Helium-4 by mountainstorm

[raw]
made by mountainstorm for LD35 (COMPO)
It's all Hydrogen, but it wants to be so much more ... only you can help!

You play the role of 'HIGH ENERGY', the physics overlord. Using the power of energy, agitate nearby Hydrogen atoms and shift their quantum structure until they become Helium-4!

Hold tight, as once you start wielding that power even 'HIGH ENERGY' will not be able to fully control what happens, and you don't want to end up with Lithium-7 all over the place.

WARNING: game contains bright flashes and may be unsuitable for those suffering from photosensitive epilepsy

Instructions:

* Click or tap to select two elements, and use your power to catapult them toward each other
* If they collide fast enough, and form a valid combination they will fuse into another element releasing energy as heat
* Heat the screen and form chain reactions to gain bonuses
* The game ends when there are no available fusion combinations left; sofas up all those 3s and 1s

UPDATE: As nobody seems to have noticed, the valid combinations are all on the front screen. Ideally you'll end up with just Helium-4 as all the atoms have paired up. If you end up with Lithium 7's or Hydrogen 2's floating around you missed the chance to make a few more points

Notes:

* It sometimes crashes - theres a memory leak somewhere, but I can't find it :(

Production: http://mountainstorm.github.io/LD35/
Source: https://github.com/mountainstorm/LD35

Ratings

Coolness 100% 1
Overall 3.50 224
Audio 3.63 90
Fun 3.37 300
Graphics 3.33 332
Innovation 3.87 87
Theme 3.55 339

Feedback

norseware
17. Apr 2016 · 21:16 UTC
Argh! I got a really big one going, and then it broke apart!

This game is awesome. I'm still not completely sure about the rules, but it's fun none the less. Nice work, this is a nice original interpretation of 'shapeshift'!
HealogiK
17. Apr 2016 · 22:02 UTC
Almost had an epileptic crisis while spamming randomly my click.. greate ideas but not that much gameplay.. still hard work tho, good job for this
IDidGame
17. Apr 2016 · 22:13 UTC
I love how you used the theme.
It's one of those things where i immediately went "of course, how didn't i think of that!!"

It'd be great if you could clear up the whether theres a clear rule/goal and if so how it works in the description.
htspencer88
18. Apr 2016 · 00:17 UTC
I have no idea what I'm doing but I'm having a lot of fun doing it!

It's got great energy and I'm jealous you made such a sweet track in 48 hours!

Good Job :)
LudumAnthony
18. Apr 2016 · 01:18 UTC
Minimal gameplay but still fun.
It has really good music though.

Also I would remove the flashing white or change it with a bright red to lessen the intensity.
Flygamer101
18. Apr 2016 · 02:13 UTC
This was a great game :D Can't believe you made this and the SWEET music in only 48 hours!

Was Fun
Innovative
Graphics were clean
Fun to play (again)
Was nice use on the theme too.
Blobo
18. Apr 2016 · 02:14 UTC
This was a really neat entry. I like the use of the theme.
theOnlyGoodDrcz
18. Apr 2016 · 02:27 UTC
the idea is witty, and the game is very aesthetic; It's very nice to look at; but it feels more like a triptoy/eyecandy than a game... the interactions are rather chaotic, though escaping photon (or any other small-and-fast thing) blew my mind!
sirtetris
18. Apr 2016 · 04:50 UTC
Not that I knew what I was doing but it was kind of fun. Music was the best, visuals also neat!

Btw.: the scoreboard showed only 5 digit scores when mine were entered ('SIR' with an 80.000 and a 90.000 score) then I got 100.000 and this happened: https://i.imgur.com/3lQEkm2.png — maybe a bug?
GodsBoss
18. Apr 2016 · 06:40 UTC
Wow, I'm impressed. Very fun game indeed, and the controls were (at least to me) intuitively understandable.

But why is helium the goal? Squeeze all the energy out of those hydrogen atoms, up to iron! ;-)
🎤 mountainstorm
18. Apr 2016 · 06:41 UTC
eek; thanks for the bug - the scoreboard was a bit hacked together. I realised at the end (with no time left) I should have highlighted potential matches.
simon
18. Apr 2016 · 08:24 UTC
thats cool - internal rules are unclear but its fun to try and find out... nice gameplay and graphical style!
would be cool with electron-feature.
the white flash is unpleasant
4/5
glaze_96
18. Apr 2016 · 08:29 UTC
At first I just clicked around and boy was it fun!
Tried to make the biggest atom but it decayed :'(

Anyways, I actually got the hang of it on my second try and it was awesome!

Really good take on the theme.

The graphics are simple but really does the job!

Thanks for the the great experience =)
Pfeyffer
18. Apr 2016 · 09:27 UTC
Good interpretation of the theme, great gameplay. The rules are too complex to follow but just random clicking is fun.
akirassasin
18. Apr 2016 · 11:08 UTC
Audio not playing? On Safari OSX.

Dem randomly floating balls blocking others :P
retrogradeorbit
18. Apr 2016 · 11:13 UTC
Beautifully fluid. An hypnotic interactive nuclear dance floor.
MartinFernandez
18. Apr 2016 · 11:52 UTC
I don't really know what i have to do, but it was awesome xD!! Great music!!
FenyesJ
18. Apr 2016 · 12:27 UTC
awesome piece of art
Kiwiboi
18. Apr 2016 · 12:30 UTC
Ah the flashes! Make it stop! Haha cool game, chaos on screen is always fun, probably a lot of interesting coding behind this :)
celmore1001
18. Apr 2016 · 12:51 UTC
When I was on the roll Mr. Chrome hit me with an "Aw, Snap!" message :D
No worries though. The game is great!
Rakowu
18. Apr 2016 · 17:30 UTC
Great music, great idea. Font-family nice. A really nice game. On mobile with playing with finger instead of mouse should be even better. Great :)
laFunk
18. Apr 2016 · 17:45 UTC
Cool and nice game feel! I didn't really get the mechanics but it was fun just mindlessly clicking on the screen. The minimalistic aestethic work great.
Sadly, the game crashed when I had a bunch of big clusters >_<
Good job overall!
doombrowski
18. Apr 2016 · 17:54 UTC
Difficult to understand exactly what it was I was supposed to be doing. I clicked a bunch and it eventually crashed on me. The music was pretty good though.
keyboardmonkey
18. Apr 2016 · 20:57 UTC
Exciting Hydrogen atoms has never been this fun. Doc Brown would be proud.
AlexLamarche
18. Apr 2016 · 21:15 UTC
Nice interactive game. Seizure warning!
Arvydas
18. Apr 2016 · 23:23 UTC
Very interesting idea. Could be more of a biology educational simulation. Pretty fun to click rapidly and see what happens lol
deathray
19. Apr 2016 · 00:07 UTC
This is way more fun than it should be. Excellent work on music and science. After a while it was frustrating not having control over the direction I was sending the particles - it kind of turned into a clicking / patience simulator. But, like I said, still fun.
TheCain
19. Apr 2016 · 01:42 UTC
Man is this fun!
This is one of my favorites so far. It looks good too.
I was on a streak, but it crashed.
TheCain
19. Apr 2016 · 01:43 UTC
Man is this fun!
This is one of my favorites so far. It looks good too.
I was on a streak, but it crashed.
Also, you should add a Top Ten scores list
RealityCheck
19. Apr 2016 · 17:03 UTC
I don't know why... but I had a good time clicking around on the little atoms. Don't know if there's a strategy to employ, but I enjoyed trying to get new formations. The game crashed after a while though, and I suspect a memory leak somewhere. Nice gravity and a fun little game.
🎤 mountainstorm
19. Apr 2016 · 18:00 UTC
I'm rather pleased to see that most people seem to summarise their experience as "fun, but I don't know why" ... I'm going to consider that a success. There's a memory leak but I can't figure out where it is.
blinry
19. Apr 2016 · 22:10 UTC
It's fun :) Nice music, too! Got tired of clicking after a while, though.
MayMakeGame
19. Apr 2016 · 22:19 UTC
Amazing idea for shape shifting! Plus, thanks for commenting o my game! =3
PPski
19. Apr 2016 · 22:26 UTC
I can't really add to anything people have said - fun, tidy and intuitive!

Unfortunately the ram usage seemed to keep increasing until it crashed.
JohnnySix
19. Apr 2016 · 22:47 UTC
I wasn't sure what I was doing , maybe would've been good with a selection ring / gesture to swipe / select them together, was hard click the pesky hyrogen. :)

Liked the music and hectic bouncing. I think I got the high score for now. Was trying to prevent entropy within the system by keeping things moving. Wasn't sure at what point I failed. :(
jcmonkey
19. Apr 2016 · 22:53 UTC
this really needs to be a windows playable game. it crashed on me in the browser. other then that what i played felt fun.
Slothmachine
19. Apr 2016 · 23:25 UTC
Great, innovative and messy. Just like jam games are suppose to be :)
pianoman373
19. Apr 2016 · 23:30 UTC
Man, I've always wanted to try and make some kind of nerdy particle physics simulator/game.... and you just did it.... This must have been an absolute blast to code. While this is extremely cool though, it lacks on game-playability. But I know that really doesn't matter for something like this.

I kind of wish there was a gui showing what combinations were which elements, and which elements were desirable. Without knowing what elements are good, you just wanna spam click and watch the show.

oh yeah... and the audio is AMAZING! It's probably a coincidence (or programmed in which would be awesome) but, when I was playing my first round, the music completely changed after I hit a certain score and everything was getting hot, and really matched the pace of everything. It was just so awesome.
lycoris102
19. Apr 2016 · 23:41 UTC
I like this :)
Good appearance and music.
Ghust1995
20. Apr 2016 · 00:12 UTC
Very good use of the theme ^^
Cole and Jordan Studios
20. Apr 2016 · 01:04 UTC
Wha? It was pretty well done visually and the audio was fitting but I didn't understand what was going on or what the objective was. Good job anyway.
cabezotta
20. Apr 2016 · 01:16 UTC
Great entry! Very smart use of the theme! Very original!
tmpxyz
20. Apr 2016 · 02:23 UTC
Don't quite understand what I'm doing, but it looks interesting.
Ithildin
20. Apr 2016 · 02:48 UTC
This has a lot of potential (it feels very rewarding when you start to see how the combinations interact with others), but as they've said, there is not much yet on the side of gameplay.

On another plus side, it feels really polished. Great job!
flummox3d
20. Apr 2016 · 06:05 UTC
The bright flashes were a little bit distracing, but I had fun playing (not quite sure about the rules however :)). Nice job! :)
Geckoo1337
21. Apr 2016 · 05:12 UTC
The project is very aesthetic - fun mood and nice mechanics. However, I would like to see a logical gameplay. Overall, I like it ++
mooncalf
21. Apr 2016 · 06:21 UTC
Wasn't sure of the rules but had fun playing. That is a win imo. A clearer rule set could tip it to awesome.
WeaverDeveloper
21. Apr 2016 · 06:42 UTC
Crashed before the game ended, but this is a super neat game.
reckhou
21. Apr 2016 · 09:11 UTC
Visually looks good but honestly speaking I don't know what to do till the end... maybe I have to review my high school chemistry book?
WeirdMind
21. Apr 2016 · 18:47 UTC
Interesting Concept, cool idea
LeReveur
21. Apr 2016 · 20:13 UTC
Got a good score, but I will try again, I wanna have the big one ! Good game, well done. :)
psychonull
22. Apr 2016 · 00:35 UTC
pretty awesome, I got how it works after some reading of the description and trying, I got the point which is good but it was hard to understand, especially for someone who has no idea what is Hellium-4 or Lithium-7. Great audio and physics though!
VapeurTeam
22. Apr 2016 · 12:16 UTC
Pretty nice even though I found the flash of light a bit uncomfortable for the eyes (then again i got sensitive eyes!) -- I liked the fact that the walkthrough is legit on the first screen :D
mikedirl
22. Apr 2016 · 12:31 UTC
Great idea, I like the way you made a game that incorporates learning with game play.
smbe19
22. Apr 2016 · 13:18 UTC
A neat little game. The interpretation of the theme really was quite cool, although in this case, this means there is not a lot of variation to the gameplay.

The graphics really fit the game's context with nuclear fusion. They certainly make it very clear to the user, but I wouldn't go as far as to say that they were an outstanding feature of the game.

The music, on the other hand, was excellent. It somehow really fit in with your style and it gave the whole thing quite an epic vibe.

So despite the gameplay being quite simplistic, I have to say: very good job overall.
PinkIndian
22. Apr 2016 · 13:22 UTC
Overall a great game! Awesome music and "feel". I hope you find that memory leak someday.
Fabraz
22. Apr 2016 · 15:04 UTC
Could be turned into something educational for schools, which I appreciate.
Larzan
22. Apr 2016 · 19:45 UTC
Wow, great idea, music, style, really polished and well made.
Very fun to play, well done!
caelanrp
23. Apr 2016 · 08:00 UTC
Wow, the concept sounded super boring, and then I opened it up and proceeded to be blasted in the face by pure craziness. I like this a LOT. Obviously not too much content here but I had a blast playing it.
luvShape
26. Apr 2016 · 10:41 UTC
NIce job :) I was one of those who spammed clicks and had fun!
TheMightyTeam
28. Apr 2016 · 19:34 UTC
What, I am learning chemistry whilst I play!

The story also adds some points to me. XD

The biggest drawback i find are those nasty flashes.
forestgamer007
29. Apr 2016 · 04:03 UTC
80 is maximum points to get
Innovation: 8/10
Fun: 3/10
Theme: 1/10
Graphics: 2/10
Audio: 4/10
Humor: 0/10
Mood: 0/10
Coolness: 5/10
Overall: 23/80
Good Game
frogcheese
01. May 2016 · 09:37 UTC
A cool idea, with some nice audio to it. Pretty difficult getting those atoms to where you want 'em, but it was fun.
Echo Team
03. May 2016 · 03:59 UTC
Great game! Unfortunately it makes Firefox leak memory like there is no tomorrow.

Also, I got a significant drop in frame rate each time a combination occurred.
dwemthy
03. May 2016 · 20:07 UTC
Not sure what I was doing, but it was fun!
abuzreq
03. May 2016 · 21:13 UTC
Hmm, nice visuals and music.
But couldn't get what exactly happens when I press.
things seemed to be very fast for a well timed reaction.
Liked the simplicity .
Yetikatt
04. May 2016 · 11:50 UTC
Not entirely sure what I was meant to be doing, but clicking was fun! :D
Tanton-H2X
05. May 2016 · 03:14 UTC
there are some great epic/grandness feeling(also with some sense of mission) through my game experience! really amazing and genius, the music also enhence the atmosphere really great...if the tune(on visual )could be more cold, it may let me feel more realx and get more flow(now the blast is too hot and high lightness,i am not sure whether more fade/gradient added could be more nice..)
all in all ,wonderful entry,love it!
terryg
06. May 2016 · 08:51 UTC
Couldn't quite figure out how to win, but it was fun clicking everywhere and generating more energy to combine more H.
t4u
06. May 2016 · 08:55 UTC
Cool effect, sadly I don't get the gameplay
silkworm_sweatshop
06. May 2016 · 22:33 UTC
Was pretty fun until it crashed.
fragileannihilator
08. May 2016 · 15:59 UTC
The game freezed at 89900 :)