LudumData

Sidegrade by ReiMari

[raw]
made by ReiMari for LD 43 (JAM)

Description

A shoot 'em up where you have to apply one upgrade after each wave of enemies. Each upgrade, however, also has a negative effect. You must sacrifice one stat to make another stronger.

This game was made for Ludum Dare 43 where the theme was Sacrifices must be made.

How to play

  • Arrow keys to move
  • Hold Z to shoot
  • Destroy the enemies
  • Upgrade your ship
  • Survive the wave
  • alt+F4 exits the game

Post-mortem-ish

Not as feature complete as I'd like but I'm still quite happy with how it turned out. I really don't have the energy anymore to add any new features.

I didn't enjoy this LD as much as I hoped/expected. It's really demotivating to have to scrap an entire day of progress and start over. Hopefully the next one will be more fun. At least this has been a big learning experience for me in picking the right tools.

Known bugs and issues

  • Sometimes enemy projectiles don't collide with the player
  • There's nothing after wave 11 (but you're not really supposed to survive wave 11 anyway)
  • There's no main menu
  • The game exits immediately upon game-over
  • No clean way to exit the game, you have to use alt+F4

I guess some features had to be sacrificed :)

Credits

All music and sound effects (modified) from: ZapSplat

Everything else (well, apart from Unreal Engine 4) was made by me (ReiMari) during the jam.

Windows https://reimari.itch.io/sidegrade
Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/43/sidegrade

Ratings

Overall 329th 3.64⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Fun 262th 3.58⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 695th 2.94⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Theme 427th 3.6⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 665th 3.22⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Humor 819th 2.1⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Mood 691th 3.104⭐ 26🧑‍⚖️
Given 30🗳️ 18🗨️

Feedback

OwlyCode
03. Dec 2018 · 22:01 UTC
I'm proud I made it to wave 12 as we are not supposed to ! I spent all my upgrades on fire rate and got really deadly at the end !

[sidegrade.png](///raw/380/e1/z/1d46b.png)

I enjoyed this game, simple arts but no bug, runs smoothly and does the job. It lacked a final boss though.
Noah Barsky
03. Dec 2018 · 22:08 UTC
It's cool that upgrades are also downgrades. I think this could make a great mobile game.
🎤 ReiMari
03. Dec 2018 · 22:47 UTC
@owlycode Wow, I was not expecting that to be possible. I sure didn't manage that during any of my test runs, and after those tests I ended up doubling the final wave enemies :|
Boss fights are definately something I'd like to have put in the game. Maybe in a future version.

@noah-barsky I did make it with mobile in mind. Maybe I'll re-do this game and make a proper version :)
Neon Glass
04. Dec 2018 · 11:40 UTC
Really enjoyed the smoothness and theme! The sacrifice mechanics fit in pretty well, although I was a bit sad to only get fire rate upgrade thrice throughout my run.

I'll proudly say I managed to survive wave 11 with full hull health. :smirk:
...And yeah, I feel it would've been a bit more fun if starting from wave 11 every next wave would simply have exponentially larger amount of enemies than the previous one (^1.1 or so) so we could see how far we could've gotten!
Hystaf
04. Dec 2018 · 18:33 UTC
Simple but effective. I enjoyed this game. The "retro" graphics aspect is good and the theme is respected.
Smurf
04. Dec 2018 · 18:49 UTC
Great little game. I kept playing until it suddenly closed on me, maybe level 11 but I think a couple of levels beforehand. Very compelling though, I really enjoyed it. Bravo!
🎤 ReiMari
04. Dec 2018 · 19:12 UTC
@smurf The game shuts down when you hit 0% hull health. I had to sacrifice the game-over screen to make sure I could submit a stable game.
skettyNmeebs
05. Dec 2018 · 02:43 UTC
Good use of the theme, I liked the mechanic. this was fun! I unfortunately did not make it through level 11 because I sacrificed all my health for rate of fire lol. As they said above, this could make for an interesting mobile game.

also:
> I had to sacrifice the game-over screen to make sure I could submit a stable game.

nice.
Beelzeboss
05. Dec 2018 · 08:42 UTC
Really cool. One of the few smooth games out there. A lot of fun.
Drauce
05. Dec 2018 · 16:07 UTC
The moment I entered wave 11 I couldn't wait to finish it so that I could write you this comment. The music resonated really well with the stage, considering it was a "boss stage". Like some other players, I was able to beat it by pumping all my upgrades to fire rate. I can't wait to see where this game goes. Overall the gameplay was extremely enjoyable, the music fit the game really well, the idea behind sidegrading has tons of potential, and the sound effects were also quite spot-on. Keep it up!
nettleflap
05. Dec 2018 · 16:27 UTC
Simple and nice shooter. I liked the link to theme as well. Maybe the graphics could be worked on and some more types of spaceships and mechanics would make it more interesting after a while but good job anyways.
xjcl
05. Dec 2018 · 22:33 UTC
No way! We almost had the same idea! :smile:

I agree with the other comments but I also have to admit that I just pointlessly waited by the side for most of the first 7 waves or so since the ships don't attack me directly. Maybe one could reduce the number of 'easy' waves? Or maybe one could tie sidegrades to how many ships you destroy? :smiley:
🎤 ReiMari
05. Dec 2018 · 23:36 UTC
@xjcl Good point, I'll make sure that strategy won't work in the future version. Though score and ranking should also take care of that problem.
Nick Rafalski
06. Dec 2018 · 02:14 UTC
Very juicy and good-feeling game! Once I got the rate-of-fire upgraded a few times, I felt a little overpowered, but it was still really fun. The music and effects really boosted the overall presentation
AwiX
07. Dec 2018 · 08:44 UTC
An interesting game with a kind of mechanics. I put a rating) Please rating and me, thanks in advance)
Igor KinGamer
09. Dec 2018 · 18:09 UTC
Despite that "strategy", it's very well balanced for a LD entry, and very polished. Good job!