MutaJelly by negativice

made by negativice for LD 43 (COMPO)

About

In this game you control jellies that can split, ~~mutate~~ and grow. Your objective is to protect the sacrifice-pit from pixel-warriors and sacrifice jellies to the pit for high-score.

Controls

You can box select and single select with left mouse button, and issue a move order with right mouse button. While jellies are selected you can press S or SPACE to split your jellies, you can only split them if your jellies are big enough.

More info

Move your jellies in good position for them to shoot approaching enemies. If you move the jellies over the sacrifice pit they will be sacrificed and heal the pit and add points to high-score, depending on jelly size. If the enemy moves over the pit, the pit will lose health and eventually you will lose.

You lose if you run out of jellies or the pit dies.

Screen Shot

Dev Info

I believe this was my 4th LD-Solo Event, this time I was very rusty since I hadn't touched Unity or Coding in half a year. So most of the things took longer than expected. I am kind a happy about art this time, mostly. Sadly I didn't had enough time to implement the most fun part of the game - mutations. :sob:

Tools I used to make this game

Unity with VisualStudio
Art : Paint.net, Inkscape, Paint
Sound : Bfxr, Boscaceoil

Have fun and thanks for playing! :wink:

Source code	https://drive.google.com/open?id=1xSyrdIdu_bLCTMz-4hKIufQ_on0msliK
Windows	https://drive.google.com/open?id=13ArXWD3gIONPEYAK0qhLX5ts2j9lhbIz
HTML5 (web)	https://negativice.itch.io/mutajelly
Original URL	https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/43/mutajelly

Ratings

Overall	206^th	3.5⭐	18🧑‍⚖️
Fun	111^th	3.625⭐	18🧑‍⚖️
Innovation	114^th	3.563⭐	18🧑‍⚖️
Theme	378^th	3.063⭐	18🧑‍⚖️
Graphics	208^th	3.5⭐	18🧑‍⚖️
Audio	340^th	2.567⭐	17🧑‍⚖️
Mood	325^th	2.929⭐	16🧑‍⚖️
Given		23🗳️	17🗨️

Feedback

arkinrev

03. Dec 2018 · 06:50 UTC

Once I got the hang of it, my goal was to take over the world with my mutating slimes. I ran out of room and started to feel bad for the little pixel warriors. The split feature was a nice mechanic for the tower defense style. Fun game!

Ian Kettlewell

03. Dec 2018 · 08:12 UTC

Combining RTS and tower defense mechanics is pretty cool! But it quickly becomes just a regular tower defense type game once you get enough jellies.

I really like the mechanics and idea though and I wish there was more challenge or mechanical variance in the late game! I found myself able to basically get infinite jellies as time went on, but I enjoyed figuring out how to play the game optimally at the start.

🎤 negativice

04. Dec 2018 · 01:58 UTC

Yeah i wish i could have had enough time to get the mutation part in, without it it does feel a bit shallow, but oh well, i might make a more flushed out version later for itch.io. Anyway thanks for the feedback guys :heart:

Keithdae

04. Dec 2018 · 14:42 UTC

Cool concept, really enjoyed playing it, though it quickly grows out of control with jellies covering the whole the screen (and even beyond), leaving absolutely no hope for the poor pixel-warriors.

With some kind of population regulation mechanism (maybe those mutations could do the trick) it could become a really nice game!

YellowZombie

04. Dec 2018 · 21:05 UTC

I enjoyed playing it, however once the jellies and their shots got out of control... I'm kind of curious, did you use the new entity component system by any chance? Overall it was a well done game, and I think with some more fleshing out and making it harder to get infinite jellies so quickly it can become even more fun

🎤 negativice

04. Dec 2018 · 23:32 UTC

@keithdae Yeah, i had planed a population regulation in concept, there was gonna be "Unstoppable" waves that you would have to sacrifice jellies for, like they would blow up in a super strong explosion. Also the idea behind jelly growth, and with it multiplication, was gonna be different, you would grow much slower by default and get "xp" from enemies to grow them instead, so with that your jellies would have been more valuable, and also a bit harder to overpopulate.

@yellowzombie Hah, no that's the first time I hear of ECS, I think i mentioned that i wasn't touching Unity or coding for half a year before this event, so I slapped together pretty crazy spaghetti code :laughing:
However that definitely looks like a nice way to optimize stuff, if I decide to finish and improve the game.

onnofal

09. Dec 2018 · 15:50 UTC

Nobody got crazy from that music yet? Same as the others I just soon ended up with jelly all around. Population needs some control (or next round: I would be alright with level ending pretty soon moving to another isolated challenge).

Also what I kind of expected at the very first attempts was that by splitting the jelly I also receive some temporary disadvantage - like small jellies being unable to fire or so. Then I would be forced more to make some strategy decisions and not just be hurried into splitting as soon as possible basically everything that is capable of it with it's size.

Anyway it is good, definitely enjoyable to play.

mgsx

22. Dec 2018 · 16:51 UTC

really fun, i get the whole screen full of slimes :D
i didn't get how it fits with the theme (split is not a sacrifice) but it was very fun to play : the beginning is difficult but when you have 5 or 6 slimes at the right place it's very easy.

Great job !

🎤 negativice

31. Dec 2018 · 13:18 UTC

@onnofal Haha yeah i should have added some mute buttons for both music and sound effects, pretty sure this was first time i ever made background music, doesnt help that i did it within like 5-10 minutes :laughing:

@mgsx Well you are supposed to sacrifice the jelly in the sacrifice pit in the center

I might make a post LD version in January, if i wont be too busy.

Neato

31. Dec 2018 · 15:25 UTC

It kinda needs a limitation to the jelly splitting. You basically have exponential power growth.

Tim Eriksen

31. Dec 2018 · 17:19 UTC

Nice game! I love tower defence games, so this is right up my alley :thumbsup: This was a very fun concept that I would love to see developet further and perhaps play as a mobile or tablet game. Right now it can fairly easily be won by just splitting your slimes as fast as posible and you will pretty soon cover the entire map with slimes (and have the game start lagging :sweat_smile:) All in all a job well done and a enjoyable experience!