Vertical Defence by zanenga

[raw]
made by zanenga for LD31 (COMPO)
Keep the falling pieces from reaching the bottom of the screen.

Controls:
Move mouse to aim, click to shoot.

The game was made in ~22 hours, from start to finish. I had a graduation party of one of my best friends this weekend, so I wasn't able to work on it for more than that.

Update:
People seems to like it a lot! I'm so glad... Thank you! I'm thinking about making a better version and posting here for feedback. If you have any ideas, feel free to share!

Ratings

Coolness 73% 3
Overall 3.66 164
Audio 3.60 95
Fun 3.69 108
Graphics 3.63 238
Humor 2.38 634
Innovation 3.12 563
Mood 3.21 322
Theme 3.82 289

Feedback

Broivula
07. Dec 2014 路 19:12 UTC
I'm speechless. Was this really made in under 48 hours? Amazing work! I love how the game feels, controls, the music and most definetly the animations! They are incredible! I could honestly see myself playing this on my phone. I also love the little things: that little screen shake, chaining kills, and how the game 'restarts' is awesome! All of this feels so dynamic and beautiful.

Best entry I've seen so far. Kudos!
Wezley
07. Dec 2014 路 21:26 UTC
This game is epic! Good job man! I really enjoyed it! Port it to mobile so I can play on the go! :D
SelfishGenome
07. Dec 2014 路 23:55 UTC
Nice game, I like the cleanness of the artwork. very pro.
馃帳 zanenga
08. Dec 2014 路 02:13 UTC
Thank you guys! I'm so glad you like it! Really. You made my day!

I was thinking about mobile when I made it, so you can definitely expect a port soon! ;)
Fanttum
08. Dec 2014 路 04:09 UTC
Very nicely done. I thought it started a little slow, and then got hard really fast before I could find a good rhythm. You should totally make this a mobile game cause that would be a super easy port.
Pierce_Z
08. Dec 2014 路 04:27 UTC
Awesome. It took me a bit to realize there was a chain reaction. Cool concept and great audio.
Mixer
08. Dec 2014 路 04:28 UTC
Oh my gosh that was good! The particle trails were awesome, the laser was awesome, sounds, awesome, and fitted perfectly with the theme! Awesome job dude!
Kitch
08. Dec 2014 路 04:29 UTC
Wow.. that difficulty ramps up pretty quick until you figure out what you're doing :) Really nice. Soundtrack is tops. Good workd!
ben_pxlplz
08. Dec 2014 路 04:32 UTC
Very cool! The only think I'd suggest is some bonus points for chain reactions! I really enjoyed this one! Great work.
daftcube
08. Dec 2014 路 04:51 UTC
Physics are pretty awesome. Interesting mechanics made this fun to play.
Sublustris
08. Dec 2014 路 04:53 UTC
When it starts in background window, game does not start :(
crewderek
08. Dec 2014 路 04:55 UTC
I like it! Pretty hard, not going to lie! Seams very well polished and a great entry for Ludum Dare!
Xenolupus
08. Dec 2014 路 05:16 UTC
This is really fun, and I like the way you did the start screen.
Ian Morrison
08. Dec 2014 路 05:24 UTC
Solid, fun, focused, and polished. No really weak categories, and lots of nice touches. You had me at the clever way of starting the game! I also really like the explosions and pushback on the triangles, very satisfying to push a triangle into a crowd and light them all up at once. It feels like there's depth there I haven't touched yet, which is really impressive for as simple a game as it appears to be (let alone one created in 48 hours)!
馃帳 zanenga
08. Dec 2014 路 05:32 UTC
The difficulty pace definitely needs some work. I would have improved it, but, to be honest, I didn't have the time to do it.

ben_pxlplz: Bonus points for chain reactions are a great idea! I'm also thinking about adding different blocks that have different explosions.

Sublustris: Did you managed to play it? I didn't have this problem... can you give me some details? Thanks!
spacedoubt
08. Dec 2014 路 05:42 UTC
Super solid! All the details you put into it are brilliant!
hazzahazzam
08. Dec 2014 路 05:57 UTC
iPhone app ASAP. :D

Menu screen is what made this for me.

I love it, simple yet elegant.
Kuupu
08. Dec 2014 路 06:31 UTC
Amazing amount of feedback, hope to see more features in the future :)
Tiago Ling Alexandre
08. Dec 2014 路 12:30 UTC
Very cool game! Definitely a mobile game, simple yet polished. Congrats!
woodecker
08. Dec 2014 路 12:52 UTC
Very polished. I loved the fx animations.
rzfmzn
08. Dec 2014 路 13:02 UTC
Muito bom :D
Curti demais :D
Br_uno
08. Dec 2014 路 13:14 UTC
Muito bom :)
MaesK
08. Dec 2014 路 13:33 UTC
Great game! Simple in concept and graphics but beautiful and technical, nice job.
Lolwned
08. Dec 2014 路 16:39 UTC
Very nice game. Great job !
Kuupu
08. Dec 2014 路 20:04 UTC
Muito bom o jogo, a quantidade de feedbacks ta bem foda, bem simples tbm, isso 茅 um ponto forte

Como o pessoal falou ai, esse jogo num mobile ia ficar beeeem interessante

S贸 senti falta de umas varia莽玫es no pacing al茅m do padr茫o de spawn do tri芒ngulos ;)
stigmawall
09. Dec 2014 路 14:36 UTC
I think there's great comments about the game about graphics, audio, gameplay and even idea about it, so I'll not repeat all these complements. But I'll say one think very tiny but I really enjoy it: the background. Looks like he's alive, I love it. Great entry. Two cents: sometimes it's impossible to hit them all. A simple solution is a bomb.
hogtrick
09. Dec 2014 路 14:51 UTC
Pretty nice game! I made 101 high score!
Spilim
09. Dec 2014 路 16:25 UTC
Good game =) It could have some sorts of power ups for changing the pacing a little and help the player when the game gets a little more difficult, still just keeping the one button gameplay though.
Simples mas bem massa =)
Franklin's Ghost
11. Dec 2014 路 14:26 UTC
The reaction of shooting the enemies is so well done, like that they get pushed back and you can use them against each other. Great job making this in 22hrs and looking forward to seeing the mobile version.
Shackhal
12. Dec 2014 路 23:41 UTC
Cool entry. The concept is easy to understand and the music is good. Still, the difficulty curve escalate very quick and you lost control of it.

Overall, I like it :)
MiniBobbo
13. Dec 2014 路 02:13 UTC
This is great. I love the clean lines and animations. It oozes polish.

The feeling of getting the timing down on the explosions is great.
Victory Garden
13. Dec 2014 路 05:55 UTC
oh my god, the little deluge at the end ._. This game concept is so nice and clean, and so juiced up! I especially love your placement of the hit bar. It makes it a lot easier to see your health, so you don't have to keep looking at the top of the screen like usual. I wish I were better at this... I felt like it gets a bit fast a bit quick, and the amount of force it takes to push a triangle back away from you, along with the lack of horizontal control, made it very hard for me to get anywhere at all even though I played four or five times. I get the feeling that I still don't really "get" this game, as much as I wanted to. Maybe a little bit more scaffolding near the beginning? Having the particles speed up a bit, too, as the game goes on, and starting slower, would probably help a lot. This is sort of an "active puzzle game" like Tetris, and I feel like future design should maybe follow the same principles.

Looks great, feels great, handles great, is great! Thank you for the great game!
mrexcessive
13. Dec 2014 路 20:39 UTC
Hi there. Great look and feel. Nice thuddy sounds. Gets a bit too hard about 60 seconds in, could use some powerups.
Andrei M眉ller
14. Dec 2014 路 14:39 UTC
Wow, this game is very cool! (and very hard, I like it!)
Perfect for mobile devices! The game could have some powerups to improve the player's shot (the default laser is awesome, by the way). And like other users said above, your game is nicely polished, great work! =D
Kimau
14. Dec 2014 路 17:35 UTC
Really enjoyed that but the aspect ratio was a bit tall.
mystakin
19. Dec 2014 路 00:18 UTC
The title screen design is fantastic. Unfortunately my monitor couldn't fit the whole game on screen, but it was still very fun. Well done.
Jezzamon
20. Dec 2014 路 23:05 UTC
Awesome! First polished game I've played so far, so I really appreciated it!

Nice job with the menu/tutorial system. Love it when I see this done well. The music was also great. And the controls worked really well on my touchscreen pc. A nice touch how the gun can also deflect particles.

Oh, I also found a way to cheat your game. If you quickly move the gun back and forth you can create a barrier of triangles that then block all the other particles. Then, whenever you want to get points just blow one up and they'll all explode!

I originally thought the triangles moved at constant velocity, and the idea was to change their velocity so they flew back to the top and off the screen, which I thought was cool, and a new take on the shmup style game genre. But then I realised that lasing them for long enough just made them explode.

My only criticism is that that the theme didn't really effect the game in a meaningful way - although doing that was more difficult this time.

For some reason I got my best score the first time, 61.
Riocide
21. Dec 2014 路 18:13 UTC
cool idea! Could do with a better music track but I dig the style!
Jupiter_Hadley
21. Dec 2014 路 22:53 UTC
This game gets really challenging fast. Well done. I Included it in part 14 of my Ludum Dare 31 compilation video series, if you would like to check it out :) http://youtu.be/3dnkCRJktbw
Teejay5
29. Dec 2014 路 07:51 UTC
Super nice design!
I really appreciate how shooting the first enemy starts the game, it teaches the player how to play the game super fast.
FrederickK
29. Dec 2014 路 23:03 UTC
Simple but very polished.
Well done! :D