Ancient Ranger with Ultimate Technology by Kitkom

[raw]
made by Kitkom for LD36 (JAM)
Unsigned int64 ago, people use stones to deal ranged attack.

But a good stone-thrower requires a lot of training, so they invented the slingshot to fire stones. This new technology helped the fight with other creatures greatly.

But one day, the earth is invaded by unknown creatures. All of your kind has mutated and you are the only one survived! And they along with a lot of zerglings and titans destroyed your homeland!

Now it's your time! Show me what you can do with this ultimate weapon as an ancient ranger!

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Controls:
WASD : Move
Left mouse button : Charge and fire
Right mouse button : Emit the Force (It requires cooling down after using it once, and you will hear notification sound effect when it's ready)
Left Shift : Sprint
Q : Switch weapon

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Instructions in battle

There're two kinds of weapons.

Stones are reliable for dealing a lot of DMG, but requires charging for a while. Besides, stones have strong knock-back on light enemies.
Arrows now have higher fire rate and DPM but lower DMG. You will have to choose proper weapon to deal with different situations.

There're three types of enemies.

Orcs are normal one. You will have to kill it by at least two stone shot or multiple arrows.
Zerglings now have higher speed and hp. You won't be able to kill it with only one arrow, but one half-charged stone is enough to take it down. Think carefully about weapons.
Titans now will not be useless! Approaching titans will slow down your speed and if you didn't managed to escape you will be surrounded by zerglings suddenly!
Good luck!

BTW: Please run at full screen mode. There may be some bug in window mode due to some reason from Unity.

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Some Questions:

Q: Why there is no dot in the center of screen to help aiming?

A: Because you are ancient ranger! Do you think you'are able to fire the stones precisely? No. Try to guess the trace of your weapons and make them of good use. Good luck!

Q: It's hard to aim and shoot when lots of enemies are moving towards you?

A: Yes. If there's an enemy blocking your slingshot, the dmg of your weapon will be really low. So keep distance from them. In fact, once you are surrounded while your Force isn't ready, you will die in seconds.

Q: Why does the movement speed is so low?

A: Because trying not to get surrounded is part of the game. It will be too easy if you can move at high speed. Use sprint and force to avoid being surrounded.

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About movement speed:

Thanks to everyone who made suggestion!
I tried to improve movement speed, but the game is just getting too boring. Currently zerglings could catch you when you are not sprinting away from them, and orcs could catch you when you trying to simply hit & run. If player has higher speed, orcs may be harmless even with increased amount. To avoid this, both player and enemies' speed must be improved. In that case, zerglings would move too fast.
So in my opinion it's hard to improve movement speed while keeping it interesting. It would be different if I added more mechanics, enemies and skills in it.
I've uploaded a alternative version with higher speed.
Orginal Version:
Forward Speed : 6 Strafe and Backward Speed : 3 Sprinting Multiplier : 1.5 Hp : 100
Higher Speed Version:
Forward Speed : 7 Strafe and Backward Speed : 5 Sprinting Multiplier : 1.8 Hp : 200
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Sorry about my poor English......

Feedback

PlanetHoward
28. Aug 2016 · 17:25 UTC
Great UI, love that you found a mix between 2d and 3d, I'm gonna be honest, the shooting mechanic was the best, it felt great, responsive, but the rock sometimes was unpredictable, walking sometimes felt a bit slow, but overall it's pretty good for the unpredictable part, I'd recommend using a reticle/dot in the middle to show where the rock is going :D
yoel1234
28. Aug 2016 · 20:30 UTC
real nice, and fun, had an rts rpg filling to it, with a little polish and a story this can be a good game.

also it crushed becuse of an error once you shod chack it out.
overall i liked it.
yoel1234
28. Aug 2016 · 20:30 UTC
ops wrong game...
yoel1234
28. Aug 2016 · 20:47 UTC
(now for my real comment ignore the one sent by mistake)
it took me a while to get it but:
awsome an fps with a rogatka, i had alot of fun headshoting those club wielding clowns.
the sprite textures are great i like that style. gives it a retro old school feel.

one thing i would like is more movement speed.
Green_Cafe
28. Aug 2016 · 23:42 UTC
I really enjoyed the game. I had a lot of fun attacking those weird enemies. My only issue is movement speed. But other than that it was fun!
zacks
29. Aug 2016 · 06:04 UTC
Interesting game, especially after training about the accuracy.
If the moving speed and the volume can be adjusted it would be better!
Looking forward to your final version!
JK5000
29. Aug 2016 · 16:51 UTC
A good little game. I particularly liked the music, graphics and the shoot mechanic. But the opponents are really difficult to get away from. Overall well done.
pogo575
29. Aug 2016 · 17:03 UTC
Loved the graphics but the charging mechanic started to get annoying when there were lots of enemies moving quickly towards me.
oskardevelopment
29. Aug 2016 · 20:09 UTC
Nice music and graphics!

Took a bit to figure out how I harmed the enemies with my weapon, though when I did the game felt a tad short as the victory was quite early?

What was that flying purple thing?
🎤 Kitkom
30. Aug 2016 · 03:08 UTC
@oskardevelopment it's a bug in early version. I have fixed it now.
The flying purple thing is portal as spawn point, but it's invincible.
Givit Game Studios
30. Aug 2016 · 04:10 UTC
Haha what a nice experience I love the art style as well
steph88
30. Aug 2016 · 06:05 UTC
Hi, nice game and congratulations ! We're realizing a video with several games of the Ludum Dare #36. We made the same thing at the previous jam.

Can you add your game on indiexpo.net ? (it's free)
So we can include also your game in the video ;)
p.s. write #LDJAM in the game's description.
Guennor
30. Aug 2016 · 06:05 UTC
It's a complete game with implemented basic mechanics, music, sound effects and UI, so that's pretty good for a game jam. But it has some balancing issues, like the fact that is super easy to get swarmed even on level 1. I have no idea why the slingshot is so high up, looks like the person is holding it with their arm held up above their head. Movement is also very sluggish even while sprinting.

I found an outstanding bug - if you get swarmed and you keep jumping, the creatues will stack on one another and you'll get to incredible heights. Though you will take lots of damage in the process.
maskinmask
30. Aug 2016 · 08:05 UTC
The tutorial is great,but the game is too hard.
Xakkar
30. Aug 2016 · 10:28 UTC
Cool hard game)
Lojchin
30. Aug 2016 · 10:34 UTC
It is hard but interesting.
yotam180
30. Aug 2016 · 12:02 UTC
Hard game, but really cool to play! The shooting is indeed the best part of the game - natural, hard but really fun and satisfying when you hit an opponent.

Also, great job combining 3d environment and 2d characters!

The artistic style of the game is very interesting, gameplay is nice, and, yea, I liked it!
cushycode
30. Aug 2016 · 12:29 UTC
I liked the look of it, but the gameplay feels like it needs some serious balancing. Firing weapons is somewhat frustrating since you can't really aim properly and your projectile shoots from the top corner.

You also get swarmed too easily and can't really do anything about it, except push enemies for a second but they swarm you right back. Maybe make the force wave do damage too?
PanicTheFirst
30. Aug 2016 · 13:47 UTC
I like the mixing of sprites into a 3D World.
The shooting mechanic feels pretty solid. But the movement speed is a bit too slow. I got really fast surrounded by the enemies and didn't got away from them.
Besides that, great game. :)
nekolas
30. Aug 2016 · 15:18 UTC
The 2D art style reminds me of Minecraft. Cool for me. Shooting is no doubt the best part. It feels really nice shooting with arrows (Much more light with a long shooting range). It's a surprise when I found out stone rolling in correct physics way and dust splashing up.

Moving speed should be faster. I get easily cornered, then I can't even see whether I have whether hit enemies ahead of me. Anyway, this is really worth playing considering you have done all these in 3 days.
ginger9
31. Aug 2016 · 01:40 UTC
The best part is, you jump to a zergling, and zergling jumps too. In that way, you can jump as high as your hp bar.
guoboism
31. Aug 2016 · 02:54 UTC
I like the arts style, very inspiring.
Geruhn
31. Aug 2016 · 13:35 UTC
A really hard game, I like it though. Once the little zerglings have you surrounded you're doomed because of the low shots per second you can fire :/
TerraCottaFrog
01. Sep 2016 · 01:12 UTC
Its cool, but I think the slower backwards movement is a bad move. If you are attack from all sides it makes it almost impossible.

The graphics, sound, and overall aesthetic are really great though, and I love the concept.
kawzar
03. Sep 2016 · 06:22 UTC
I like the concept and the graphics! The game is really smooth and well put. Shooting feels really good and instinctive!!
At first I was like "oh okay, so this is it" on the tutorial and jumped directly to the level I. Bad idea, I hated the zerglings they are difficult and annoying!
Nice job there! :)
sP0CkEr2
04. Sep 2016 · 04:46 UTC
It was fun but the movement and shooting mechanic need work. It really felt unfair at times. Really liked the game tho.
AnaGF
06. Sep 2016 · 00:53 UTC
Great job, I love the concept, art is pretty neat, sound is cool too, and the controls are really smooth. One of my favorite entries :D

However, although you say it was intentionally, I think a bit more of walking speed would make the game better. Even if you shoot it is impossible to not get surrounded, because (obviously) shooting a stone takes your time, and the force spell has a cooldown. Since shoots and spells need to be like this because you are an "Ancient Shooter", I think that increasing the walking speed would improve the game feel, and maybe the solution for not making the game too easy would be increasing the amount of enemies instead of keeping the player being slow.
🎤 Kitkom
06. Sep 2016 · 02:49 UTC
Thanks to @AnaGF and everyone who made suggestion!
I tried to improve movement speed, but the game is just getting too boring. Currently zerglings could catch you when you are not sprinting away from them, and orcs could catch you when you trying to hit & run. If player has higher speed, orcs may be harmless even with increased amount. To avoid this, both player and enemies' speed must be improved. In that case, zerglings would move too fast.
So in my opinion it's hard to improve movement speed while keeping it interesting. It would be different if I added more mechanics, enemies and skills in it.
But I'll provide with a "boring" version later.