LudumData

Teeming by DaveDobson

[raw]
made by DaveDobson for LD23 (COMPO)
After hearing about the "Tiny World" theme, I decided to go with a game in a petri dish. You control a microorganism, and you can swim around the dish eating bacteria, gathering symbiotes, battling your competitor microbes, and dividing yourself to produce more of your species.

There are ten levels. Your goal is to reach the target population level of cells. You may also be required to eliminate your competitors in later levels. If you take too long, your petri dish will dry out, and you'll have to try the level again.

This was my first entry for Ludum Dare - just heard about it earlier this year. A lot of fun. Many thanks to my mom for putting up with my programming.

I used the excellent CraftyJS library as a basis, BFXR and GoldWave for sound, Gimp and Irfanview for art, PowerPoint for some other art, and NotePad++ for coding.

JavaScript/Web http://planktongames.com/teeming
Source http://planktongames.com/teeming/teeming.js
Original URL https://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-23/?action=preview&uid=10977

Ratings

Coolness 100% 1
Overall 3.25 265
Audio 2.43 455
Fun 3.00 325
Graphics 2.95 394
Humor 2.18 453
Innovation 3.38 220
Mood 2.71 410
Theme 3.82 71

Feedback

Daniel
23. Apr 2012 路 06:14 UTC
Pretty good life simulation :)
Jonathan Whiting
23. Apr 2012 路 06:57 UTC
Neat idea/simulation. Gameplay was rather one-tone. Liked the sfx!
LukeRissacher
23. Apr 2012 路 07:26 UTC
Didn't know such things were possible with javascript - very cool. Like Jonathan said the gameplay could have used a bit more strategy / variety, although things got more interesting once the attack-sym's arrived.
MadGnomeGamer
23. Apr 2012 路 23:03 UTC
I've always wanted to play a game like this! :D So it gets points for wish-fufillment. Unfortunately it became unplayabley laggy on my laptop.
馃帳 DaveDobson
24. Apr 2012 路 02:06 UTC
I only tested it extensively in Chrome under Windows - what are you using?
jplur
24. Apr 2012 路 02:50 UTC
The later levels were really fun, very great game overall! The controls and physics are super clean.
Rex Peppers
24. Apr 2012 路 04:18 UTC
Great job, especially for your first competition!
馃帳 DaveDobson
24. Apr 2012 路 06:40 UTC
Thanks, Rex - I'm not new to game programming, but very new to doing it this fast.
Proch
24. Apr 2012 路 10:29 UTC
i liked it ;) maybe with a bettere AI it would become more challenging and interesting ;)
tacograveyard
24. Apr 2012 路 13:34 UTC
Fun game idea with a lot of variety packed in. Great job splitting things into bite size chunks and slowly introducing the player to the game. Awesome to see another entry built using Crafty. I also had a bit of slowdown while playing, but once I loaded it up in Safari everything ran great. (Matching what I experienced with my own entry built w/ Crafty)
orgarus
24. Apr 2012 路 22:39 UTC
Great!
Simple and fun! And it isn't simple to make a game simple and fun, the mastery is to make difficult things as it seems that is easy to make them (sorry for my english, in spanish I express this idea perfectly :D).
An awesome and well-balanced game. I really enjoyed.

Congratulations for a great work!
robcozzens
25. Apr 2012 路 02:25 UTC
Pretty cool.
tenpn
25. Apr 2012 路 09:24 UTC
Very nice! Good tutorial system, and I found the movement very satisfying.
Shigor
25. Apr 2012 路 19:34 UTC
Excellent piece!
ratboy2713
25. Apr 2012 路 21:40 UTC
Simple and fun. I don't like how you are completely stopped while eating and then resume at full momentum afterwards, very disorienting.
Evil Cult
26. Apr 2012 路 02:54 UTC
[Comments and ratings from this account come from various team members]
Great concept! Gameplay wasn't quite there for me, especially the fact you get stunned every time you eat. Later levels were pretty cool when the syms arrived. Pretty good for 48 hours.
馃帳 DaveDobson
26. Apr 2012 路 17:22 UTC
Thanks for the very kind comments, feedback, and suggestions - I appreciate them very much. Once the judging is done I'll make an updated version that incorporates these suggestions.
FlaxenFlash
26. Apr 2012 路 21:42 UTC
Aiming was a little difficult at times but apart from that I really enjoyed it. I also liked the aesthetic. The noise when you press m but don't split got kind of annoying as I tended to spam it as I was eating stuff
TenTonToon
27. Apr 2012 路 06:19 UTC
Interesting idea, but became tedious after level 3. 15 is too high a number when the gameplay is that systematic. Myabe the later levels get better... I'll have to test if further, later.

Overall, though, the game feels solid and well thought-out.
馃帳 DaveDobson
27. Apr 2012 路 12:49 UTC
Thanks for the feedback. There are new features (syms) added starting at level 5, and new level goals at level 7. I agree that 15 is probably too many - didn't have a lot of time for testing. If you noticed, the text mentions 20 (the original number) - I had already reduced it to 15 but forgot to change that. 15 is still high.
olav_st
27. Apr 2012 路 15:24 UTC
Interesting idea.
The game was fun in the beginning, but became a bit tedious after a while, mostly because of the long animations. (This might be a bug, i used Firefox when playing it.) I also encountered a bug where i had 25/15 cells and lost because the time ran out.

Overall, good work!
tripleVisionGames
28. Apr 2012 路 13:08 UTC
Brilliant concept and the controls feel really awesome! I even enjoyed just speeding around the screen!
馃帳 DaveDobson
29. Apr 2012 路 00:23 UTC
olav - was the 25/15 on one of the later levels? On the last couple, you have to shoot all the competitor cells before winning.

tripleVisionGames - thanks for the kind words! I'm glad you enjoyed it.
basspenguin
29. Apr 2012 路 00:32 UTC
I really enjoyed it! I ran into performance problems on level 4+. Disturbing sound effect for multiplying lol.
tinymagus
29. Apr 2012 路 11:06 UTC
This was great. I think I'd have enjoyed it more if it was a bit more fast paced. My microbe also had a tendency to get stuk eating when I didn't want to.
Gornova
29. Apr 2012 路 15:26 UTC
good work, I love your game, 5/5 to all!
Jeffalisk
30. Apr 2012 路 22:06 UTC
Played this to completion, really enjoyed it!

I must admit, when I first saw the theme one of my earliest thoughts was "petri dish" but couldn't figure out a workable game mechanic, so I enjoyed seeing your take on it!

This would make a great touchscreen game for phones or tablets, I think. Great work.
馃帳 DaveDobson
30. Apr 2012 路 22:42 UTC
Thanks for the kind words. I think from the comments here I need to make the eating animation shorter; I kind of liked the feel of not being totally in control of yourself with dividing and eating and swimming, but it's obviously annoying people.
jrasmussen24
01. May 2012 路 05:56 UTC
Really nice, polished gameplay. Honestly, there should be more stuff like this that could raise interested in science and biology!
Alexandre
01. May 2012 路 12:27 UTC
Interesting game.
Sometimes it can be hard to aim...
Jhelle
02. May 2012 路 13:58 UTC
Couldve used some more gameplay elements, maybe it had but I didn't play that far. I liked the idea and good job using html5.

I also imagined it being fun having the dry meter slowly drying up your screen. Like in bomberman when the timer starts to run out :).
vilya
02. May 2012 路 14:15 UTC
I liked the way you introduced an additional game mechanic with each level & the dividing sound effect was great. Really good use of the theme too. The gameplay just didn't feel that compelling though, unfortunately.
Scott Baker
03. May 2012 路 05:50 UTC
Very good game. Great use of progression. Kept the game very interesting and fun.

Having different type of clones or jobs for clones would be cool. But not needed, it's a great game as is.
Mesene
03. May 2012 路 13:16 UTC
Nice graphics and mechanics, I enjoyed it.
Maybe lower levels requierements or faster actions will make it even funniest.
good job!
CoffeeOnimal
04. May 2012 路 06:37 UTC
Nice entry. On the 3rd and 4th levels, I ran into a bug where the bacteria were spawning outside the petri dish, and I had to stop because there was nothing for me to eat.. Also, I wasn't sure how to quit. Other than that, fun game
馃帳 DaveDobson
05. May 2012 路 05:12 UTC
Thanks for the comments. Sorry about the bug, Coffee - if you read this, can you let me know what browser you were using? I can see that I need to make the gameplay a little more exciting for it to be a keeper, but I'm glad people enjoyed it.
angelk
09. May 2012 路 01:52 UTC
Very fitting for the theme! I think eating two pieces of bacteria at the same time only counted as a single piece? It would be nice to have a little faster paced action, but I can see how these levels get out of control really fast. :)
馃帳 DaveDobson
09. May 2012 路 13:13 UTC
Thanks, angelk - yeah there is a small bug where if you start eating a second bacteria while the animation for the first is operating, you only get credit for one. Didn't spot it in time to fix. The pace does need to be a bit more brisk, I think.