The Ball by Xanjos
4th Ludum Dare Entry and 3rd one submitted for the jam.
Wasn't really a fan of the theme at first and I was pretty much stumped for ideas on the Saturday until I decided to break it down into more simpler terms and ended up with a viable enough idea that would somehow fit the theme during the late hours. I also unfortunately missed out most of Sunday because I was out meeting friends so I had the entire Monday to somehow pull this all off.
Also I'm still terrible at drawing things (yay programmer art!!) and there's probably one or two glaring bugs that have gone unnoticed.
EDIT: Standalone versions are now up!! Again, I don't have a Mac or Linux machine to test on so if anyone is having problems with those builds please let me know.
Instructions
The aim of the game is to prevent the blue ball from dropping out of the screen for as long as possible.
Click on the ball to push it up in the air (You can control the direction of the ball depending on where you have clicked on the ball).
You get 1 point for every second the ball is in the air, 5 points for bouncing the ball off the side and top of the screen, 10 points for collecting any of the stars that appear by random and 50 points for getting the ball through the moving orange hoop.
If the ball physics are hard to control, it's because I intentionally made it that way.
EDIT: For those having trouble controlling the ball, try clicking on the bottom to get it to go higher and click on its left side to make it go right (and vice versa).
Tools Used:
Language:C#
Library/Framework:Unity
Sounds:bfxr
Graphics: Inkscape
Wasn't really a fan of the theme at first and I was pretty much stumped for ideas on the Saturday until I decided to break it down into more simpler terms and ended up with a viable enough idea that would somehow fit the theme during the late hours. I also unfortunately missed out most of Sunday because I was out meeting friends so I had the entire Monday to somehow pull this all off.
Also I'm still terrible at drawing things (yay programmer art!!) and there's probably one or two glaring bugs that have gone unnoticed.
EDIT: Standalone versions are now up!! Again, I don't have a Mac or Linux machine to test on so if anyone is having problems with those builds please let me know.
Instructions
The aim of the game is to prevent the blue ball from dropping out of the screen for as long as possible.
Click on the ball to push it up in the air (You can control the direction of the ball depending on where you have clicked on the ball).
You get 1 point for every second the ball is in the air, 5 points for bouncing the ball off the side and top of the screen, 10 points for collecting any of the stars that appear by random and 50 points for getting the ball through the moving orange hoop.
If the ball physics are hard to control, it's because I intentionally made it that way.
EDIT: For those having trouble controlling the ball, try clicking on the bottom to get it to go higher and click on its left side to make it go right (and vice versa).
Tools Used:
Language:C#
Library/Framework:Unity
Sounds:bfxr
Graphics: Inkscape
| Web (Unity) | https://jasontuyengames.gitlab.io/assets/demos/LD31/LD31.html |
| Windows | http://bit.ly/16eUYav |
| OS/X | http://bit.ly/1yGIVcF |
| Linux (Universal) | http://bit.ly/1uwka1s |
| Original URL | https://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-31/?action=preview&uid=21201 |
Ratings
| Coolness | 100% | 1 |
| Overall(Jam) | 2.80 | 824 |
| Audio(Jam) | 2.23 | 627 |
| Fun(Jam) | 3.02 | 526 |
| Graphics(Jam) | 1.92 | 946 |
| Innovation(Jam) | 2.53 | 800 |
| Theme(Jam) | 3.69 | 366 |
Try mine, http://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-31/?action=preview&uid=44154
I think you should have a screenshot up with an impressive high score, since you are the developer, I snuck that into one of my screen shots on my own game but we'll see if anybody notices and takes up the challenge. ;)
I did notice one bug while playing. There's something wrong with the detection of whether the ball went through the hoop. The first time I got it through the hoop, I did not get the fifty points. Then later, several times I did get fifty points when I DIDN'T get it through the hoop. It seems like if I bounce it off the bottom of the hoop sometimes I get the bonus incorrectly.
No big deal though! Nicely done.
I bet this game would benefit greatly from a little juice. The ball was a bit dead. The few sounds it made were a huge help but if it jiggled and pulsed as it bounced around or particles flew out as it scored, I bet it would be a huge improvement in the feel of interacting with it.
Also, collecting stars still beeps even with sound off.
I noticed that sometimes the ball passes through the hoop and is not scored, and sometimes it hits the rim and bounces out, and is scored.
Well done!
Since it's a really fast game where you have to retry a lot of times, I would not have a specific start button but click anywhere to restart feature. Keep the players playing!
I would also consider making the hit circle for the ball (not for colliding with object but registering the force) about 1.5x the actual size of the ball for it to be more friendly. To elevate difficulty as the level progresses, just decrease the size of the ball. Make the room smaller, add another loop or a ball bouncer. You could also play with physics dynamically, rotate the room with the camera a bit so that the player doesn't see the rotation happening.
Then, the loop, I'd consider randomizing where one the x axis it starts. It also was a bit friendly in giving point even if the ball didn't pass through, so maybe place a trigger on either side, well separated and require it to enter one, then both, then only the other.
I can imagine this to be perfect for touch interaction. With some visual feedback on where the force press appeared. Camera shake when ball is bouncing against walls and so on. Get yourself someone to do the graphics, add some music and work on difficulty progression and that juice and I think this could be a great game.
There are a few ways to mitigate this. I know, for example, you've made it so clicking different heights of the ball causes different strength in upwards trajectory. I personally don't like that clicking the top of the ball has nearly no effect, while the bottom has too much effect. It would be great if the differences between the two were greatly reduced, such that clicking the higher regions will still cause the ball to bounce noticeably. Second, you may want to increase the area you can click the ball. A lot of times, I felt like the game unfairly didn't register my clicks.
Could be really nice with better graphics, though !
I think that the mechanic has potential to be great, but there are some really frustrating bits:
1. The hoop tends to get in the way more than be a scoring opportunity. The collision feels too heavy-handed. Possibly provide it as a bonus than a hinderance and let it ignore the ball going up (like platformer platforms.
2. There's simply not enough upward force - it feels like you're reversing the down force up to get a bounce, right? That's good in theory, but when the ball never goes higher than it does previously (by hitting the bottom side of the hoop) it becomes all too easy to just lose all your height and peg in a lot of disappointment.
3. JUICE! For something so simple you need a lot of juice to make it feel satisfying. A great example of this is Tap The Coin - find it on iOS app store if you can.
4. The absolute randomness of the stars meant I could get stars without knowing I got one. That then feels cheap. Make me work for them. Place them away from the ball.
Good luck with the game :)
Nice Job!
It's a little buggy, sometimes you click on the ball and nothing happens.
I got 414 points, GGWP
Perhaps need to work more on your programmer art hehehe but it's a good entry ^_^
My best is 476, so far.
http://www.rustboxgames.com/the-ball-review/