The Defective One by gagapete
The Defective One is a platformer prototype in which you control a defective security drone with broken batteries in an abandoned facility. Your code forces you to reach the top as there is a drone workshop that'll repair you. Or better say there should be a workshop as it was there where you were programmed.
Your batteries won't last long enough to make it to the top but luckily you can draw power from other security drones and turrets. But beware, they are shooting as your ID chip is gone just like the battery duration.
The game was ported to Android on the 10.08.2017.
Controls
On PC * Arrow keys and WASD are moving the drone. * Space extracts energy from turrets and drones when you’re close and facing them. Drawing too much energy will eventually shut them down. * F5 restarts the game.
On Android * Touch left or right to move the drown sideways. * Touch the lower middle to move upwards. * Touch the upper middle to extract energy from turrets and drones when you’re close and facing them. Drawing too much energy will eventually shut them down. * Touch anywhere to restart the game.
Ratings
| Overall | 559th | 2.852⭐ | 29🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 596th | 2.481⭐ | 29🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 415th | 2.926⭐ | 29🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 118th | 3.889⭐ | 29🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 234th | 3.519⭐ | 29🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 33🗳️ | 26🗨️ |
* The power management is fun and stressful due to environment dangers, the double focus is a cool concept
* The idea to suck energy is cool too
* You used the awesome free game engine Godot Engine, so I love you
* The feedback is cool, but the two (maybe three?) sounds reflects the lack of immersion, no sound while spending energy, nor sucking. And restarting is your choice whereas a timeout could have been implemented (maybe there is one actually ?)
* Anyway, I liked the graphic design, paper/drawing is pretty good, I might reuse it for next jam ^^
* Nice movement and physics, but maybe a bit slow you know ?
Nice entry, I liked it :D
This is your 10th entry? Allow me to be the first to say Congratulations on that anniversary :D
**Suggestions and comments on improvement:** Maybe have some kind of indicator like a bubble around the character showing at what range you can "extract" energy from the enemies? Or if not a bubble, some kind of laser pointer or something which attaches to enemy when u're within extraction range. That'd help. And the movement maybe just a little bit faster.
p.s. check out my game as well please.
But, like others have said above, the character feels very slow. Also, I'd really like some kind of visual indicator that I'm extracting energy from other robots (at first I thought it simply didn't work, until I noticed the bar going up). Also, I find it kind of weird that other robots don't shut down after you've extracted their energy, I feel like that would make the game feel even more stealthy as you could sneak up behind a turret and shut it down by extracting it's energy.
Finally, I would have like a restart button or at least some kind of in-game indication that I have died and what I have to do to try again.
Also, I don't know if you've already noticed this, but the people behind Godot engine are collecting LD39 entries made using Godot over on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/godotengine/status/892019189682241536) :smiley:
I see how the missing visual and audio hints for power transfers are hurting the games overall experience. I wanted to implemented those but unfortunately I ran out of time. Those would've helped a lot explaining the game mechanics, like the possibility to shut down turrets and other drones by basically drawing "100 power units" out of them. It's not even possible to make it through the bottom right screen without knowing this.
The slow movement speed is a decision I made to allow finer control for some sections of the game that require precise power management to reach the next power source. I guess I could raise the speed a bit. I also like @mwcz's suggestion to get rid of the complete reset, may instead resetting the current screen would've been better as the slower movement wouldn't affect the experience that bad then.
@zedutchgandalf I've seen the post but didn't responded yet. I guess I'll do it now. :)
Character movement is indeed a little slow which made it quite difficult to dodge the enemy's bullets.
Adding the ability to move while sucking energy would also be a huge bonus as I can't seem to efficiently harvest the moving drones...
Btw: I think I fixed my game's linux build, so if you like you can try it again. I'd appreciate you verifying that it works :smiley:
The game itself is very challenging, but after a while you get into it, and hunting the enemy drones.
Thanks for the good entry!
The difficulty curve is quite steep and controlling the drone is pretty hard but I think that gave the game a nice feel to play. Your graphics are also very well made.
I'm glad to see another Godot user btw. The physics engine was used really nicely in this game too
The gameplay is pretty innovative. As others have said it's a bit of a downer that you're moving so slowly. This could be a very challenging 10-Second-Ninja-like game where you have to complete mini puzzles before running out of energy instead of time. The way it is right now it's a bit boring to move around after a while.
I'd also like to see the range at which I can extract and some visual indication that I'm doing it. I thought my Space Bar was broken at first.
Overall really solid entry though. I enjoyed it a log. Great work.
Nice game overall, just need some polishment.
@joskineide Making it possible to draw power from drones from above would remove the difficulty of having to move into the drones line of sight. At least considering the way drones are implemented at the moment.
@ganbaregameskyle I tried but had some sound issues, thus I didn't uploaded the HTML5 build.
@jupiter-hadley Thanks once again for including one of my games into the series.
Tried multiple time to suck energy from other drones and turrets, but got shut down everytime before having done it successfully :(
This game is SUPER hard, but pretty <3
It's a good concept, and the graphics are definitely nice, but unless my suspicions are right and I **was** doing something wrong, then the gameplay really needs some work from where it stands. It's understandable of course – this is Ludum Dare after all, unfinished games are common – It's just that I personally found this too difficult to successfully play in its current state.
I released a modified post compo version yesterday (for PC, not Android ATM) that addresses the sluggish movement and tries to solve the difficulty problems. If any player who had problems with the Ludum Dare version could leave me a comment if it improved things I'd appreciate it. Next on my list would be the visualisation of power drawing.
But please rate based on the Ludum Dare version!