Alien Archaeologist by jplur

[raw]
made by jplur for LD23 (COMPO)
Collect alien artifacts from 20 randomly generated tiny worlds!

w,a,s,d to move your blimp, mouse to fire bullets, space to drop a bomb.

This works best in Chrome, but runs on firefox with a shorter song and worse framerate.

Please leave bug reports / suggestions in the comments as I'll be working on the post - compo version.

Thanks for playing!!!

Ratings

Coolness 100% 1
Overall 3.25 265
Audio 2.88 269
Fun 3.10 273
Graphics 3.15 301
Humor 2.29 395
Innovation 3.42 202
Mood 3.06 226
Theme 3.57 150

Feedback

Oreganik
23. Apr 2012 · 05:44 UTC
Got to level 12! I really feel a strong, old-school classic vibe from this game. Before I realized I could shoot, actually, I was enjoying a relaxed pace as I tried to figure out how best to use the bombs, without getting pummeled by enemies. The re-growing blocks, grass, and trees are a wonderful touch, and the enemy variety is good. (really loved using a bomb on the amoebas) Finally, good job on the controls. Felt very natural.
DaveDobson
24. Apr 2012 · 02:24 UTC
Nice game - really fun, and creative. I love how the blue guys split into such tiny things. I wasn't sure exactly how the terrain worked - it seemed to create terrain sometimes, once even on top of my blimp.
Cake&Code
24. Apr 2012 · 03:42 UTC
andNice graphics! The game was enjoyable, and the idea feels fresh.
jgalecki
24. Apr 2012 · 04:20 UTC
Fun! I also second the comment about bombs :)
VDOgamez
24. Apr 2012 · 04:34 UTC
Very nice. I liked how some of the tiles would do things if you left them alone, like growing grass and trees and apples, or just spreading like those brain looking tiles did. The enemies were either really easy or really frustrating, and if I ever got a level with a bunch of those pink shooty things together I pretty much had to give up. Still, it was fun going around and digging for loot in a blimp.
Cosine
24. Apr 2012 · 23:28 UTC
You should be able to hold down the mouse button to shoot, I probably hurt my hand a bit trying to kill all the blue enemies.
davidllanos22
24. Apr 2012 · 23:48 UTC
Cool game, love the growing grass! And the fact that every level is randomly generated :)
nihilocrat
25. Apr 2012 · 00:54 UTC
Pretty fun! With a bit more refined gameplay this would be really awesome, the "growing world which you burrow into to collect things" is a great idea.
kato9
25. Apr 2012 · 00:56 UTC
Cool game! Gets a little repetitive but the main idea is solid. It was cool to see the planet growing. I had a decent amount of performance issues (stuttering) on a pretty fast computer though.
blob
25. Apr 2012 · 01:05 UTC
Nice concept, nice randomness and variety ! Cute game that feels old school. It stays too easy though. Would have love see the levels get a bit larger, with artifacts hidden deeper at I go on.
Jezzamon
25. Apr 2012 · 01:25 UTC
I liked playing this game, but it was also a little slow gameplay wise.

Still, it kept me playing through all 20 levels.

Feedback: It's a little annoying how you move very slowly if you're touching a wall. I would have preferred just to not be able to move into walls in the first place.

Also, the things that shoot back at you seemed to take too many hits to kill. Maybe if there was some sound effect or graphic to show that you were doing damage I wouldn't mind.
seagaia
26. Apr 2012 · 06:34 UTC
Thought the game progression was a little slow, but graphics were cute as well as the gameplay. Maybe more developed title and transition screens?
🎤 jplur
26. Apr 2012 · 15:58 UTC
Thanks for the comments folks! I'll definitely be addressing them in the new version, especially better collision physics, mouse down for firing bullets, and better balance of the game difficulty progression. Also looking into how I can optimize for firefox.
jwolf
27. Apr 2012 · 23:47 UTC
Neat! I really like how you've given the various aliens different and interesting abilities.
artefon
28. Apr 2012 · 03:20 UTC
Awesome game! One of my favorite entries. Really fun and creative.
Izzimach
28. Apr 2012 · 03:32 UTC
Loved the variety of monsters and tiles that did various "things" like grow or expand or whatever. Each level is short enough that the basic gameplay doesn't get tedious. I did expect later levels to get more difficult or complex, but they seemed about the same. Adding better controls and collision would be ace.
robcozzens
28. Apr 2012 · 03:39 UTC
Pretty good. I'm not sure I understood the 'rules' though.
chinchang
28. Apr 2012 · 10:38 UTC
Sets a really good mood. Nice graphics and easy gameplay. nice wrk.
davidwparker
28. Apr 2012 · 15:19 UTC
Thanks for playing my game, jplur... you made me realize I linked to an older version of my source code, and not the code people were actually playing... so you may want to check again (I updated the link to be correct).

As for your game, that's really cool. I love the idea and the artwork. The sound effects went well with what was going on and the music was nice and mellow. There were a few times I got stuck in the planet, and I'm not sure how the plant grew, but it was okay. The slime guys that multilied when shot were cool too.
McFunkypants
30. Apr 2012 · 22:18 UTC
Great work! My favourite thing about this game is the random level generation, digdug style arcade gameplay, and the fun sprites. Well done.
Danvil
30. Apr 2012 · 22:47 UTC
Cute game and fun gameplay. These round shooting things killed me all too often - aargh!
Tourgen
01. May 2012 · 02:05 UTC
pretty solid and fun. I got stuck on something that I couldn't see at one point.
Nick Cash
01. May 2012 · 03:56 UTC
This was great! I enjoyed every bit of it. How was the music made?

Great work!
Zillix
01. May 2012 · 08:15 UTC
Neat random planets! A few times I didn't even have to shoot anything to get all the treasures
Keirua
01. May 2012 · 15:54 UTC
Nice game ! The cheap pictures do not remove anything, the game is fun to play (even though I can't stand the purple thingy, really hard to avoid !).
Hazard
01. May 2012 · 17:04 UTC
Nice idea! The blip movement controls were clunky at times, though.
ratboy2713
01. May 2012 · 20:33 UTC
Nice little game, though I have to ask why it is soo long? The bottom stretches to about one and a half times my screen size.
KevinWorkman
02. May 2012 · 01:56 UTC
Great concept, and I loved the growth of the tiles. The framerate dropped to an unplayable level for me though, so I had to give it up. Also, it would be cool if there was some kind of punishment for just destroying the whole planet to get 3 artifacts, haha! Great job!
namuol
02. May 2012 · 11:16 UTC
Super fun! I love how the world blocks can interact with each other. Saw you on RPS -- congrats! Also, I should really look at Crafty.js...
JonathanG
10. May 2012 · 07:29 UTC
This is a fun game! I like the variety that comes from the different enemy types, and the randomly generated terrain. The title and transition screens have an endearing home-made quality :P I did struggle a bit with framerate on some of the bigger worlds, and sometimes the planet would grow on top of my ship and I'd get stuck inside. I finished the game and got a score of 9800 :)
castor
12. May 2012 · 15:48 UTC
Wow, this is pretty wild - I like it. Unique game. I had to click my mouse like a crazy dude.