True Dark by ranseur

[raw]
made by ranseur for LD31 (COMPO)
My second Ludum Dare entry.

A pretty hard top-down shooter with a mostly random name. I'll drink one to you if you make it to the ending.

The game is played best on windows, but for those who must play it in a browser:
-Unless you are working with a resolution of 1600*900 or higher you'll have to hit F11 to set the browser in fullscreen, then hit again F11 when you're done.
-Performance will be not be as good (still performs very well on my old laptop though).

Requirements:
-1280*720 monitor resolution or higher.
-A mouse, with two buttons and scroll wheel.

Controls: (there is a short version ingame)
LMB, RMB: move your character fast or slow.
Z + LMB, RMB: shoot your machine gun or the shotgun.
X: drop the bomb (white circle with a yellow circle inside).
R: restart.
Mouse Wheel:?
M,N: toggle music or sound.
T: toggle screenshake.

What do you have to do:
To progress, place a bombs nearby the strange yellow and violet squares.

Made with Game Maker: Studio.
Music, Sfx: http://www.abundant-music.com/, http://www.bfxr.net/, http://www.reaper.fm/

Have fun!

Tips: (very light spoilers)
-You have an ammo counter, do not waste too much ammo.
-Pay close attention to the red tips in the bottom left of the screen
-Mouse wheel?
-In the first room, if you don't like to get shot, stay away from the enemy blue cone.
-Right mouse button allows you to move more slowly. You'll have to use it at some point.
-Don't rush into open doors without prior knowledge of their surroundings.

Version history:
v1.00: initial release
v1.01: added support for most international keyboards (Z can also be Y or W), fixed a typo.

Ratings

Coolness 100% 1
Overall 3.10 657
Audio 2.67 574
Fun 3.03 621
Graphics 2.03 1137
Humor 1.98 851
Innovation 3.11 569
Mood 2.58 857
Theme 3.57 604

Feedback

wandersenus
08. Dec 2014 路 09:00 UTC
nice game!
seledorn
08. Dec 2014 路 09:10 UTC
Fun to play, challenging, fits the theme. A great game! a bit of programming art though, but that's fine, nobody's great at everything!
icedvariables
08. Dec 2014 路 09:37 UTC
I had great fun play this - took awhile to figure out the scrolling part though!
Valtaroth
08. Dec 2014 路 10:44 UTC
Nice game, my screen is too small for it though.. the zoomed out version is slightly to high and if I scroll down it zooms in^^ if I try to zoom back out I either scroll back up or die in the meantime. Otherwise really nice, would love to play a longer version with these mechanics.
馃帳 ranseur
08. Dec 2014 路 10:47 UTC
@Valtaroth You need a screen that's at least 1280*720 to play ): The zooming is intended though!
43iscoding
08. Dec 2014 路 11:22 UTC
Great game! Took me a while to get that scroll-wheel thingie) A love the gameplay and the challenging difficulty! Well done, the game feels complete :)
Gamepopper
08. Dec 2014 路 11:31 UTC
Pretty good, sadly I could only use a touch pad which meant I did pretty bad.
anokta
08. Dec 2014 路 11:31 UTC
whoa, that's one tough game! Really enjoyed the mechanics, couldn't even get close to 'the ending' though. :/
stray
08. Dec 2014 路 11:42 UTC
nice,
the only problem is wide screen
hectorhon
08. Dec 2014 路 12:01 UTC
Great fun to play! Tough challenge, never made it past the second room T_T
sfdnetwork
08. Dec 2014 路 13:39 UTC
Really fun game. Nice job
naufr4g0
08. Dec 2014 路 14:22 UTC
Nice little stealth game. I like the way you implement the "one room" theme and the use of the mouse wheel. :)
The game is a lot of fun, I love to shoot enemies.
pjimmy
08. Dec 2014 路 16:22 UTC
nice, very fun, but it's missing a Pause button
Domicuc
08. Dec 2014 路 17:55 UTC
Interesting and really good game! I little miss the graphic of all characters, but it is fine.
oskardevelopment
08. Dec 2014 路 18:00 UTC
Thanks for the game! Interesting gameplay and with smooth movements on the circle when moving/shooting! Good luck!
lisac
08. Dec 2014 路 18:33 UTC
Nice game :)
skeeto
08. Dec 2014 路 19:29 UTC
Interesting game idea. I've never played anything like this before. It's brutally difficult though: one hit and it's game over, with several rapidly moving enemies.

The only way I knew how later stages of the game worked (i.e. moving to other rooms) was from the screenshots. The game itself doesn't make it very clear.
Legiion
08. Dec 2014 路 20:08 UTC
the controls are interesting and give this game a unique ability
rzuf
08. Dec 2014 路 20:20 UTC
Brillo mechanics. You should know, that your game is extremely hard when played on a netbook. (like, I could youse a second pair of hands) :P
frondeus
08. Dec 2014 路 20:56 UTC
I'm really impressed. It reminds me N and Portal.
Waterman7
08. Dec 2014 路 21:32 UTC
Innovative and challenging gameplay, and an interesting implementation of the theme. Good job!
The ammo counter could be more obvious, I almost didn't even notice and was often frustrated to run out of bullets at the wrong moment without a warning.

Btw: I added the source code to my game now, thanks for the reminder! :)
Lavendark
08. Dec 2014 路 22:10 UTC
A hard but fun game. Took a few goes to get past the first room and figure out what I was doing but glad I did as the surprise of the next room was a good one. Good Job :)
rabbit
08. Dec 2014 路 22:21 UTC
These controls are almost impossible. I have no idea what is going on or how to play this mania.
TriSquare
09. Dec 2014 路 02:08 UTC
sad to say Game Doesn't load. . . no Rate,
Divitos
09. Dec 2014 路 04:06 UTC
Fun to play, but a bit confusing.
benmcnelly
09. Dec 2014 路 06:34 UTC
Very fun! Bookmarked to come back and beat later..
馃帳 ranseur
09. Dec 2014 路 09:38 UTC
@TriSquare Care to tell me more about it? To the best of my knowledge you are the only with this problem so far..
馃帳 ranseur
09. Dec 2014 路 10:14 UTC
Today it seems that dropbox takes a bit time to load the html5 version of the game, maybe it was that? Also, if you weren't able to play because of your keyboard layout, now there is a good chance that you can.
Threef
09. Dec 2014 路 17:45 UTC
I really enjoy that kind of gameplay!
Jezzamon
21. Dec 2014 路 01:57 UTC
Ahhh too hard! I think the game was way too hard to control. Bouncing off things an accidentally killing yourself wasn't really fun to me. I gave the game quite a few tries, but couldn't get past the 3rd screen. Those black circles seemed a little unfair.

I think this game did suffer from a lack of art, I think having some type of meaningful enemy to avoid would've made the game much cooler. Perhaps devoting some more time to graphics would've improved things.

If you can't do much in the way of graphics, here's some tips for making circle and squares look better:
1. Never use grey, especially for your background, always have a little bit of colour.
2. Don't use fully saturated colours. Slightly toned down colours actually look nicer.
3. Try to stick to a colour palette or some colour scheme. There are a few sites that collect nice looking ones if you can't find one yourself, here's one I just found: http://www.colourlovers.com/palettes
4. Avoid small outlines. Either pick fairly large outlines, or leave outlines out entirely. I think it looks nicer.