well done!
Love the Starfox vibe! Kinda hard to play on laptop but very unique controls and the 80's synthwave style music is a great touch!
This game was really cool! Not in the theme as far as I can see, but amazing job in 48 hours! Thank you for making ❤️
@frib now that's the intensity I am looking for. Finishing with 10 HP, that had to be an intense fight! Shields are quite useful for sure! I was able to beat the game without them, but that was pretty challenging, and required some blessings from RNG Gods, since pickups are chance based. :)
@cogcomp glad you liked the music, game and eventually got used to controls, they are slightly unusual, true.
@amerigo-gazaway thank you for your kind words! My friend tried to play it on trackpoint on his ThinkPad, and apparently it somehow works too, but I would definitely take the mouse, haha.
@gravityflip glad you liked the game! Technically, enemies are summoned by cosmos, but yeah, it's a stretch.
Thank you all very much for playing and for your feedback! Rated all of your games back too! :heart:
Gives me classic Star Fox vibes, which I approve of. Theme is a bit of a stretch but oh well, game fun :D
Thank you for playing, @themotleybrit! It is a stretch indeed. Rated your game back!
not my type of game (oops sorry) but the graphics and the game world are really cool and make you want to know more and dive into the game.
@piero-pbes-studio thank you for playing. That's understandable, we cannot like every genre. :) Glad you liked the graphics at least. Rated your game back!
Not really seeing the theme here. Nice space shooter with little janky controls. I had trouble understanding where I am aiming. Area where you can move felt little too closed and did not allow really any movement.
For movement a little inertia would make it feel more interesting
Thank you for some tougher love, @denvil! Theme is a stretch for sure, but the monsters were summoned from cosmos, so, that's at least my excuse. That said, inertia is a fantastic idea, too bad it didn't occur to me, it wouldn't be even that hard to implement. Rated your game back!
Fun game! Kinda reminded me of playing Starfox. I feel like there wasn't a reason not to shoot. Having to spam click got tiring pretty quick for me. Like others said, crosshair would've made aiming a lot less frustrating. I liked the graphic style and music, very well done on that! 🚀
Thank you for playing and feedback, @thomz12! True that maybe in this kind of game, some autoshooting would be a good idea. After the jam ended, I realised I could have implemented a "daredevil" idea like in Beat Hazard where it measures how long you don't shoot and the longer you don't, the more multiplied your score gets. But well, maybe next time. Thank you and rated your game back. :)
Very impressive for a 48h development time! My only complain (like others pointed out) would be the lack of a crosshair which would have helped tremendously as I couldn't shoot anything in my first play ^^ But I made it to the end (total score of 512630) on my second attempt, I think a few more sound effects would have been a nice bonus as well. But the graphics are very impressive, the controls works really well and yeah, 48h, this looks like a team Jam project.
Congrats! Are you planning on expanding it? :)
- Very interesting perspective, it looked cool but made it a bit awkward to aim, especially at first - The auto shoot would stop sometimes, especially later on and during bosses, I could still spam click but not hold - I shot 1 rocket at the very beginning to test it out and never got rockets again - I'm not sure if enemies had different hp or if I was just missing, but I sometimes were able to kill one side but not the other?
I really enjoy playing this. But I think adding a crosshair would be better. And the mouse sensitivity is too low for me, I wish there's an option to adjust.
This was an absolute treat visually, and progressing through the game felt really cool with the music. Could have used a crosshair, as others have mentioned, that would really complete the movement/shooting
Enjoyed the music, and the control scheme was a neat experiment. Add my voice to the crowd that would like a crosshair or some other targeting indicator. I also noticed that my fire rate when I held down LMB was very inconsistent - sometimes it was firing at about the pace I could reasonably press the button, but other times it was much, much slower. Autofire is a nice QoL feature for those of us who are trying not to get injuries from repetitive motion.
Also, the music was really solid. Nicely done.
Thank you all for playing and sorry for answering a little late, I wasn't here for few days. :)
@linky439 awesome that you got all the way to the end! I am not planning on expanding this one, but I am working on my own game in my spare time, but it's still far from done nor presentable, so, I am focusing on that one for now. But I can see how with more levels and songs, this could be a full game!
@ellaris oh yeah, you're right that shooting would sometimes be inconsistent. I ran into it too, but I had no idea why, so, I have to check and figure out, true. When it comes to those enemies, then yea, sometimes colliders are slightly off, but I am not sure why. Like I said, those pesky vectors, gotta get better at those.
@thomaszane ah, true, mouse sensitivity option would be a really good idea. Will keep in mind for the next time.
@jajo yea, I will not forget to have it next time, it's really something that this game is missing!
@brainbetter yea, will add autofire the next time, and I ran into some inconsistencies too, but was not able to figure out quickly enough what was the cause, but it's surely annoying for sure.
Thank you all very much, rated your games back! :heart:
I love the music, haha! The Swallower got me. I definitely got caught off guard when I heard familiar melody (check it out: youtu.be/lWNOLqs1IPQ?feature=shared&t=34). Funny coincidence ^^ Let me try again. I did it! I like the difficulty level and length, works great! The rotators are my favourite :D And the bosses look awesome! The aiming is a little bit unintuitive (feels non linear? idk) - a cursor would definitely help. And the game's missing spicier feedback on getting hit - when you focus on the game you can easily miss it. Other than that it's fantastic! Great job! Music always on!
Thank you for playing, @thelastslowpoke and for the great feedback! I will make sure to include some better aiming the next time, it's definitely one of the bigger shortcomings here. :) And interesting song, I can hear some similar notes, but it wasn't my inspiration, I don't know this song nor listen to metal, but maybe I should start! Rated your game back :)
Great entry! Unusual to see this kind of fully 3D shooter where you can aim freely in all directions. It's kind of difficult to aim at first but I got the hang of it over time. Sometimes it seems I was aiming correctly but I did not hit the enemies. Maybe more graphical cues as to shooting direction or enemy distance may help. Also, shooting was irregular, I sometimes had to rapid click the mouse button to keep shooting.
Hey @loveapplegames, thank you for playing! Yeah, vector maths hard, I would have to have a proper look at it after the LD rating period ends. And I ran into the irregular shooting issue, but I was not able to figure it out quickly enough. Thank you for the review, I rated your game back. :)
I really enjoyed playing the game. I think it would really help if you would be able to see the aiming spot. Also moving the ship farther away from the camera would make it easier to see where you are.
Thank you for playing, @happyglitch! Yeah, those are good suggestions, will keep in mind for the next time. Rated your game back!
WOW! What a variety!! I totally did not expect so much stuff happening on the screen. : )) That was very cool...
One question - I got the feeling it's impossible to get RIPed, strange. xD And the shield just remained. I will play more..
With some tuning this would be amazing. Solid base!!!
Wow, now that's a really impressive compo entry! Well done on making such a well-built game in such a short time! I can only imagine how much pain it took to figure out all that vector math. :D
In my first playthrough I've managed to get to the Thinker, which thought me to death I guess. But in the end I got my revenge, even though it took me a few more goes.
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It felt nice to have two separate kinds of weapons, with the rockets being a more special kind, with limited ammo, forcing you to use it sparingly. I also really enjoyed having the shield - quite a literal life-saver! One thing I'd perhaps add to it is some feedback on how long it's going to last, maybe make it blink as it reaches the end? Maybe fade it out with transparency?
I've also encountered the bug with auto-shooting sometimes being interrupted. I'm not sure what the cause is, but after looking at your code one thing I'd try is to move the cooldowns from the `_process` to the `_physics_process` method. I found it's better to have the gameplay-related timers be based on a constant delta instead of the FPS-dependent `_process` delta. Definitely makes it all more stable and predictable.
I'll agree with other commenters that aiming can be difficult, but I'd guess that's something that can be solved with some more time. Maybe adding a crosshair will help, or maybe it would be better to have something like a laser pointer shooting straight out of your ship? Tough to say, I guess that's something that needs some experimentation. ;)
The sound design is also pretty good. Everything has appropriate sounds, and there's a cool tune playing in the background. It does feel a bit arcadey, but it actually reminds me more of some techno songs and remixes from the late 90's and early 00's. :P
Overall, it's a pretty cool StarFoxy game. I had a lot of fun with it, it made me want to replay it until I got good enough to finish it, and then some more for a good measure :). Well done!
Thank you both for playing!
You mean impossible to die, @aweskybear? Well, you must be the first one, haha. Shield should stay for 15 seconds, maybe it was just a lack of feedback that would communicate the shield countdown. Glad you liked other parts!
Thank you for a truly amazing feedback, @lcstark! And you're totally right with the _physics_process instead of _process, such a rookie mistake. aka when I'm not seing the forest for the trees! :face_palm: You're right with the shield feedback, that would definitely improve the game a lot! I would go with the crosshair. There technically is one, but it's hidden and too far away, so, that should be a quite easy fix after LD if I decide to look into this game. Glad you liked the song, I created it on the second day and that was definitely an anxiety filled forenoon, haha!
Rated both of your games back! :heart:
Very cool entry! I thought the rotating laser things looked impressive. Sounds and graphics also on point! I'm not an expert at this type of game though so I immediately got rekt lol.
Thank you for playing, @myse! Yeah, it can get a little bit intense, but with some training, it's possible to rekt them back. Rated your game before, thankfully, since we're after rating period already. :)