Oculus Battalion by Maxium

[raw]
made by Maxium for LD24 (COMPO)
Capture enemy slimes and eyeballs to use as your own soldiers in this wave based horde surivival game. Captured enemies can be fed to level up and evolve into stronger forms.

Source:http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4595251/oculus_battalion_src.zip

Post Compo Edits:
-Fixed npc glitch
-Optimized spawning of mobs
-Added labels to indicate the level of monsters
-Added Mouse sensitivity options
-Added Mouse Inversion
-Added a Pause menu
-Updated Instructions graphic
-Fixed mouse focusing issues

Timelapse: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SkyNh5WYjjQ

Note: I'm aware that there is a slight bug that allows the player to have more npcs than allowed and occasionally leads to npcs disappearing.

Ratings

Coolness 100% 1
Overall 3.30 203
Audio 2.52 335
Fun 3.25 154
Graphics 3.56 147
Humor 2.39 266
Innovation 2.96 324
Mood 2.81 277
Theme 2.56 501

Feedback

samoojamies
27. Aug 2012 · 15:50 UTC
Change webplayer link from https to http because it causes a plugin problem with the chrome.
Cool npc system you have developed. I had some performance issues at some points and then died due to that.
Krise20
27. Aug 2012 · 17:05 UTC
Thought it was nice and simple, but the mouse movement was too fast sometimes, but I don't think thats a problem with your game?
🎤 Maxium
27. Aug 2012 · 17:05 UTC
Oh thanks! Its fixed now.
Vordux
27. Aug 2012 · 17:06 UTC
Great game! visual are excellent, the style is really nice as well, reminds me of Chu Chu rocket for some reason.

Really cool mechanics.

I also like the reference to NetHack
RobProductions
27. Aug 2012 · 17:13 UTC
Great job, loved the art style but it was a little hard to hit the enemies! Also you nailed the smooth feeling of first person but failed to make a proper pause screen. Maybe for next LD you should try to get that working.

Anyways no performance issues here, all worked fine!
josefnpat
27. Aug 2012 · 17:34 UTC
Sorry, on linux. Hurry up Unity 4.0!
🎤 Maxium
27. Aug 2012 · 17:43 UTC
For sure, Unity 4.0 with linux support and a GUI system that doesn't suck :)
Dakota
27. Aug 2012 · 18:05 UTC
Love it. Conveys the theme well.
Jeremias
27. Aug 2012 · 18:10 UTC
Hi.

Your game is nice and well made. It was fun to play, here is my feedback:

- if there are many items, you have problems to walk through the room
- the collection radius of items should be bigger. Often I walked through a health potion without taking it
- if a new wave starts, the eye-monsters always kill my evolved monstern. Perhaps they should have more health?
- after some levels there where so many monsters, that they killed me instantly without having a chance to use a health potion
- I think the spawn rate of health potions is too high :)
- something is wrong with the embedding of your game: I haven't the full screen like in you screenshots, there are missing parts. Especially in the control screen the information how to use a health potion (Q) is invisible
kyyrma
27. Aug 2012 · 18:16 UTC
I played the windows stand-alone and had no performance issues whatsoever.

The graphical style is nice and the first person movement feels just like it should. The game itself is a bit too chaotic for my tastes though. I kept getting swarmed by slimes and eyeball bullets before I really even got my bearings :D

The NPC mechanic was a nice addition and fitting for the theme.
🎤 Maxium
27. Aug 2012 · 18:30 UTC
@Jeremias Thanks for the feedback if only I had another hour for polish. As for the screen not being fullscreen, its because I force the resolution to be 1024x768 windowed..not really sure how the text wouldn't be aligned right if its fixed for everyone
cadin
27. Aug 2012 · 19:45 UTC
The mouse controls are way too twitchy for me. Any slight movement makes the camera swing around where I can't tell what I'm looking at. I could never score any points before being killed.

The art looks really nice though. Impressive work for just 48 hours!
LuizHGMonclar
27. Aug 2012 · 20:48 UTC
Ahh man, I really want to play it properly! I loved the style and concept, I just can't play with the Y-Axis like that :( I'm an "Invert Mouse" user, lol!

Great Job!
pardue
27. Aug 2012 · 20:53 UTC
I liked the stylized graphics, made for an interesting game.
zkenshin
27. Aug 2012 · 21:06 UTC
I think my captured minions seemed a little week, but quite a fun game, well done. :)
Arsenio117
27. Aug 2012 · 22:52 UTC
This is amazing!!!!
codesavage
27. Aug 2012 · 23:55 UTC
Pretty cool concept with the capturing of enemies. I like the look, and the player movement feels smooth. The first wave feels a bit too chaotic, as it about half of my health before I figured out the difference between enemies and enemy bullets. Also, the slimes are really hard to hit. I guess that encourages capturing them though, so not a bad mechanic.
Wyatt White
28. Aug 2012 · 05:22 UTC
Really Like it. If it had network play I would LOVE it.
nseward
28. Aug 2012 · 05:53 UTC
The 2D 3D mix is super cool. I wish I would have thought of that.

Right click doesn't work on macs.
KHANanaphone
28. Aug 2012 · 05:56 UTC
This was pretty cool, didn't really keep me drawn in for long though. The mouse sensitivity seemed really high.
savethejets1
28. Aug 2012 · 06:13 UTC
Great game! Nice visuals. Runs great in my browser.
Orni
28. Aug 2012 · 08:08 UTC
very fun idea
loved the art style
ben657
28. Aug 2012 · 10:28 UTC
Love it!
Waynetron
28. Aug 2012 · 10:36 UTC
The browser version was horrible to play, as my mouse kept jumping out of the frame and click on my browser / 2nd monitor. The Windows version ran quite nicely, although the mouse look I felt was way too sensitive.
Fun game though, was very exciting when I got my first evolved eye with hat.
🎤 Maxium
28. Aug 2012 · 10:50 UTC
@Waynetron cursor should be locked in the web version, unless you pressed escape. Thanks for giving the other link a go!
K1NET1K
28. Aug 2012 · 11:04 UTC
Its great that the mouselock worked properly and the controls were reasonably nice. I loved the laser hitscan style FPS :)
matthias_zarzecki
28. Aug 2012 · 11:32 UTC
Pretty solid shooter. Nice work!
Thurig
28. Aug 2012 · 12:15 UTC
Fun, the mouse was a bit too sensitive.
keenblaze
28. Aug 2012 · 12:31 UTC
Nice sprite graphics!
TheBallCollective
28. Aug 2012 · 12:51 UTC
It was confusing without an indication of health left - or at least I didn't notice one. Awesome concept of catching the enemies and making them fight for you! Great job!
stevesefchick
28. Aug 2012 · 12:57 UTC
Mouse was a bit too sensitive...made it difficult! Fun game and neat concept though! When my eye evolved into an eye with a tophat I thought it was hilarious! :D
juaxix
28. Aug 2012 · 13:02 UTC
Wow, you put a lot of effort in making this game, i need more time to play it more
Barry Abrams
28. Aug 2012 · 13:09 UTC
Whoa! I can't believe you made that in 48 hours.
madpew
28. Aug 2012 · 13:21 UTC
Liked the theme, and the "ghostbusters" like mechanic in a FPS. mouse-sensitivity seems a bit too high, it's hard to hit stuff, but I managed to do some waves and liked it very much. Well done. Add some music and more enemytypes please.
gustavodort
28. Aug 2012 · 13:36 UTC
I sure had fun!
I loved the graphics, truly!

On the downside, I felt the mouse sensitivity too much, maybe it'd be better if it was possible to measure and set that :)
Cell
28. Aug 2012 · 13:56 UTC
Very cool, i enjoyed this one quite alot.
kibertoad
28. Aug 2012 · 14:49 UTC
Nice, simple and fun :).
darkshadow
28. Aug 2012 · 15:49 UTC
An eye with a top hat how marvellous! The game is quick and fun, if a bit hectic my minions seem to be doing more work than me by the end, all I do is run around finding them the bones. Firing the laser beam feels satisfying, and was surprised to find that you could jump with the space bar!
Starmen
28. Aug 2012 · 15:55 UTC
This was quite fun. The mouse movement felt a little bit off, but wasn't particularly too bad. A little bit more enemy variety might have been nice too. Really good stuff overall though.
NateNaterson
28. Aug 2012 · 17:00 UTC
What a wacky game! Love the graphical style. Mouse was a BIT too sensitive for my taste and tha game was a tad confusing at first.
thewiseguy99
28. Aug 2012 · 18:30 UTC
nice & fun. Good job.
xk
28. Aug 2012 · 19:03 UTC
Good game but mouse is too unresponsive, hard to aim.
ghotifrye
28. Aug 2012 · 20:05 UTC
I really like the capture and evolve mechanics. It's fun when you get an army of top-hatted eyes shooting things for you.

Sensitivity's a bit high on the mouse, which as other reviewers have noted makes it a bit difficult to aim. Making the planes double sided would fix some issues with the ones jumping past you turning invisible briefly, but that's not a serious issue.
Nice job!
diki
28. Aug 2012 · 20:57 UTC
I like the idea and especially the graphics, but I had difficulties minding both my NPCs and myself – multitasking under pressure, guess :P
The controls felt rather wonky, but I'll blame part of that on my mouse, which is often polled far too sensitive by Unity in general.
ghRibacki
28. Aug 2012 · 22:39 UTC
I really liked the idea of having allies while fighting waves of enemies! I'm all love for the graphics style (couldn't like them more) and the sounds fit nice creating a good mood. Really enjoyed it! =D

But where is the evolution? .-.
benderbinary
29. Aug 2012 · 00:00 UTC
Nice, but mouse sensitivity is a bit too high and once focus is lost I can't lock mouse again. All in all - great game :)
jwin
29. Aug 2012 · 04:36 UTC
It was fun to play, and I thought the graphics were charming.
pjchardt
29. Aug 2012 · 05:24 UTC
I like capturing enemies and using them. Unfortunately I was playing with a track pad and had a hard time shooting enemies.
I will have to give a shot tomorrow when I have a mouse.
lazybraingames
29. Aug 2012 · 05:56 UTC
What a whacky good time! Crazy eyeballs are kinda my thing, so I love this! Great job!
dick_claus
29. Aug 2012 · 06:20 UTC
I don't know I'm not impressed. Looks like minecraft. But buggy. Can't pick up health even in postcompo.
eyehawk
29. Aug 2012 · 06:34 UTC
Kind of a fun shootem up. I could quite understand how to capture the green guys tho. Also on level 3 I seemed to get instakilled from 500 health to zero by a barrage from those eye shooting guys
🎤 Maxium
29. Aug 2012 · 07:33 UTC
@dick_claus Use WASD to move and walk over a potion to pick it up :P
bobiniki
29. Aug 2012 · 10:03 UTC
Nice retro style but the mouse movement it a bit too fast. Although I like the "Pokemon" mechanic :D
Nice game
arzi
29. Aug 2012 · 11:21 UTC
Nice, but a bit confusing.
lbrande
29. Aug 2012 · 13:46 UTC
Very irritating controls.
Richard Matey
29. Aug 2012 · 15:09 UTC
Love the capturing and releasing mechanic. The shooting felt a bit too hard to hit my target. Maybe a bigger beam would help
Killerbug
29. Aug 2012 · 15:12 UTC
This is so well conveyed! I had tons of fun. One of the best ones I've played.
nuria
29. Aug 2012 · 19:15 UTC
The mouse turning was too fast. Especially the vertical axis was too sensitive. The slime looks like the slime from Zelda II, so that's cool :p. Nice game, will try the post-compo version now.
Mesene
29. Aug 2012 · 19:57 UTC
It crashes so badly :| but I enjoyed it a lot. Nice overall
DevWouter
29. Aug 2012 · 20:46 UTC
Really nicely done. Maybe mouse smoothing and someway to make it easier to keep tracks of the level and bamn, solid gold.
ramoncb
30. Aug 2012 · 01:40 UTC
Pretty cool, love the mechanics and the monsters ^^
ratking
30. Aug 2012 · 09:10 UTC
Nicely done, congrats. I wish there was more enemy variation, though.
X-0ut
30. Aug 2012 · 09:24 UTC
Good little FPS, technically very good for the time frame.
Clever evolution mechanic, never did manage to get past lvl4 evolution.
Its a little hard to hit the enemies, but I guess maybe that's intentional to make use of the captures.
bytegrove
30. Aug 2012 · 10:44 UTC
Heh, nice! It reminds me a little of a game I made for the 7dfps.

I liked the billboard art style and the green/orange colour scheme, simple but stylish and effective. The laser gun felt pretty useless compared to the capturing net, and having to use the number keys for monster summoning felt a little weird as well.

As the game is pretty fast-paced and you probably want to summon all the monsters more or less at the same time(right?), maybe it would suffice to just make the spawning queue-based and having just one key that dequeues a monster?
infernet89
30. Aug 2012 · 17:53 UTC
Have the player catch enemies and use as ally is a nice idea, grat innovation!
pereubu
30. Aug 2012 · 18:59 UTC
liked it a lot :D
fruitfly
30. Aug 2012 · 20:45 UTC
like the graphics style.
Ligh7zIncrement
31. Aug 2012 · 11:29 UTC
Very nice game, found the aim a little tricky to use but probably because I suck.
jomacel
31. Aug 2012 · 14:26 UTC
nice, good job ;)
DevoreUK
31. Aug 2012 · 18:05 UTC
Controls and shooting felt really good, and I really like the graphics. Good job.
CapGrip
01. Sep 2012 · 00:01 UTC
Nice game! Visual are excellent. Good job.
DavidErosa
01. Sep 2012 · 00:47 UTC
Controls are way too sensitive :/ but overall a nice game!
_AM_
01. Sep 2012 · 01:22 UTC
Both the Windows and Web version for me kept acting like I was holding down and left the entire time unless I was overriding it with a different direction. I didn't see how it related to evolution much. Good job on how much work was done here regardless.
Quentin
01. Sep 2012 · 08:37 UTC
Cool game, but for some reason seeing things that are made in Unity take away from the "coolness" for me.
It also had no option for Inverted Mouse, so shooting stuff was really difficult, but I guess "normal" people don't really think about that stuff :P
🎤 Maxium
01. Sep 2012 · 09:41 UTC
@Quentin I know what you mean, if I could have written it in Fortran 95 it would have been totally "cool" :P ...There is an option to invert the mouse in the post compo build as listed in the edit notes.
Desi Quintans
01. Sep 2012 · 10:58 UTC
I liked the art style, reminded me of Doom and Delver. The camera was too fast and the FOV too narrow, for my personal preference.
MurrayL
01. Sep 2012 · 16:50 UTC
Pretty entertaining, although the gameplay is somewhat lacking in variety.

It's fun to see my little minions evolving!
alvivar
01. Sep 2012 · 17:01 UTC
Wow, the tunning of the controls of the post-compo version make a really funny and playable experience. Nice work.
jplur
01. Sep 2012 · 17:49 UTC
Pretty hilarious, loved the mood too.
Beep2Bleep
01. Sep 2012 · 19:14 UTC
Great game, was a little jumpy on my underpowered core 2 due machine.
alwaysinbeta
01. Sep 2012 · 20:23 UTC
A bit hard to control but other than that a good, fun game
KhaoTom
01. Sep 2012 · 21:34 UTC
Loved the art style. Viva billboard sprites! Wish my captured monsters wouldn't die so fast though.
Qaterknan
02. Sep 2012 · 11:18 UTC
Well I actually liked the idea, but the game was somehow too difficult to play and I wasnt purely enjoying it.
Dietrich Epp
02. Sep 2012 · 13:14 UTC
Fun! Hard to shoot small bouncy things though.
sclark39
02. Sep 2012 · 20:40 UTC
Fun, hard to aim. The evolution theme seems pretty weak
michax
03. Sep 2012 · 10:53 UTC
Nice FPS! Sounds get a little to loud at some point. Other then that good job!
hamster_mk_4
03. Sep 2012 · 17:29 UTC
Arena shooters like this feel like very lonely affairs. I am glad you gave the player some company on this one. I love the volume of fire four upgraded beholders can put down.
Rex Peppers
03. Sep 2012 · 17:59 UTC
Pretty cool, mouse movement a little jumpy at times
dekart
03. Sep 2012 · 18:32 UTC
I like it! AWSD didn't work in Chrome, but finally found that arrows do work
mohammad
05. Sep 2012 · 04:46 UTC
In short... POKEMON!
Really fun game, had fun making everyone my friend. :)
Teknik
09. Sep 2012 · 22:33 UTC
other than not knowing how much health i had, that was probably the best game I've seen this compo. very nice job. i thought the top hat on the eye once leveled up was very funny.
🎤 Maxium
09. Sep 2012 · 22:58 UTC
@teknik haha thanks. There is an Hp bar in the bottom right corner.. its just not high contrast enough to notice well :/
tomhunt
12. Sep 2012 · 05:07 UTC
This was pretty fun. Nice job.
minism
12. Sep 2012 · 06:59 UTC
So awesome. I love the fully upgraded eye. Game was a blast, nice work
Cyboot
12. Sep 2012 · 19:30 UTC
very nice game. Loved playing it.

But i thing the sensitivity is much too high (at least with my mouse), the custom setting in the post-Combo is great.
I think i will save the game and play it longer when I have more time :)

really good game, good job!
axcho
13. Sep 2012 · 04:39 UTC
I like the art style (the overall mood is cool) but I am terrible at FPS controls, especially with the mouse as twitchy as this. I kept dying right away. I would have appreciated if the vertical axis were ignored, like in Doom, where you just have to aim side-to-side.
cakemonitor
15. Sep 2012 · 08:59 UTC
this was a lot of fun :) good work