The Tree by Calciumtrice
Intro:
Hello! This is my second Ludum Dare entry. For my first I made a Twine game so wanted to create a more traditional game this time. I did all design, development and artwork as per compo rules.
The Tree is an action game where you play as a warrior who must fight three guardians. By defeating one, you gain their power which can be used to better battle the others. The order in which you choose to take on the guardians will affect the difficulty and strategies you can use.
The Tree's theme of connected worlds is based on the idea of the world tree which connects different realms. In the game, you travel to the areas of the three guardians via rainbow bridge.
My aims for the game were:
+ Fun combat and abilities
+ Unique bosses
+ Pretty pixel art
Things I didn't manage:
- No sound: I was working right up to the deadline and had no time for sound effects or music
- No menus: The game has no start menu screen or win screen - everything just takes place in game
- Full scope: Originally, I had planned five bosses instead of three with a possible final boss fight at the root of the world tree which would have required all gained abilities to defeat
- One of the areas has unpolished art as time was running out and it had to be hurried and made a lot quicker than the others
- The ghost dash ability allows you to teleport into non-walkable parts of the map, although it checks to make sure you aren't going to move outside of the map bounds
How I developed:
* Programming: Uses the HaxeFlixel framework, made in FlashDevelop, runs in Flash
* Art: Drawn in Manga Studio 5 using a Wacom Cintiq
* Buds: Made alongside my brother, "Pinion" (who made his own compo entry, "Starlight Cowboy") and his wife and my partner, "Team Sloth Fox" (who made a jam entry, "Heart Earth")
Controls:
The game is controlled with the arrow keys for movement and the A, S, Z and X keys (these keys are shown beside their matching ability on the HUD).
Thanks for reading and playing! I can also be found at calciumtrice.tumblr.com and @calciumtrice on twitter.
Hello! This is my second Ludum Dare entry. For my first I made a Twine game so wanted to create a more traditional game this time. I did all design, development and artwork as per compo rules.
The Tree is an action game where you play as a warrior who must fight three guardians. By defeating one, you gain their power which can be used to better battle the others. The order in which you choose to take on the guardians will affect the difficulty and strategies you can use.
The Tree's theme of connected worlds is based on the idea of the world tree which connects different realms. In the game, you travel to the areas of the three guardians via rainbow bridge.
My aims for the game were:
+ Fun combat and abilities
+ Unique bosses
+ Pretty pixel art
Things I didn't manage:
- No sound: I was working right up to the deadline and had no time for sound effects or music
- No menus: The game has no start menu screen or win screen - everything just takes place in game
- Full scope: Originally, I had planned five bosses instead of three with a possible final boss fight at the root of the world tree which would have required all gained abilities to defeat
- One of the areas has unpolished art as time was running out and it had to be hurried and made a lot quicker than the others
- The ghost dash ability allows you to teleport into non-walkable parts of the map, although it checks to make sure you aren't going to move outside of the map bounds
How I developed:
* Programming: Uses the HaxeFlixel framework, made in FlashDevelop, runs in Flash
* Art: Drawn in Manga Studio 5 using a Wacom Cintiq
* Buds: Made alongside my brother, "Pinion" (who made his own compo entry, "Starlight Cowboy") and his wife and my partner, "Team Sloth Fox" (who made a jam entry, "Heart Earth")
Controls:
The game is controlled with the arrow keys for movement and the A, S, Z and X keys (these keys are shown beside their matching ability on the HUD).
Thanks for reading and playing! I can also be found at calciumtrice.tumblr.com and @calciumtrice on twitter.
Ratings
| Coolness | 60% | 3 |
| Overall | 3.52 | 256 |
| Audio | 1.40 | 1000 |
| Fun | 3.53 | 195 |
| Graphics | 3.97 | 110 |
| Humor | 2.09 | 736 |
| Innovation | 2.84 | 790 |
| Mood | 3.34 | 264 |
| Theme | 2.75 | 864 |
No menu -> who needs a menu
Full scope -> who needs 5 bosses? But a final boss would have empowered the player by feeling that he won the game. As you didn't had the time, maybe you could have made one of current bosses the final boss. (only two normal ones and one final one), just because it feels better.
I kind of missed the theme :( (yes there were worlds, and they were 'connected', but ... that was not emphasised by the game, so you felt that 'connected worlds' was not the real concept behind the game.)
Maybe that could have been adressed by 'teleporting' to another world? Don't know.
As mentioned by others, sound can usually be handled fairly quickly. Look into sfxr and its multitude of offspring for sound effects, absolute-music, fakemusicgenerator, autotracker etc. for music.
Same goes for bosses, who could e.g. have another attack.
But still, impressive for 48hours and even more so because you were able to finish all your personal goals!
I'm curious what you'll come up with in the future :)
http://calciumtrice.tumblr.com/post/95493081248/freelance-archeology
Real nice adventure!