Surface Battle by Zerod 2014-04-28T17:31:00
Loved the variety of weapons!
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → Users → bucketh3ad
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Rank | Ov | Fu | In | Th | Gr | Au | Hu | Mo | Co | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | 50 | Delay the inevitable | Tantric Adventurer | compo | 457 | 3.18 | 3.00 | 2.64 | 2.96 | 2.82 | 4.07 | 3.89 | 3.35 | ||
| 2014 | 29 | Beneath the Surface | Klein Bottle Asteroids | compo | 961 | 2.75 | 2.53 | 2.90 | 2.50 | 2.42 | 1.53 | 1.65 | 2.18 | 96 |
Loved the variety of weapons!
Never before have I seen limericks used to tell a serious story, let alone within a game. Max points for innovation. Enabling fullscreen in the browser was a great way to add immersion.
Loved the graphics! The collection mechanic made for an interesting variation.
The graphics are fantastic, especially the way the boat moves on the surface. The bass riff in the background and the sound effects add a lot to the experience. Really fun game, man!
Cool variation on the standard twin stick shooter. I like that the world took damage rather than the player.
I wish you weren't finding the early levels so challenging, as the unique mechanics aren't until the later parts of the game. Unfortunately, I didn't have time to implement multiple shots, but you can fire as soon as your shot hits something. Using that, a good strategy is to get close to a large enemy and then take them and their spawn out rapid fire.
Please keep trying, guys! I would love some feedback on the Mobius and Klein surfaces.
I wanted there to be a way to choose any surface, but ran out of time to add that feature in.
However,if you would like to choose your starting surface, the code is hot-swappable here. http://share-elm.com/sprout/535debbce4b0e548f3686d4f
Change the defaultGame surface from Rectangle to one of the SurfaceTypes listed above it, click compile, and once it is done you can play on the right side.
http://nesbox.com/own
For anybody too lazy to look for an emulator.
Really fun game, man!
I like the idea, but the core mechanic needs some fine tuning. Without enough time to see and react to obstacles, there isn't really a way for the player to improve their skill level by playing more.
The music got repetitive quickly, but I think that with a long, evolving ambient track instead, the beauty in the simplicity would this a great casual game.
The neon aesthetic looks great. My main complaint it that it broke immersion to have the score appear as a pop up alert rather than inside the game.
Very unique theme-oriented core mechanic with definite potential for refinement in this or future games. The background sound is the only obvious weak spot.
Great job on the core mechanic! It's got a ton of potential, and is quite unique. I can envision a really interesting puzzle mode, where your goal is to achieve a certain score or final configuration given an existing board. However, I feel like experimenting with more interesting configurations is limited by the small size of the board.
The controls could use some work, but it seems like an interesting idea.
Hilarious flavor text on missions! The ship acceleration feels a bit touchy, but with a bit of adjustment to the handling, I see a lot of replay value here.
This is a really fun and surprisingly complete game, although there is one game-breaking problem. The chasing enemies followed me back to the spawn point and I died immediately twice in a row without time to even fire a shot. Prevent that sort of instant death from happening and I see a lot of replay value here, especially when experimenting with different combinations of upgrades.
I liked the water effect. It really added a feeling of depth to the level.
Great mechanics, but I found the controls frustrating. Shooting with the mouse button and controlling shot direction with the keyboard is an awkward combination.
Controls were almost too sensitive to play, but it seems like the makings of a very fun game once the mechanics are more refined.
Background gave me a headache after a while, but the gameplay itself was fun.
I really like the idea, but the mechanic doesn't quite seem there yet, mostly because 5, and 6 appear to be the only sensible choices. Since choosing 5 guarantees a gain of either 3 or 5 with no way to undermine, and 6 can only be undermined with 1, sticking with either or switching between those two randomly beats dice rolls the majority of games.
Assuming your opponent plays randomly, choosing 1 or 2 averages a loss of -3/2(-1.5), 3 averages -5/6(-0.88), 4 averages +1, 5 averages +5/3(+1.66), and 6 averages +11/6(+1.83)
If you want there to be more depth of strategy, you need to rethink the mechanic some in order to make lower point plays potentially more valuable.
Surprisingly complete and well executed given the scope of the game. The enemy AI could be a little less aggressive, as I found myself overwhelmed early in my first two attempts while I was still trying to figure out how to play. It is difficult to manage units without control groups, so I usually end up making a large patrol for defense and sending out smaller raiding parties. Still, in spite of any issues, this is a great casual RTS.
Fun and beautiful game! My favorite thing was to make a whole column of knocked over chairs into antimatter and then push them all in at once. Loved the different weights of the objects and seeing the growing impact of the black hole by watching the objects around me. Took 4 tries to get the good ending, since I fell in a couple times. I would love to play as Anti-matter Man and stop black holes in all types of settings. Great work!
I thought it was a cool choice to have the tank stop in place and turn when issuing a new move. Needing to account for that and trying to strafe rather than moving as often as possible or going directly at enemies head on made combat pretty interesting. Between that and the time rewind, a little refinement would have you with a really fun core mechanic. If you're interested in other challenging isometric tank games, Brigador might be a good source of inspiration, as I saw a lot of that game in this prototype. Good work!
So awesome! Reminded me of some of those old DOS physics games I loved so much. Sim gets a little choppy later in the round, but even with that, the level of optimization you achieved on your fluid physics in 48 hours is quite impressive. Also didn't negatively affect the gameplay, which was a total blast. I got a perfect 18 on Really Hard. I'll keep this one on the hard drive for a rainy day.
Menu pulled me in right away with the art and music, then once in the game the pixel art floaty spaceman and alien ship vibes and the helmet radio band-pass voiceover did a great job at immersing me in the world. Not much gameplay yet, sure, but I was suprisingly invested in spite of that. Oh, and the Windows build worked for me on Linux using Wine, just so you know. Well done
I like the serious take on the theme contrasted with the lighthearted arcade gameplay. The jumping is tough but fair; tight enough that you have to focus, but not so much that it feels punishing. Managed to get to 225 before missing the gap on my best run. At least I think it was. The highscore doesn't save. Other than that one thing, it seems pretty well balanced and complete. Nice work!
I think you did a great job of recreating your 2d game in 3d, especially the death animation which I thought was a cute touch. Some type of graphical element that better indicates the player's actions would be helpful. I knew I was losing when the mouth started closing, but I never really felt like I was having much impact. Whether it's a complex UI element like a bar that you have to keep charged up or even something simple like animating the arms, I think it would add a lot. Keep it up!
Love the typing/block stacker hybrid. Not enough physics in most typing games. I generally type between 100-120wpm, and I managed to get a score of 110 in the game. Not sure if that was coincidental or not, but I found it amusing either way. The sound effect when a word is typed successfully feels very satisfying. I wish the difficulty started a bit higher and ramped up more gradually, and there were a couple times when I was typing fast that it felt like the game ate my inputs, but that could have just been a typing error. Overall a solid typing game and something I might come back to when my fingers need a warm up.
Really fun combo of a physics game and a word game. I thought it added a lot of excitement that the openings created by making words gave you limited time opportunities to new combos if you were fast enough to get them before the other piggies dropped. I snoozed an alarm twice so I could keep my round going. Some further refinement of the scaling and the controls and you could have a real hit on your hands. Great work!
I like that the bullets collide with the outline of the numbers. That makes the combat feel a lot more interesting than shooting the equivalent sized blocks would be, and the particles on impact make killing time even more fun than killing enemies! Also lets you do cool things with the interaction of enemies blocking numbers. Fun little shooter! This jam was my first time using Godot, so I'll definitely be checking out your project for ideas on implementing better enemies and particle effects. Great work!
Killer vibe with the robotic countdown, presidential text feed, and really solid graphics for the main display and HUD overlay. I found it quite challenging, so the best I could do was about 30% evacuated and a lot of upgrades unused. Wouldn't mind a few pointers, actually. I'd like to give it another go and try for the win. If I can't get my Kirby megaton punch style asteroid-splitting action on, I at least need to evacuate everybody. Super fun and really well done!
@benbennett Thanks for the tip! Beat it no sweat (well, got down to single seconds after I missed two shots in a row but that was on me) Absolutely worth it for my sweet, sweet victory.
@damnscout The "Adventure Bar" as I call it charges up whenever an enemy is in your combat aura. I intended that mechanic to invert the typical twin stick gameplay of "always be shooting, kill everything as fast as you can" and the optimal avoider game strategy "stay as far away from everything as you can" so that you want to stay close to the enemies, still without getting hit, and kill them as slowly as you can. I also added a special attack to the adventure bar when it is fully charged, making it a delicate dance to maximize your score before defeating the enemies.
I had some grander plans for things like level design, camera movement and effects, and multiple dungeon floors that scale in difficulty, so hopefully I can explore some of that now that I have more time and a solid base to iterate on. Thanks for your feedback!
Thank you all so much for your feedback. It makes me really happy to know how much you enjoyed the music and the game. In honor of the one week anniversary of the start of LD50, I've remastered the soundtrack and uploaded it to the game's itch page as a separate download! Thanks again for your kind words and good luck on all of your adventures!
@emberushi @david-york @frizuo @nicmagnier @iluvatar @nick-barrash @forgin-bits @victris-games @koningmathijs @itzemii @glayson @elede @jesus-gonzalez @ftl-sloth @candlesan @pio
Old school pixel brawlers are a particular favorite of mine, so I was sold the moment I saw this and had a blast playing. I really like the simplicity and elegance of the combat mechanic. It was perhaps too much of a struggle to escape when tightly surrounded, but I found a way to abuse the walls to make enemies stack and protect my flank. Great work!
Solid art for 1-bit style. I did find the confirmation dialog box could be confusing, but otherwise it had it's own special charm, and I liked all of the different enemy sprites. That darn Tomato is my nemesis though! I tried to wait out the scaling for a couple of turns to find an opening in his defenses and got destroyed, since he only grew in power. Considering this was your first go at a deck builder, I'd say you have a real knack for it. Keep it up!
Great progression and variety in the puzzles, and it was really fantastic to see not only a complete gameplay experience but a narrative one as well. I'm very impressed at the breadth of content you managed to create while maintaining such a high quality level. Bravo!
I really like the graphics, especially the logo for the game and the factions, and the glorious spectacle of nuclear annihilation. I never got too good of a feel for strategy, it was mostly just a mad dash and trying to tamp down whichever side gets higher. Without a way to get rid of cards I would always wind up with the wrong hand and get to enjoy another nukefest. I could watch those all day, baby.
Incidentally, got the Windows build working in Linux with Wine.
Great job!
I didn't print the game out since I don't have enough physical dice to play, but I did simulate some dice rolls and card draws with code so I could get an idea how the game plays out. I quite like the game loop overall, and I'm sure it's a lot more satisfying and streamlined rolling a handful of real dice and lining them up on the cards. The one page rules were thoughtfully laid out, and I appreciate the inclusion of a graph to help players better intuit the risk of rolling greater numbers of dice. I did find use of the word "upright" to be initially unclear with regards to the face down cards in the scoring area, but once I realized the square next to the name was for the reserve die and that it was obscured when the card was upside down, it made a lot more sense. Good work.
Fun little planet defender. I like how you took the theme into account not only with the mechanics but the setting as well. The bombardment ramped up a ton right around the 8 minute mark and I lost almost everyone, but still lasted another 30 seconds or so with my last laser dino. I managed to get a bit of time variance in the shots when I was holding down space while new dinos spawned in, and I found I missed that when I eventually let up and they afterwards resumed shooting in unison. Art and music gave it all a cohesive vibe and made the game feel like a complete experience. Nicely done!
Loved your entry! I feel like we both went for a really similar vibe with our games: behatted wizard fighting slimy dudes in top down style. It's almost like if you used my art as a rough draft and then made this beautifully animated masterpiece. I will say, I do have the edge on you when it comes to audio, but without that, you'd have me beat on every front. Well done!
Presentation is top notch. I really like the inclusion of a main menu with options and the dynamic camera angles to help link it to the game. Features like that show a lot of consideration for the player even during a jam. The low graphics worked much better for me, so I especially appreciate that option. If I had one critique, it's that a few of the enemy moves aren't very well telegraphed, but it's a pretty fun doomsday whack-a-mole even if I'm not always sure who just ended the world.
Congrats on getting a hand-coded shader in the game! Sounds like you managed to get a ton implemented in a short time given what you started with.
I enjoyed the purple void aesthetic, and I like that it's the void doing damage instead of the enemies. Would have liked to see a timer and score counter in the game, but after happily discovering that the game over screen showed my prior scores as well (bugs are just features you didn't know you had?) I actually didn't miss it, since the game is about living as long as possible anyway. A few rough edges, but with the constraints that's an inevitability. Oh, and the Windows build worked for me on Linux with Wine. Fun little shooter!
I got an error that popped up in the unity player after loading the page, although I could still play the game
``` HTTP Response Header "Content-Type" configured incorrectly on the server for file Build/Web.wasm , should be "application/wasm". Startup time performance will suffer. ```
The collision physics is really janky for me. Not sure if it's related to that error, but I'll wait to rate until I know for sure.
Love that you successfully gamified a sound toy, and quite a fun one at that. I like the missile command style expanding area mechanic and the simple but clear visuals. It wasn't entirely intuitive from the start, but I've seen other audio/visual synthesis experiences that have less clarity and discoverability and were presumably made with none of the constraints. I also enjoy the multiple meanings of the word "delay" in this context, and the way that ties back in with the theme and the game loop. Look forward to playing with this more.
It's got those Tony Hawk grind combo vibes mixed with some old school snake. The sound effects make chaining combos super satisfying. I also like the uniqueness of the mouse controls. Heavier than typical rolling ball feel that I'm accustomed to from other games, so takes a bit more finesse. The vector pointer gives good feedback and the cursor is unobtrusive but still helpful when you need it, so it became intuitive quite quickly. I'm gonna come back later and defend my high score once there's some real competition ;)
LOVE IT!
I like the asteroid graphics. Gives it a sort of rogue squadron feel even with the more high resolution look of the ship and station. Only issue I noticed was my score ticked up from 29 to 30 on the game over screen, which was a little surprising. Other than that, well polished, fun, engaging experience. Great work!
I got an error with the Linux build
``` ./atlantis: /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6: version `GLIBC_2.33' not found (required by ./atlantis) ```
but fortunately the Windows build worked for me with Wine. Probably a local issue, but wanted you to be aware since it's your own code.
EDIT: Upon further review, I've seen you're already aware of the issue. Hard to read every comment :)
Balance issues and gameplay quibbles have been addressed elsewhere, so I'd just like to add that I'm really inspired by your technical craftsmanship and am glad I have this game as a resource, both as a gamer and a game developer.
Fun little idle-style physics game. My first attempt I died rather soon. After I saw your hint below the game, I was able to narrowly make it through that first hurdle and get to the 4th ant. I stabilized at 5x while upgrading long enough to get the diamond sand upgrade. I stopped upgrading after that and let the game wind down for my total cash out of $14,621,005 antsinanhourglass.png
With some more time to tweak it, you could get that difficulty ramp tuned nicely. Even without game balance, add a bit of plinko action to the falling sand in the upper hourglass and I'd be fine to keep it on 2x and groove out with the soundtrack while I watch my ants work. Great job all around!
Cute take on the theme. I was jamming to the quackin' bongo groove, but when the squeaks kicked in I knew we had a certified bop on our hands. Love the paint style art and wiggly sock faces. Also appreciate the inclusion of menu options. I got a perfect 3 on easy pairs, but couldn't do any better than 3 on hard, either. I would have liked some type of time indicator, since I was a little confused about the end condition on the first playthrough, but otherwise a solid game. Rocked my socks off :)
Solid take on a classic format. I liked the graphical style, but I found the UI overlay with mixed good and bad icons on each side confusing. Perhaps group them together so the player can more easily see the associations. Gameplay ramped up to impossible by the end, and while a hard difficulty can be rewarding to skilled players, if it feels unfair that will keep players from coming back to reach that level of mastery. Given what you set out to accomplish, I think you should be proud of your success.
Absolute blast, and an absurd amount of gameplay. Seriously, almost all of those mini games could have been refined into a full game and you've got like a dozen? Ridiculous. The bounce game has a brutal start, but other than that I thought everything was pretty fair, with a couple easy cake walks to take the pressure off, so pretty well balanced. I'm 4th on the leaderboard now, but I'll come back later and try for that top spot.
Great gameplay, great aesthetics, and a fun experience. Rather than repeating other comments on the art, I'd just like to add that I really appreciate how the various danger indicator exclamation marks were not only different colors, but different shapes. Such care and consideration for UI clarity and accessibility is awesome to see. I'm a bit bummed that I didn't run into the 4th variation of it until day 46, when I had stopped exploring and was waiting to freeze, but that's only because I'd run out of other upgrades to build and cool things to collect. Can't wait for the full version!
Big time Mini Metro vibes, in a good way. I like the cup overflow idea, and the gameplay and concept both work well with the theme, but it seems like it was quite challenging to execute on in the timeframe. I had a hard time with the controls, and real life fluid physics wouldn't transfer over in a particularly fun way, so you need more play testing and balancing time than you have in the Compo format to really make things click. I think if you put more thought into making the control scheme as flexible and intuitive as you can, this could be a cool game to take further, since the core mechanic is actually quite fun in spite of the rough edges.
It was a bit challenging early on when I needed to conserve ammo and risk melee damage, and I died immediately the first time the ranged enemies showed up. But next attempt I was able to quickly scale damage to a point where I could one shot any enemy, and made it to round 20 pretty quickly with an ammo stockpile over 200. Jumped ship after that since I figured that was effectively all the content you'd put in for a 48 hour jam. I was impressed by the variety of enemies. Tons of gameplay and mechanics packed into this little crab boat. Really fun time!
I like the feel of the panicky platforming and combination of luck and skill required. Made it past level 10, but I figured I'd stop there since most gaps were getting too tight to navigate. Really fun game though up to that point.
I liked that the music has some variety. While a few of the individual parts seem a bit robotic like they were generated, the way the music evolves over time helps make up for that. I wish there was some type of indicator on the mouse pointer for which color and size are currently active, since I found that could get confusing. Love your intro dialogue establishing both story and gameplay, and the idea of bacterial colonies fighting for dominance is a clever interpretation of the theme. Solid work!
This looks like a really cool concept! Let me know if you find a way to get a web or linux build and I'll give it a try.
UPDATE: @jyumonji Good news: I got the Windows build working in Linux with Wine! Hopefully you aren't going too crazy trying to get other builds to work.
This lived up to the anticipation! What a neat little rhythm game! The game does a good job of communicating to the player through the UI elements directly. The only thing that I wish was clearer was the Listen! vs Your Turn! as perhaps a red recording light or other non-text element to more clearly indicate when it was my turn. Would love to see this expanded with procedural music eventually as you said was your plan. That would make for such a cool little coffee break game.
Love your take on the theme with the whole "death and taxes" thing. I struggled a bit on the later levels, mostly due to my natural instinct to tab between text boxes when I'm typing fast which PAUSES THE GAME (diabolical), and the overlaying UI elements and my ensuing confusion was inevitable defeat. Once I got a better feel for the controls I was able to finish all five levels, and had a good time doing it. Solid execution and a fun game!
The core mechanic is super solid, and a lot of fun. I wish you would have spent a bit more time on a main menu and game loop so I don't have to reload to replay, but that's only because I keep replaying so much! Definitely struck gold with the physics here.