FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD56 → Critter Mayhem

Critter Mayhem

By machwerx

View on ldjam.com

CategoryRankScoreCount
Overall3373.7528
Fun1533.8829
Innovation3773.5028
Theme6113.5928
Graphics5313.6829
Audio774.0427
Humor8022.5224
Mood3393.7628

Comments

armainap 2024-10-08 15:57

The music is quite calming!

joel-davis 2024-10-08 16:39

Really fun and nice graphics. Lot of personality in a simple game. I'd love a little arrow pointing towards the pickups when they are offscreen, a couple times I got "lost". Nice job

jminor 2024-10-09 06:34

Fun! It feels like a matador dodging a bull. Nice job!

ellearx 2024-10-12 01:42

Love the vibe! Has a nice fluid movement and very relaxing music. Would be great if it had more obstacles, enemies and a bigger space to move around. Beautiful nonetheless! :) PS: as a fellow participant I´d recommend you interacted more with other games so yours could reach more people :)

machwerx 2024-10-12 01:52

@ellearx Thanks for the feedback! I just started interacting with some other games but I'm on a Mac so I'm limited to just Mac and Web games so far...

smilewood 2024-10-12 01:57

Fantastic use of flocking for a game, I enjoyed guiding them around trying to dodge the whale. The speed ramping gets intense pretty fast, by the time I got to 15 it never felt like more then luck to doge anymore. The music is nice and calming, the overall vibe of th game really does it for me. Well done!

ellearx 2024-10-12 01:59

@machwerx Good luck!!!

oliver-day 2024-10-12 02:04

I couldn't find any pearls the first round and even though I liked the graphics there were a lot of gaps in the rock meshes (was that intentional though?). Still a fun game

deruitda 2024-10-12 02:27

Great audio

dantaro 2024-10-12 02:31

The game features beautiful aesthetics that create an immersive atmosphere. I particularly enjoy the "floating" effect while exploring the "ocean", which adds a unique sense of tranquility. The music is atmospheric and complements the overall experience beautifully.

machwerx 2024-10-12 04:32

@oliver-day Thanks for trying it out. The pearls are the little pink spheres and collecting them increases your flock. But they're randomly places so they might have been a bit offscreen so I hope you can find them if you try again.

machinic 2024-10-12 04:49

Great fundamental mechanics. Very fitting soundtrack. Cute use of boids (I think?). The gameplay would feel a bit more rich if you could scatter/split, and had an advantage to grouping up (maybe getting more from food)? Obviously it wouldn't have to be that specifically, but something to make the gameplay more nuanced.

samuli 2024-10-12 10:26

Superb mood and enjoyable gameplay. I was able to get 18 points! I think the length of a one session ins pretty spot on, not too long to disencourage the high score play.

tete 2024-10-12 10:32

Neat little game that fits the theme. I found that the best strategy for higher levels is to aim for the side of the whale, since it doesn't turn too fast (I got a score of 31).

someone 2024-10-12 10:37

That was nice chill game. I do like a good flocking behaviour. The scatter mechanic wasn't particularly great for avoiding the spherical whale, and does very little with few creatures. I also kept clicking outside the window which was not ideal (it worked better in a window than full screen). 18 was my highest score. It seemed impossible to avoid the whale around that point. It was easy to get lost if you decide to explore the map rather than stick around where the pearls all spawned.

machwerx 2024-10-12 15:46

Thanks to everyone for your feedback!

@machinic Hah, we have similar names! I custom programmed my own flocking but it's probably pretty similar to boids. Each critter tries to move towards the closest other critter but also towards the mouse pointer. Also there's a very primitive scatter that happens when you click the screen. The radius of it increases when you have more critters.

@tete Wow, I wasn't sure if it was possible to get over 30. 31 is impressive!

@someone It's possible to avoid the whale consistently up to around 21 but you have to move orthogonal to it at just the right time. The scatter helps and it scatters more the larger your flock is. If it's large enough, you can scatter right before the whale arrives and then regroup behind it. But it's pretty tricky to get that timing right.

grummelchen 2024-10-13 13:28

Like the concept and the music. I find the hit sound when you hit one of the balls is quite high, and a bit uncomfortable. I like the smooth gameplay. My only issue is that the enemy sphere is quite erratic in how hard it is to dodge

pachino55 2024-10-13 15:30

Calming music, I really like the chill vibes this game brings

bashem 2024-10-13 15:40

Got to 25 so far. Since the spawn points are concentrated in a limited area the best strategy seems to be going in circles trying to keep the whale at the opposite side. Will definitely come back later to try to beat @tete 's record!

natnspectrum 2024-10-13 18:24

I really enjoyed this! Managed to get to 20 points once. I would say the inclusion of an arrow to direct where the next orb spawns wouldn't go a miss, while most were central and easy to find, there were a few cases where said arrow would have been nice.

Also the hit box for the whale, felt a bit annoying when I would run into its rear end and still get ate!

Otherwise, excellent game! Well made!

tharinda-kodikara 2024-10-14 14:40

Cool game, fun to play. Well done!

urfoex 2024-10-14 18:28

Nice entry.

Would be nice to have a little indicator, where the next thing is. I flew out too far and didn't find back 🙈

exa 2024-10-15 07:09

Nice game,very interesting plot!!!!Nice job!!!!

pepnou 2024-10-15 17:29

Nice game. I would have like for the ball to not move to fast to quickly to be able to gather a larger flock. Prety relaxing with the music (the ping is a bit to high volume) if you forget the ball trying to squash you :)

Nice entry, good job.

brainles-etertainment 2024-10-17 18:43

Wow! Very cool game. I liked the simplicity of controls. The game play pretty relaxing and chilling, nice time-killer. At first I was confused since didn't understand what to do, when I found the first pearl everything became clear. I think multiplayer version would be pretty fun.

brainles-etertainment 2024-10-17 18:45

Btw, any change of itch.io-version? I would added it to my favorites.

machwerx 2024-10-19 18:52

Thank you all for your feedback! I've made some bug fixes per people's comments:

@oliver-day, @someone, @natnspectrum, @urfoex: I've added indicators for the pearl and the whale when they're off-screen and I've fixed the rock mesh gaps

@grummelchen, @pepnou: I've lowered the pitch and volume on the pings from the pearl to be less jarring

@brainles-etertainment: I'm glad you enjoyed it! I've added an itch.io link. Here it is as well: https://machwerx.itch.io/critter-mayhem

suchista 2024-10-19 19:51

Very cool and relaxing game, held my attention for a while. The art is nice, though at first I thought the asteroids were collidable. My high score is 29. Gj! critter-mayhem-score.png