Must Thrive by ErikU

[raw]
made by ErikU for LD29 (JAM)
Hi, and thanks for looking at my entry! This is my second Ludum Dare.

My game is called Must Thrive - it's a 2.5D survival / evolution game where you play as a geometric creature that gains complexity by eating other complex objects. You can then level up and gain new abilities such as sonar and teleportation. But beware - there are creatures out there to eat you as well!

The game is fairly unfinished - it was meant to be played in three levels. Those levels can be visited, but only with some difficulty (by spamming teleport to traverse the land sections). If you press 0, you can get automatic levels for debugging or playing around.

I also apologize for the amount of empty space - it was meant to be filled more! I think I bit off a bit too much this time, hah.

Ratings

Coolness 41% 1669
Overall(Jam) 3.42 232
Audio(Jam) 2.68 509
Fun(Jam) 3.15 282
Graphics(Jam) 3.80 209
Innovation(Jam) 3.65 109
Theme(Jam) 3.45 228

Feedback

Jeff0029
28. Apr 2014 · 02:29 UTC
Very nice concept! I was able to roam around but was not able to find that giant monster on your last image.
InvisibleWonder
29. Apr 2014 · 06:21 UTC
The upgrade choice is very slick. I love the world design, too. I like this a lot.

The sonar effect is neat, but it's range is too small to be useful. And of course, music would finish the ambiance.
mrbungle
10. May 2014 · 13:33 UTC
This very cool - I like the graphic and the upgrade path is neat. Occasionally I struggled to read the words especially once I could see a wider area and I seemed to stop growing bigger once I had been eaten a bit by the small black evil thing.
Wertle
15. May 2014 · 20:06 UTC
I had fun with this though at first the movement wasn't working for me so I had to refresh a few times. I love how you change over time as you evolve and the upgrades are pretty fun. I thought the sonar was a bit unusual because usually anything it could detect was already on screen anyway. Nice work, seems like this could definitely be expanded!
wschorn
19. May 2014 · 22:14 UTC
very neat concept and visuals. lots of nice effects (like Sonar, wow!) I wanted more flow of 'what do i do now' though, and in that way it does feel unfinished.
wilbefast
19. May 2014 · 22:23 UTC
Nice! I especially like the sonar, it's a really cool effect :) I'm surprised you polished so much considering you say the game is unfinished. I'd like to see more frankly, it's really nice - reminds me of Fl0w though not so much that it doesn't have it's own novelty. The only trouble is when you reach a certain size it become really hard to eat as your eat range doesn't expand with you :S
Crefossus
19. May 2014 · 22:44 UTC
I like the color scheme and fonts. The rays shooting out to collect the fish felt nice. I can see where the camera work is going with giving leading space but because it controls where you're moving, it feels odd.

Audio is really high pitch, could use music.
Teejay5
19. May 2014 · 22:56 UTC
I like the upgrade system, this is a neat little game!
PixelFeet
19. May 2014 · 23:02 UTC
This is a really cool game; it's very relaxing, too. I love the art style in particular.
drilltail
19. May 2014 · 23:21 UTC
Cool concept. The idea of leveling up how far the camera sits is pretty sweet!
mark.goetz
19. May 2014 · 23:56 UTC
Love the upgrade system, and the graphics and AI seem pretty good too! I'll echo the complaint that once I upgraded my sight, the text was impossible to read, which I felt detracted from the experience, though. Nice job getting all this in!
Moosefly
20. May 2014 · 00:31 UTC
Not much of a game at the moment, but still an interesting experience. Those pitch black depths were kinda spooky too. Interesting control scheme, why not use a mousebutton or something instead of W?

Anssi@MooseflyGames