Mole Empire by PriorBlue

[raw]
made by PriorBlue for LD29 (COMPO)
In Mole Empire you are playing a mole, who can fight other creatures (most of the time other moles ^^) and can become stronger by finding power ups and loot.

There is also an ingame editor!

And you can add new items and enemies via ".ini"-files.

I worked alone on this game, my sleeping time was around 6h or so :D.

The only borrowed things in the game is the Font (alagard.ttf) and a little LUA library to convert tables into strings (TSerial.lua).

Technical features: I implemented a tile-shader engine, which can show up to 4096x4096 tiles in realtime (zoom don't effect performance). I also combined this shader with an 2d light raytracer to cast pixel shadows.

I don't have a compiled Version for Mac/Linux yet, but you can run the ".love"-files in these systems with the love2d interpreter: https://love2d.org/

Have fun!

Ratings

Coolness 100% 1
Overall 3.54 235
Audio 3.19 285
Fun 3.30 330
Graphics 3.91 139
Humor 2.45 542
Innovation 2.74 783
Mood 3.47 215
Theme 3.49 354

Feedback

Somfunambulist
28. Apr 2014 路 04:01 UTC
Really great atmosphere and pretty solid gameplay. The best part is easily the editability factor, more games should have features like that. The graphics sometimes break a little but otherwise very solid.
Crefossus
28. Apr 2014 路 04:02 UTC
I like shadows and mood (sound/fx) a lot. I'm kinda bad at the game though and the character moves slowly to reset so much :D
aneeslol
28. Apr 2014 路 04:10 UTC
Everything about this is awesome! The spiders seemed to be a little too powerful though, unless I'm missing something...
馃帳 PriorBlue
28. Apr 2014 路 04:16 UTC
@aneeslol: the spiders are just the beginning :D
Nanolotl
28. Apr 2014 路 05:31 UTC
Difficult and fun.
The shadows look really neat.
loggs2
28. Apr 2014 路 05:34 UTC
I liked the lighting effects, it gave it a nice atmosphere. I got owned though haha. Maybe a little faster movement would be nice.
FyberOptic
28. Apr 2014 路 05:35 UTC
Really nice concept. Not many games you see with a mole as the protagonist! Great artwork though, and the shadows are very atmospheric, fitting for the character you play. Would be interesting to see how you develop it from here. Now if only moles had longer arms!

I did have a visual issue with the game though, unfortunately. Looks like a case of "shadow acne" as I've heard it referred to, where the shadow mapping results in lots of lines.
DrPrettyPatty
28. Apr 2014 路 05:41 UTC
It's... BEAUTIFUL! I loved it.
馃帳 PriorBlue
28. Apr 2014 路 05:42 UTC
@loggs2: the movement increases when you get the right power ups.
Yozz
28. Apr 2014 路 06:06 UTC
I are sirius mole doing sirius business.

Cool game, sound and overall atmosphere.
TheDreik
28. Apr 2014 路 06:31 UTC
Good game in style and gameplay. Reminded me of the thrill of Diablo-games somehow. So I think it will be great, if there be generation of cave for more replayability.
Idkfawin32
28. Apr 2014 路 06:39 UTC
Graphics were excellent although it was an ultra challenge for me to nab those bats(I think bats)
primaerfunktion
28. Apr 2014 路 07:57 UTC
That was really fun to play and the graphics are great too. That's a good game you made there.
kikito
28. Apr 2014 路 09:34 UTC
I liked the technology used, although I experienced lots of visual glitches - about once per second - (my computer is a MacBook Air, if it helps).

I confess I didn't enjoy the combat. The first spider killed me right away, I don't know if there's any strategy involved. If there's some sort of strategy, I did not find it.
headchant
28. Apr 2014 路 11:37 UTC
I really dig the music! Amazing work for a compo entry. The game is hard but fun.
I also get a lot of graphical glitches on OSX.
stenol
28. Apr 2014 路 22:52 UTC
Great ambience. Nice little game and the shadow effect is just WOW.
anbreizh
29. Apr 2014 路 10:37 UTC
Fun game, great atmosphere. The shadows render the thing really nice
Marcellus
29. Apr 2014 路 16:14 UTC
This is a great job, congratulations for the editor.
The mole hitbox is a bit weird, that's all the negative I can say about this game. Well done.
pancakecity
29. Apr 2014 路 16:27 UTC
Great job, the lighting and the artwork are fantastic. Fun to play!
RadioLemon
29. Apr 2014 路 22:00 UTC
The shadows make the game look and feel great! Very difficult too, I was not able to kill the spiders ;p
Zutty
29. Apr 2014 路 22:03 UTC
Excellent. Best game I've played so far. I enjoyed exploring.

The game seems to freeze for me on the "You are Death" message.
Stepperz
29. Apr 2014 路 22:06 UTC
Awesome game!!! Feels very complete, and an editor!! Great sense of atmosphere created by the shadows :)
elpaulo
29. Apr 2014 路 22:21 UTC
Oh ! A very good game. A little like Zelda ! The music during game made me think a little about the Godfather. Nice job.
"You are death" he he.
elpaulo
29. Apr 2014 路 22:22 UTC
Oh ! A very good game !! A little like Zelda ! The music during game made me think a little about the Godfather. Nice job.
"You are death" he he.
josefnpat
29. Apr 2014 路 22:40 UTC
"You are death!"

Nice game! The light/shadow-casting didn't work well on my machine, but I love what you did! Great job!
runvs
30. Apr 2014 路 17:57 UTC
Great Game! I like the shadow effects. The soundtrack fits the mood.
blockbot
01. May 2014 路 13:13 UTC
I am death! Badass game, I can see this really developing into more. Loved the overall feel.
whalebot
02. May 2014 路 03:11 UTC
Man those spiders are OP... Sweet lighting/shadow effect.
allinlabs
02. May 2014 路 18:51 UTC
Couldn't get past the spiders sadly, tried 5 times but I suck :( But there seems to have various enemies, nice shadow effects, the music was perfect and the animation really worked well.
Impressive performance for a Love game, I didn't know you could do such cpu intensive calculation with it. I played a lot with the editor too, it was way better than what I use for making map. Nicely done!
lightsoda
05. May 2014 路 17:41 UTC
Those spiders where pretty rough. The cast shadows looked nice and smooth. Nice job.
AmmarAlsharekh
09. May 2014 路 08:11 UTC
Nice fight game I like the light system
Waterman7
09. May 2014 路 18:26 UTC
Nice look and atmosphere! A bit too difficult for my taste though...
JaJ
10. May 2014 路 09:54 UTC
Great game. It looks good and plays well. I would replace the sound effects, as they don't go with the music too well.
caranha
11. May 2014 路 11:21 UTC
Could not run your game :-( Here is the error message:

~/Games/LD/LD29/MoleEmpire$ love mole_empire_0.1.0.love
[string "conf.lua"]:6: attempt to index field 'window' (a nil value)
Error: [string "main.lua"]:12: attempt to call field 'setDefaultFilter' (a nil value)
stack traceback:
[string "main.lua"]:12: in function 'load'
[string "boot.lua"]:310: in function <[string "boot.lua"]:308>
[C]: in function 'xpcall'
馃帳 PriorBlue
13. May 2014 路 13:02 UTC
@caranha: I suppose you are using Mac or Linux with the Love2d interpreter. So i think the problem is, you have an older version, maybe 0.8.0? Because the "window" object is new since 0.9.0. On love2d.org you can download the newest version.