Compactor by VDOgamez

[raw]
made by VDOgamez for LD26 (COMPO)
The walls are closing in. Freeze your foes to hold the sides off, or burn them up for power.

Use the WASD keys to move, click to shoot your gun, shift to change your gun, space to buy an item, and control to change items.

The freeze gun (blue) freezes enemies in place. While they remain, the walls will get stuck on their bodies. However, they quickly start to melt.
The laser gun (orange) does high damage to enemies, but doesn't freeze them. Instead, it converts them into power, which can be used to buy items.

The ice cube (five power) comes pre-frozen for your convenience, and can be placed anywhere to jam the walls.
The shield recharge (ten power) recharges half of your shields, good for an extra two hits.
The jacks (fifteen power) come in two orientations, and will expand to meet the walls on both sides. Made of sturdy metal instead of ice, they will last an entire two times as long as an ice cube before melting.
The hourglass (twenty five power) has the mystic power to delay the inevitable. Time flows backwards, and the walls slowly reverse. Don't think they'll stay there, though.

The theme of minimalism here is being used in a physical sense. Or something. Really as soon as I heard the theme I started thinking about garbage compactors and never went back.

This weekend has been filled with lots of distractions, and it turns out I am not especially good at working continuously. In all, I spent about twelve hours on this game, and was getting bored of this by the end. I did manage to do a lot better by choosing a simple idea instead of something involving some complex mechanic, like 3D calculations or orbital mechanics or an AI opponent, so I was able to put a lot more polish than I have before on this game. Even so, I didn't really have time to play it enough to balance it perfectly, so you may find that certain strategies make the game trivial, or that some items are incredibly overpriced for their usefulness, despite my efforts. Still, I'm pretty happy with what I've come out with from this competition, especially after missing a couple of previous ones.

Ratings

Coolness 65% 3
Overall 3.11 619
Audio 1.12 1090
Fun 2.89 643
Graphics 2.59 906
Humor 1.75 916
Innovation 3.68 156
Mood 2.30 1077
Theme 3.46 632

Feedback

mrexcessive
29. Apr 2013 路 04:14 UTC
Sound was either really quiet or not there (Chrome browser on Windows). Felt a bit slow to start with, still managed to be stressful!
Perry
29. Apr 2013 路 04:15 UTC
I like the transition with the compacting walls. Shame to hear about your distractions, I too have to work on this. Good entry :D.
Andy West
29. Apr 2013 路 04:25 UTC
Interesting concept, and definitely minimal, but the gray-on-gray is very difficult to read. Also, I found the controls cumbersome and non-intuitive.
Super Hamster
29. Apr 2013 路 04:48 UTC
The game was interesting. I didn't even notice the compactingness for a while. What would be nice, is to be able to replay, after you lose.
馃帳 VDOgamez
29. Apr 2013 路 05:08 UTC
I would have liked to have added sound for this, but I haven't gotten around to learning how to make sound effects for this. It really feels like it needs some kind of metal grinding noises or something. The text coloring was a thematic decision that was perhaps poorly thought out. And I feel kind of silly for forgetting a replay option, it would have been easy to put in.
sparksgently
29. Apr 2013 路 05:57 UTC
The compactor is a neat idea, it really would have had a lot more emotional content with sound effects... I tried to stick with it until I got a power-up but I decided that the frustration (mostly with the difficulty of shooting things) wasn't worth it.
nseward
29. Apr 2013 路 06:21 UTC
I loved this. I will have to come back and perfect my strategy. I felt a little out of control at first. The only thing I would suggest would be a tutorial section. (I fixed my link if you want to check it out again.)
NeverAutomatic
29. Apr 2013 路 06:37 UTC
Great concept. The compactor closes in a little too fast, maybe? I had trouble freezing enemies fast enough to really make a difference while also trying to gather up some points. Fun game though!
Brian Corr
29. Apr 2013 路 07:59 UTC
Not bad. I didn't like the aiming controls. The enemies are small and your bullets are slow.

However, the compacting concept is a great one. If there was a way to somehow expand the walls, and not just stall their progress, I think that would improve things a lot. That said, great effort, very polished.
JonRB
29. Apr 2013 路 08:01 UTC
Really original, shame there's no sound. Overall a pretty good game! I really like the scaling graphics!
Casino Jack
29. Apr 2013 路 17:17 UTC
I really like the concept of freezing enemies to stop the walls closing in on you (though I actually did much better by killing them and placing blocks)
free_napalm
29. Apr 2013 路 21:15 UTC
I think everything has been said, but I really liked the opening transitions.
Meep
29. Apr 2013 路 21:24 UTC
Very fun and original game. I had trouble hitting the enemies at first (They're small, bullets traveling relatively slow), but it gets better over time. The overall look is aesthetically pleasing, great work! :)
Canobie
29. Apr 2013 路 21:33 UTC
Very cool! Liked it a lot!
Cirrial
29. Apr 2013 路 22:22 UTC
A solid game. The aesthetic simplicity works wonders for the theme, although it took me a while to realise there were other options for things to buy with power. It seems really difficult to shoot things. Not sure why. Maybe an issue with the shot speed or the size of the enemies. Still, I really like the idea.
Milo
01. May 2013 路 02:16 UTC
This is pretty neat. I like that you have to use your enemies to help you - and you get to choose, specifically, how to do that. I felt like more variation, like having more than one enemy type, might have made the game feel engaging longer, although as it, it withstood a few plays.
markusfisch
01. May 2013 路 12:53 UTC
Interesting idea. Well done!
Idovoodoo
01. May 2013 路 13:05 UTC
Really like the concept here. Well done :)
DBRalir
01. May 2013 路 21:43 UTC
Very interesting concept, I would love to see this made into a full game. It mainly just needs to be rebalanced, I think.