My First Ping Pong Massacre by Martin Vilcans

[raw]
made by Martin Vilcans for LD25 (COMPO)
The name My First Ping Pong Massacre was randomly generated by the Video Game Name Generator, http://videogamena.me/. It fit the theme and the game surprisingly well. It's very loosely related to ping pong, but very much about a massacre.

Can you find the hidden enemies? It takes cunning and superior firepower to find their dwellings. The only way to tell how successful you were is to count the bodies after the attack, when you're out of ammuniton.

War has never been this fun.

Thanks for everyones feedback! The post-compo version now shows the kills in the game so it's easier to know what you're doing. I'll add audio too. http://pingpong.librador.com

Ratings

Coolness 48% 694
Overall 3.09 310
Fun 3.42 108
Graphics 3.18 266
Humor 2.16 494
Innovation 2.64 468
Mood 2.70 409
Theme 3.27 338

Feedback

monomanio
17. Dec 2012 · 04:06 UTC
Very cool! The physics are really nice, and adds to the experience. Had to keep playing until i managed to destroy everything!
hypp
17. Dec 2012 · 06:44 UTC
Quite funny! Where is the goat?
saampahlavan
17. Dec 2012 · 21:23 UTC
Particles and physics are pretty cool. Needs more of a "game" to it though.
Edocentrique
17. Dec 2012 · 22:32 UTC
I blew some buildings and guessing what sound it'll make, it was fun !
Grungi Ankhfire
17. Dec 2012 · 22:38 UTC
As the other said, the particles and overall response to the shots are nice, but the games feels a bit arbitrary in how it awards points. Could be a little more explicit. But nice start!
loren
17. Dec 2012 · 22:47 UTC
Very fun :) I love the burst particles and gameplay
🎤 Martin Vilcans
17. Dec 2012 · 23:20 UTC
@hypp: (SPOILER ALERT) The goats are in the small buildings closest to the cannon.
boena
19. Dec 2012 · 08:41 UTC
Nice work! Love the particles and overall action :D Too bad you didn't have the time to add audio. Nice meeting you this weekend.
bradleypollard
20. Dec 2012 · 20:18 UTC
Particle physics are nice (although weird they destroy things?) Shame I couldn't really see any of the things it said I destroyed. Sound would have gone a long way.
SirJson
20. Dec 2012 · 20:57 UTC
The dynamic destroying of the world is really cool and is running very fast! You are using WebGL right?
Freakill
20. Dec 2012 · 21:03 UTC
Nice particles and graphics, I really liked the race of destruction in the scenario. Really cool.

About the correctness or not about content... I think that we must be capable of distinguish fiction and reality, and despite one could say these games we are playing these days could be a banalization of what destruction and violence is, I think one does not mean the other, so playing this does not mean we are less aware of how bad world is going in some places...

So, good game, good representation of theme, and no problem, in my opinion, about the content :)
recursor
20. Dec 2012 · 21:04 UTC
As I was firing salvos at the city I began to wonder why the citizens would allow a giant turret to be built right next to them. I wish you were able to control the power of the shots too, but even without that it was pretty fun.
🎤 Martin Vilcans
20. Dec 2012 · 21:12 UTC
@bradleypollard: Yes, the shards from the primary explosion are explosive and cause a chain reaction. The last 10 shells are even more explosive.

@SirJson: Yes, this is made in WebGL. I used raw WebGL without a framework because I'm a masochist.

@Freakill: I hope you are right that we aren't desensitised. I think most people aren't. It's the weirdos that we should be worried about. And there's a lot of weirdos in this world.
jmaasing
20. Dec 2012 · 21:22 UTC
Weeee particles :)
Per
21. Dec 2012 · 00:01 UTC
Nice explosion effects.
Yay, I killed a lot of women and children! Made me feel evil ;)
doos
21. Dec 2012 · 00:17 UTC
Pew pew pew!
Milo
21. Dec 2012 · 00:27 UTC
I liked the physics and it was a fun thing just to watch. As far as gameplay, the slight randomness in the bullets and them changing power during the game kind of threw me off, along with the fact that there was no indication of where the people were.
Puzzlem00n
21. Dec 2012 · 03:33 UTC
Good job here! Let's break this down.

Bad:
-Not much gameness to it
-Shots sometimes hit some pixels in the way of other buildings, and it's quite annoying when they do.
-Aiming can be a bit off sometimes

Good:
+I like the overall premise of it. Trial and error cannonading. Yes.
+I've seen the code for these sort of dynamic pixels, and wow, not simple stuff. Good work on putting it all together.
fishbrain
21. Dec 2012 · 07:54 UTC
Simply - bot much to do - but quite fun, and nice particle fx.
Will Edwards
21. Dec 2012 · 22:08 UTC
disappointed that shooting straight up didn't kill you...
marudziik
22. Dec 2012 · 12:42 UTC
A little pretentious, but I don't mind. Regarding your post about it being controversial, IMHO the game fits the theme all right, though it's disputable whether it itself touches the problem of people not being sensitive to war. War isn't a game, amd killing in real life isn't like killing in a game, especially at this level of abstraction. There are no similarities between not feeling remorse over invisible characters in the game and not caring about war IRL.

The execution of the idea is quite good, though there's no real challenge, besides destroying everything. Well, maybe that's the point. The destruction effect looks really awesome and using raw WebGL is really something to be proud of. I would like to see some more gameplay, but I also get what you're aiming at here and that it must've been a lot of work as it is. Very good entry!
Cake&Code
29. Dec 2012 · 08:02 UTC
Incredible work! I actually did enjoy bombing the heck out of the buildings and trying to increase the kill count which makes me, among others who also enjoyed playing, very much the villain.

I think the fact that the buildings don't have any visible creatures and no blood is spilled upon the destruction of said buildings that the player can't exactly connect with the mass murdering they are doing. It feels more like you are destroying a condemned and empty town.

Still, I wouldn't be surprised if some people were genuinely traumatized by this game. The creator of Missile Command, Dave Theurer, has said that he had nightmares about cities being destroyed while creating the game.

More to the point: The game has good execution, very amazing graphics, and a good use of the theme. Well done sir, well done!
haxpor
30. Dec 2012 · 08:03 UTC
The explosion of the bullet hitting the building and stuff is fun to watch really. It reminds me to the day of learning riemers's xna tutorial project at http://www.riemers.net/eng/Tutorials/XNA/Csharp/series2d.php.

At first I think, there will be human or something hidden in the first floor or after we banished those building. But no, it's actually summarized in the result screen. After I saw that, well man, I'm a real badass :)
csanyk
01. Jan 2013 · 06:17 UTC
Pretty fun! Needs sound.
bentog
02. Jan 2013 · 23:40 UTC
Good game to relax.