Cuteopia by Mekuri

[raw]
made by Mekuri for LD29 (COMPO)
Phew- This was in the final hour for sure!

I realized just as I was about to submit, that I forgot to scale text with screen size. This may cause problems reading the text ingame, so All the "Menu Screen" text will be posted below.
The monsters in the game come from the ocean this "Beneath The Surface". - I did plan to another monster that would come through the ground, but I did not have time to animated it, so I decided to leave it out.

This was my first time delving into AI, so the AI is extremely simple. Furthermore, this being the compo, I decided to create my own character controller. It might not be the best, but it's the first I've created fully by myself.

Music was done with a combination of cgMusic and Synthfont, and with a little help from Audacity.
The sound effects, few as they may be, was made by myself, by making sounds into the mic. Quite fun :P

Below are the ingame information in case the text is all messed up.
Thank you for reading and playing my game! :-)

Edit:
Fixed a "bug" that made you unable to go to fullscreen without skipping the instructions menu- Changed "any key" to "space bar" to fix this.

------------------------------------------------------
The Story!!! (Long version)
This is Cuteopia- Or some of it anyways. You have been chosen
as the "Cutie in Shining Armor"... Or well. It's not really that
shiny, but you look different than the others!
Cuteopia are being attacked by the devious "Baddies"... Well not
that devious, the AI programming is really lacking! But they can
kill you, and your fellow Cuteopians.
These nasties come from "Beneath the Surface" of the ocean.
There's also stories about some other baddies from under the ground,
but they didn't really make it into this version of the ga... the world!
So anyways- You have this shiny sword that is really awesome... Well it
will be soon enough. It needs time to charge up, but the good thing is
it gets better over time, so it'll get easier.
Oh right- You win, when your Sword is fully charged! That simple!
One last thing! You heal at the fountain in the middle. Pretty cool huh?

Good luck!

The SHORT Version
- You can kill stuff.
- Kill stuff that comes from water, with sword.
- Sword charges up over time- Like 5 - 10 mins or so.
- You win when Sword is charged up!
- Stand close to fountain in town to heal!
- Look on the other side of the screen for control information!

Controls
- Mouse to look around.
- Moving forward moves you in the direction the camera is facing.
- WASD or Arrow keys to move".
- Hold Shift to Run.
- LMB to swing your (soon to be) mighty sword.
- Your patience to bear with the unpolished controls (and AI).

Ratings

Coolness 75% 2
Overall 3.05 693
Audio 3.32 223
Fun 2.88 680
Graphics 3.05 626
Humor 2.65 408
Innovation 2.54 948
Mood 2.74 777
Theme 2.21 1151

Feedback

Shivur
28. Apr 2014 · 02:25 UTC
It's a little hard too control at the start because the camera turn too quickly. But with a little practice the game become enjoyable and relaxing.
Afal
28. Apr 2014 · 18:03 UTC
I had way too much fun running around the fountain swinging at slimes
Halbernacht
28. Apr 2014 · 21:41 UTC
There's something weirdly amusing about seeing a giant moshpit of cuties and slimes wailing on each other.
thinkster
28. Apr 2014 · 21:42 UTC
Was fun running around and swinging the sword. When attacking the enemies some sort of feedback that you were hurting them would have been nice. I'm impressed by what you did in 48 hours!
pansapiens
29. Apr 2014 · 06:42 UTC
Overall, plays quite well. I especially like the helper guys wandering around, since it gives a real atmosphere of a living village that must be protected. I think you could trim back the opening story until it is better refined - it didn't seem to add much for so many words. Bad blobs from the ocean are attacking, keep whacking them till you win. I would have liked some visual feedback to tell me when I'd hit a monster (particles, flash blob colour or a hit animation) since it was hard to know when my slashes were connecting. From a design perspective, what could work well here is having an object(s) (shrine, elderly leader, vege patch ?) that needs to be protected, but is distant from the fountain.
🎤 Mekuri
29. Apr 2014 · 07:18 UTC
Thanks a lot for the feedback guys :-)
@Shivur: I did crank up the sensitivity a lot towards the end since I felt it was too slow. I might have cranked it up too much :-)
@Afal: I'm glad you had fun :-)
@Thinkster: I'm glad you think I got a lot done, that is also the reason I had to cut things out and things got a little hasty somewhere.
@pansapiens: For the reasons above I didn't get around to fixing the effect when monsters get hit- There is actually an animation for it, that you might see on rare ocasions, but the move or attack animation kinda ruins it, and I didn't have the time to sort it out.
About the story, I did want to tell a deeper story, but again, time got the best of me, so I hastily tried to make a short story, while attempting to be a bit humorous about it :P But I really like your ideas :D
Simon@LD
29. Apr 2014 · 11:16 UTC
Really impressive for only 48 hours! Now will you excuse me... i have some more blobs to kill ;)
ArcturusDeluxe
29. Apr 2014 · 16:05 UTC
Pretty fun game. I liked the NPC helpers, and teaming up with them to kill the blobs felt good. The controls felt a bit clunky, but I understand you can't do everything within the time limit. The basic idea is good though and I'd like to see it expanded upon. Nice music too!
GamerTaters
29. Apr 2014 · 18:09 UTC
It was fun at first but then got a little repetitive. There was not really a goal to go towards. Just facing a wave of blobs. :p. like the cute art as well as the music it fits the theme.
Brian Corr
29. Apr 2014 · 18:12 UTC
Hi!

I encountered a pretty nasty bug: the enviromnent didn't seem to load. Still, the alliies and enemies spawned, so I could basically play to get a feel for things. This is well done. Things look good (from screenshots and what i COULD see) and the controls are pretty nice.

I think that the sword feels 'far' from me, a little unnatural in that sense. Maybe you could make it bigger and bring it in and the mechanics of the swing would be more intuitive. The AI seems fine and the music, atmosphere and story are neat, especially for 48h.

Well done!
Dominator_101
29. Apr 2014 · 19:10 UTC
I may or may not have accidentally or intentionally murdered a few of my buddies...

:P
Marcellus
29. Apr 2014 · 20:44 UTC
Art and music are nice, I would have liked a bit of feedback when I hit a blob.
garygreen
29. Apr 2014 · 20:52 UTC
I really liked the graphics and music in this and it was fun to wander around hacking at the blobs too. :-) I'd like to see you develop his game idea.
Oddly Shaped Pixels
29. Apr 2014 · 22:01 UTC
Really well polished for 48h! It was fun slashing some blobs. Maybe (just a suggestion) you could put the camera a bit higher cause the character's body takes sometimes 75% of the screen height
cageinabird
30. Apr 2014 · 07:37 UTC
There's a lot here for 48 hours! I liked the music and the AI buddies most. I did notice an animation glitch when you run and attack at the same time, but I know what Unity's animation system can be like. :)
timtipgames
01. May 2014 · 13:09 UTC
Enjoyed playing it. It get's a bit repetitive after a while though :) Good job on character controller, didn't experience any problems.
oobie
02. May 2014 · 04:31 UTC
Cool. How did the theme tie in with this exactly? Or am I just dumb
🎤 Mekuri
02. May 2014 · 08:26 UTC
The theme reference was that the baddies came from beneath the surface of the water. It would've been more obvious if I had had enough time to implement the second mob, which would've come from beneath the ground.
Jupiter_Hadley
03. May 2014 · 05:07 UTC
Cool looking game! I included it in part 10 of my Ludum Dare compilation video series, if you'd like to check it out :) http://youtu.be/vjBlRj2wHy8
MintArcade
03. May 2014 · 08:21 UTC
Great fun! Played a lot. Like AI behaviors.
Druid
04. May 2014 · 11:26 UTC
I really enjoyed this game. Because reminded me Yarooze andventure game on PSX https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2M0_xyr3uxk :D
GameGrape Corporation
18. May 2014 · 16:26 UTC
Very cool! What did you use to make this? Unity3d, LWJGL? OpenGL, Direct3D? Thanks! :D Great Job! -Mallot1 GameGrape Corporation: www.codingrevolution.blogspot.com