VENA (Viral Evolution: Nano Attack) by Dakota

[raw]
made by Dakota for LD24 (COMPO)
There are a few bugs which I have been unable to solve after hours of attempts. The Enemies will disappear randomly but this doesn't happen too often. Similar to the problem I had last year its to do with screen coordinates which I still haven't solved yet.

Sound effect will from time to time drop out as I don't really have any idea how to use milkytracker properly to get the sound in the correct format (or the bullet noises over power everything).

The game may also be un-completable from time to time due to a Enemy not showing if there are not enemies left and a bullet coming down the screen from time to time you have got to the end.


Enough of the bugs

The game is fairly simple shoot the viral blob things and try to destroy them all.

There are 10 blobs in total and each can die 14 times before finally dying. As you kill them more and more they will evolve to become more powerful and more will be added.

I didn't include a bar or visual measurement for it but the power of your gun is effected by the amount of hits you take. collect the blue pickups to gain more damage.

Enjoy and don't the god awful music put you off playing it again.

Also if you have the opportunity test it on a real GameBoy

Ratings

Coolness 62% 3
Overall 3.16 267
Audio 2.87 211
Fun 3.00 255
Graphics 3.23 249
Humor 1.75 498
Innovation 1.97 697
Mood 2.56 409
Theme 2.45 540

Feedback

Jryvn
27. Aug 2012 · 04:25 UTC
I have a jailbroken PSP running a gba emulator. I'll be sure to dust it off and give it a go on that.
Desi Quintans
27. Aug 2012 · 06:07 UTC
Like you said, an indication of what the power-ups did would have been nice, but it is a fun game anyway. Kudos on making it for GBA!
turnip
27. Aug 2012 · 13:19 UTC
For those that can't use VisualBoyAdvance because 'PowerPC applications are no longer supported', try BoycottAdvance http://bannister.org/software/ba.htm

Firing up the game now!
Khayet
27. Aug 2012 · 13:30 UTC
I didn't understand the power-ups, but it was entertaining to play nevertheless. The graphics are great.
Spunkmeyer
27. Aug 2012 · 13:43 UTC
Good job on publishing as a gba game! The blue powerups were not that clear. I didnt finish the game. too hard for me :-)
vicethal
27. Aug 2012 · 14:47 UTC
I wasn't able to get it working on linux mint:

./boyca: error while loading shared libraries: libstdc++-libc6.2-2.so.3: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

A package for libc++6.2 wasn't readily available, installing 6.4 didn't satisfy it, and when I symlinked the newer lib to the older lib name, I got a symbol error.
Jeremias
27. Aug 2012 · 14:48 UTC
A gameboy game, yeah ^^.

As others stated, more feedback was going on, shown in the game, would be nice (e.g. what the popups are used for).
🎤 Dakota
27. Aug 2012 · 14:53 UTC
@Vicethal

I don't normal run linux and it was the only emulator I could find for linux.

It should work on any good GBA emulator so if the ones that I put in dont work just have a little look for another if you wish.
dalbinblue
27. Aug 2012 · 15:03 UTC
Cool platform choice. I haven't done anything with the game boy advance in a long time. I have a programmable cartridge, but I don't know if I have the software to program it anymore, or access to a machine with a parallel port to get it loaded; if I can get everything setup I'll give it a try.
4urentertainment
27. Aug 2012 · 15:28 UTC
I think it's really really really awesome that you made a game for Gameboy, props on that!

The game itself was rather fun, it's a solid shooter, although obviously it gets rather repetitive quickly, but I assume creating the game for gameboy ate up most of the time.

Actually, reading the description again, it does seem like the gameplay actually changes as enemies get tougher, although I can't say I've stuck around long enough to see things change. I think making the blobs evolve faster or make these changes happen faster would grip people more.

Overall, congrats on making a game for gameboy!
Sanguine
27. Aug 2012 · 15:33 UTC
Always insta-props to people who make GBA games for Ludum Dare! I liked the graphics a lot, but the gameplay felt a bit repetitive.
Robotic
27. Aug 2012 · 15:38 UTC
Nice gameplay and musics, it's classic but well balanced, I like it !
🎤 Dakota
27. Aug 2012 · 15:41 UTC
@4urentertainment

Yeah they do change as you kill them more I think I may have set the Max Enemies a bit too high at 10 which means in total you have to kill 140 enemies (14 lives each)
Punga
27. Aug 2012 · 16:06 UTC
I'm giving you credit for makeing GBA game. It's not best but is playable.
kj654321
27. Aug 2012 · 16:19 UTC
Wow, lookss and sounds great. Some more varied enemies would be good, or maybe a screen-clearing power up of some kind.
josefnpat
27. Aug 2012 · 17:59 UTC
Very nice!

Wish there was a bar for the power :) More enemies woudl be nice.

I got this to run smoothly in linux with vba, but the sound was off, so I can't rate that.

vba --throttle 100 -4 VERA.gba
SecondDimension
27. Aug 2012 · 18:20 UTC
Not sure if I didn't get far enough but some extra weapons or powerups would have been good, it seems like the enemies would have changed if I got further though? The controls felt good, really responsive.
🎤 Dakota
27. Aug 2012 · 18:37 UTC
The enemies never actually change sprite btw but they change attack patterns and spawning. I would have added a larger one but sadly its not a simple as adding a sprite sheet I have to draw it all out in graphicgal then in paint.net and create a pallet for it at the same time then into my convert to convert the bitmap into hex data which the GBA can ready. After that I have to create a sprite for it in GBA and copy over the sprite data into VRAM and thats all kinda for one frame.

I have eased the process for me but it still takes a long time. Next time I will be using OpenGL and Lua
kevincorrigan
27. Aug 2012 · 22:48 UTC
Fun, it got challenging really fast, You should have instructions on how to run it though.
Maxium
28. Aug 2012 · 09:52 UTC
I love the fact that this was made for the gba!
juaxix
28. Aug 2012 · 19:21 UTC
A space shooter inside the body?...well, it could be in a battle like an infection and nanopharmacs, no? :)
This is a great contibution, i would love to make a GBA game, now it is easier for me.
Talking about the endless game, why the enemies cant hit you (collisions)? , it is supposed to evolve in any way?
dredlockz
31. Aug 2012 · 08:51 UTC
You get nostalgia points for making me use an emulator again!
although the theme, as with many other games I've seen here, seems to be a space shooter with evolution painted on top. :(
RawBits
17. Sep 2012 · 00:51 UTC
Why the hell didn't you raised your hand when I was asking for retro games in the LD??? This is a very good game with good gfx and music - maybe you could have chose a somewhat less annoying sound for the gun.

I didn't programmed the Advance before but I do made things on the DMG and on the Color as well as on the DS. If I am remembering right then there was a limit of the amont of sprites you can use in a rasterline on the GB. I'm not sure if this is your problem here though.