{"author_link":"\/author\/griz\/","author_name":"Griz","author_uid":"14379","comments":[{"author_name":"Ramikaze","author_uid":"15222","time":"Aug 27, 2012 @ 3:44am","epoch":1346038740,"text":"Nice game"},{"author_name":"Mamick","author_uid":"15144","time":"Aug 27, 2012 @ 3:46am","epoch":1346038860,"text":"Maybe I didn't play it right, but it seemed very slow paced in terms of gaining points and I had to wait around a lot to regenerate. It's was fun though, and a great idea with a good amount of upgrades.\r\rAlso, this is nitpicking, but the hitting enemies was a bit awkward and the upgrade text hurt my eyes."},{"author_name":"dalbinblue","author_uid":"13960","time":"Aug 27, 2012 @ 3:54am","epoch":1346039340,"text":"Interesting ideas. I found it very slow to gain the points needed to an evolution, even with the cheat. The "Mario's Coin" noise for attacking is funny though."},{"author_name":"Griz","author_uid":"14379","time":"Aug 27, 2012 @ 5:11am","epoch":1346043960,"text":"That's true. I could've made the health regeneration and speed of gathering life essence a lot quicker :). Can't touch it now."},{"author_name":"robcozzens","author_uid":"10944","time":"Aug 27, 2012 @ 6:31am","epoch":1346048760,"text":"I would try it, but there is no Web version."},{"author_name":"Gareth001","author_uid":"14268","time":"Aug 27, 2012 @ 6:55am","epoch":1346050200,"text":"i dont get it"},{"author_name":"panzermancer","author_uid":"5826","time":"Aug 27, 2012 @ 7:07am","epoch":1346050920,"text":"A decent idea, although there definitely is a problem with pacing. It definitely looks like it takes way too long to get anything (I say "looks like" because I didn't play long enough to manage it). The combat system (by which I mean literally just throwing yourself at people and hoping they die before you) seems really counter-intuitive. There are a lot of cool ideas here, but the actual implementation of them is a different story. Still, not that bad, really. Good job, but better luck next time."},{"author_name":"nosfer","author_uid":"8471","time":"Aug 27, 2012 @ 7:43am","epoch":1346053080,"text":"nice but as someone else already noted - text describing upgrades is painful to read"},{"author_name":"Dietrich Epp","author_uid":"7606","time":"Aug 27, 2012 @ 8:00am","epoch":1346054100,"text":"I had a hard time figuring out what to do, and it's a bit slow. But I like the concept."},{"author_name":"SethR","author_uid":"17","time":"Aug 28, 2012 @ 3:29am","epoch":1346124240,"text":"Great mood and mechanics, but needs some re-balancing, in its current form it is as brutal as real evolution and requires as much time!"},{"author_name":"Frib","author_uid":"3939","time":"Aug 28, 2012 @ 12:34pm","epoch":1346156940,"text":"Health regeneration is way too slow. It would be nice if it was increased a bit, or if you regained some health after eating an enemy. Or maybe even random 'health packs' (fitting the theme ofc) would be a good addition."},{"author_name":"shinD","author_uid":"5550","time":"Aug 28, 2012 @ 12:56pm","epoch":1346158260,"text":"Yeah, it's a good idea but the slow progression kills it a bit for me, especially since the aiming is kinda tough. With that fixed it would be pretty ok!"},{"author_name":"quill18","author_uid":"7862","time":"Aug 28, 2012 @ 1:48pm","epoch":1346161380,"text":"I love virtually everything going on here. The upgrade system is great!\r\rHowever, the game is DEFINITELY much too hard. Some of it is due to balance issues, but a lot of it comes down to difficulty of control and how hard it is to attack something. I would love to see a tweaked version of this game!"},{"author_name":"Zed","author_uid":"4687","time":"Aug 28, 2012 @ 1:50pm","epoch":1346161500,"text":"Dunno whether this is intentional, but I couldn't move at the start, so I couldn't actually DO anything to level up and just kept dying, which felt a bit naff. Cool idea, though."},{"author_name":"Qaterknan","author_uid":"11181","time":"Aug 28, 2012 @ 2:57pm","epoch":1346165520,"text":"Very nice idea but it seems the game needed more testing. It is truly very hard to play and gathering life esence (or regeration) is slow, so slow it is almost not fun. But anyway, great idea and I liked the music a lot. (Quiet, calm, as the depth I started to conquer.) Please, do Post-Ludum dare version with faster gameplay. :-)"},{"author_name":"tomsik68","author_uid":"13547","time":"Aug 28, 2012 @ 5:03pm","epoch":1346173080,"text":"Perfectly fits to theme. (SUN in the menu!)"},{"author_name":"Kayelgee","author_uid":"15267","time":"Aug 28, 2012 @ 9:19pm","epoch":1346188440,"text":"like many said before me, gaining life essence just takes so damn long that I couldn't afford a upgrade after my initial 3 :\/"},{"author_name":"Griz","author_uid":"14379","time":"Aug 28, 2012 @ 9:22pm","epoch":1346188620,"text":"Make sure to use the menu sun cheat for testing. Should make upgrading less painful :)."},{"author_name":"tupperwarespoon","author_uid":"15839","time":"Aug 29, 2012 @ 9:34am","epoch":1346232540,"text":"The damage txt flashes so quickly it was dificult to understand what I should and shouldn't attack, and very slow farm as mentioned.\rNice to see a game actually about evolution though!"},{"author_name":"BrothersT","author_uid":"12722","time":"Aug 29, 2012 @ 11:28am","epoch":1346239380,"text":"Very glad to use the Sun :P Nice game! I wish I could play more of it but I don't have all day. The progression is definitely too slow but if it wasn't, I think I would spend all day on it! Maybe I just can't figure out the right combination of upgrades to speed things along but I spend most of my time regenerating, then when I've taken all the damage I can, I've hardly recieved any exp. I'll have another go later!"},{"author_name":"Loyalty","author_uid":"15985","time":"Aug 29, 2012 @ 3:03pm","epoch":1346252280,"text":"It's very slow but fun\rAlso fits the theme"},{"author_name":"Rex Peppers","author_uid":"4914","time":"Aug 29, 2012 @ 4:28pm","epoch":1346257380,"text":"Clicking on the Sun on the main menu helped. :-)"},{"author_name":"Kumquat","author_uid":"14739","time":"Aug 29, 2012 @ 4:58pm","epoch":1346259180,"text":"The concept is pretty good, but the mechanics and the goals are difficult to grasp and get familiar with.\rSometimes it feels like the game is a bit slow, it takes ages to collect enough life essence to do something."},{"author_name":"Yakka","author_uid":"13985","time":"Aug 29, 2012 @ 9:48pm","epoch":1346276580,"text":"I like the ambiance, but the game is very hard for me. Maybe I didn't understand everything... :-("},{"author_name":"DevWouter","author_uid":"14393","time":"Aug 29, 2012 @ 9:55pm","epoch":1346277000,"text":"It takes too long to get somewhere basically zapping the fun of the game."},{"author_name":"Gama11","author_uid":"16160","time":"Sep 7, 2012 @ 9:50am","epoch":1347011100,"text":"It's a bit slow-paced, but I liked the idea. Fish can move out of screen. Don't feel like the "Press-Tab-to-display-upgrades"-thingy is needed at all, it doesn't take up too much spaces and should just be visible all the time. Also feel like those extremely long descriptions of upgrades are unnecessary, few people are actually gonna read them."},{"author_name":"Pacifist Games","author_uid":"10510","time":"Sep 8, 2012 @ 4:41am","epoch":1347078960,"text":"A few problems:\r- There's no point of reference in the background so there's no way to tell that you're even moving unless there are enemies onscreen.\r- Enemies only give 5 LE when killed, but evolving costs 2000 LE. Assuming it takes me 10 seconds to kill an enemy, it would take me over an hour of killing enemies to evolve once.\r\rThat aside, I enjoyed the idea of the game and the background music. Good job. :)"},{"author_name":"Pacifist Games","author_uid":"10510","time":"Sep 8, 2012 @ 4:43am","epoch":1347079080,"text":"Also, the stats for when you hit an enemy disappear far too quickly."},{"author_name":"Rabbits...","author_uid":"11321","time":"Sep 16, 2012 @ 8:15pm","epoch":1347826200,"text":"It was a fun game to play, but some kind of long distance attack or something would have been nice to keep things rolling"},{"author_name":"RawBits","author_uid":"5167","time":"Sep 16, 2012 @ 9:19pm","epoch":1347830040,"text":"The idea is good but you should do some balancing. Life regenerates very slow I don't have the nervs to just sit and wait. I want to play! The enemies gives too few points - you need hundreds to evolve."},{"author_name":"Jedi","author_uid":"4799","time":"Sep 17, 2012 @ 12:53am","epoch":1347842880,"text":"Very good, overall!\rBut you need to get about 20x the amount of LE points for it to be balanced."}],"images":["ld24\/14379-5bd0dcbaa3e30d3937a6e01d0c405d99.jpg","ld24\/14379-7c799c30062fa2b8ace09a6fdbfb134f.jpg"],"links":[{"url":"https:\/\/www.dropbox.com\/s\/pnshbwd1n3zu4v9\/The%20Life%20Tale%20v1_1.7z?dl=0","text":"Windows Post compo"},{"url":"https:\/\/www.dropbox.com\/s\/q1dikq3z8lvzjh8\/The%20Life%20Tale%20LD24.zip","text":"Windows"},{"url":"https:\/\/www.dropbox.com\/s\/hbfjsdnou6licrw\/The%20Life%20Tale%20fix.exe","text":"Win fix(not really needed)"},{"url":"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=vFBRPmoBrn4","text":"Timelapse"},{"url":"https:\/\/www.dropbox.com\/s\/vq2u8vlvimdry36\/The%20Life%20Tale%20LD24%20Source.zip","text":"Source"}],"metadata":{"g_key":"29735","g_author":"14379","g_event":"LD24","g_eventkey":"12","g_subevent":"COMPO","g_urlkey":"29765","g_title":"The Life Tale","g_status":"UCHK1","g_place":"482","g_commentcount":"31","g_site2_node_id":"0","g_hide":"N","g_has_icon":"Y","g_rqueue":"0","g_random":"0"},"nds":[],"node":null,"orig_images":["http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/compo2\/\/163678\/14379-shot0.png-eq-900-500.jpg","http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/compo2\/\/163678\/14379-shot1.png-eq-900-500.jpg"],"text":"A Game of evolution where you, as an creature, must fight your way through the food chain.\r\n\r\n#####Controlls:#####\r\n\r\nTab - shows stat buttons.\r\nShift - zooms out.\r\nEnter - respawns when dead.\r\nWSAD - movement.\r\nM - mutes the music.\r\n\r\n#####Version list#####\r\nV1.1\r\n -Removed automatic fullscreen mode on startup.\r\n -Added new icons to the evolution upgrades UI.\r\n -Rebalanced the gameplay\r\n -Removed impossible to beat enemies from spawning on the start of the game.\r\n -Added animations to fish.\r\n\r\nV1.0 Compo Version\r\n -First release\r\n\r\n#####Description for testers:#####\r\n\r\nThe game is pretty hard and requires some farm at the beggining. To have an easier beggining press the sun in the menu to get +2000 life essence on the start. Then make surve to evolve into a fish, as it makes the game more easy, although the regeneration rate at the same beggining gonna be a little slow.\r\n\r\nTo gather life essence swim into an enemy organism that looks weaker than you. Then you'll notice damage turn's info popping out about how much damage you and your enemy dealed. If the enemy damage looks higher it's probably wiser to try to avoid him for some time.\r\n\r\nYou can avoid some of the damage by quickly attacking some enemies at once. Damage turn restarts every 0.5 second on every creature, this means that after getting hit you can still hit another creature without you getting harmed.\r\n\r\nAfter the evolution the best way is to upgrade damage one time first, as your base damage is pretty low. Then the best pick would be to upgrade life and armor. The size upgrade is giving you the most advantage later on for a really low price of 100LE each, and it helps out a lot in hitting multiple organism at once, thus lowering your total damage that you receive.\r\n\r\n#####Handbook:#####\r\n\r\nUpgrades:\r\n\r\nSpeed - Max spd +20, costs 100LE +25LE per spd level.\r\n\r\nAcceleration - Max acc +20, max spd +5, costs 100LE +25LE per acc level.\r\n\r\nArmor - Max arm +1, max life +5, armor regen +0.01, costs 125LE + 25LE per armor level.\r\n\r\nDanger - Level +2, power* +10, leadership** +1, costs 200LE + 50LE per dng level.\r\n\r\nDamage - Power +20, costs 150LE + 25LE per dmg level.\r\n\r\nSize - Size + 2.25% base size, max life +5, power +2, costs 100LE.\r\n\r\nLife - Max life+20, life regen +0.2, costs 150LE + 25LE per life level.\r\n\r\nForm - gives you a new form. Costs 2000LE + 4000LE per form level.\r\n\r\nEnemies:\r\nCell - +5LE \r\nPlankton - +12LE\r\nFish - +30LE\r\n\r\n* - raises the damage output.\r\n** - currently not implemented\r\n\r\nWindows bugfix allows you to resize the window. It doesn't change the gameplay, nor the design. Also it's not required to play.\r\n\r\nHave fun in conquering the depths!\r\n\r\n<\/p>","title":"The Life Tale"}