Overcharged by CatsPawsGames

[raw]
made by CatsPawsGames for LD 40 (JAM)

Idea. A spaceman evacuates from his shot-down ship, his heat sinks, main batteries and most life support are down. Only things working are his absorption shield and weapons. As he soaks damage, his suit is overheating and overcharging, which increases his mobility and offensive capabilities, but also adds inconvenient random discharges and risk of being cooked inside.

Gameplay is about balancing damage output and damage soak with trying to lose heat and excess energy. - Take damage to recharge your battery, shoot your guns to discharge it. - Energy damage is fully converted into your battery, while small portion of kinetic damage always goes through to your HP. - Energy weapons(right-side) drain battery fast, but cause heating, while kinetic weapons(left-side) are more neutral and don't cause much effect on both (with exception of railgun - that thing goes in kinetic slot but behaves like a hybryd). - Once your battery is 50% full, you start randomly discharging into nearby enemies - or yourself. Once it is overflowing, following discharge is much larger and much more painful. - Your damage increases with battery charge, your speed and acceleration increases with heat. - Keep your eyes on your heat level - it's hard to lose it, and once it overflows damage goes directly into your health. - Try to survive as long as you can!

Controls - WASD for movement, Space for jump - E for pickups - LMB/RMB to fire weapons (Kinetic/Energy) - Picked up weapons automatically replace weapon of same type.

Tips - Electric weapons cause less heat but deal less damage than lasers. Useful to deal with overcharging, not so much for tough enemies. - Roller "tires" are armored, aim for the core for sweet crits. - You can make rollers and jumpers fall into the abyss - just be careful not to fall yourself.

screenshot4.jpg screenshot1.jpg screenshot2.jpg screenshot3.jpg

  • Engine: Unity 2017.2
  • Graphics: Gimp 2.8
  • Assets used:
    • (self-made) ArcReactor Procedural Rays Generator for laser effects
    • ProBuilder for in-engine modeling and texturing

Production notes: Sadly, I didn't evaluate time correctly so many features were left on the design floor, alongside with audio and majority of UI. I was planning simple levelup system as player progresses through, more weapons and special abilities such as support fire and supplies drop from ship, and more random effects from increasing heat and charge. Also didn't get my hands on bfxr for fun with sounds. Well, I'm still quite proud of the result (not so much about code quality - this thing vastly needs optimization). Also, it's worth mentioning that all controllers and movement are using strictly physics - game contains only two animations for burrowers "dive" and surfacing, all other movements and behaviors are based on applying forces and torques to physic rigidbodies. Physics controllers always interested me, so I decided to have fun with programming player and enemies behaviors.

Ratings

Overall 695th 3.323⭐ 33🧑‍⚖️
Fun 654th 3.226⭐ 33🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 746th 2.983⭐ 32🧑‍⚖️
Theme 747th 3.217⭐ 32🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 214th 4.113⭐ 33🧑‍⚖️
Humor 865th 2.26⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Mood 810th 2.967⭐ 32🧑‍⚖️
Given 34🗳️ 26🗨️

Feedback

MachoCodes
05. Dec 2017 · 16:26 UTC
Fun game to play
mess110
05. Dec 2017 · 17:02 UTC
Really good game! I tested the linux build. To get it running, I had to `chmox +x Overcharged.x86`. The controls were really smooth, the effects were great. Damn, I forgot my highscore, but I really enjoyed it.

I would like to see healthbars for enemies, but I guess you don't see that IRL
interpol
05. Dec 2017 · 17:05 UTC
Ok. There should be some sounds. It's a 3D shooter and the sound could be quite useful to hear the enemy.

I liked the gameplay, it reminds me of old Quake-like shooters. But there are no indications that I've hit the enemy. That's making it not so immersive as it could be.

But nice try. You know, I thought it was UE4, not Unity. I don't know why, maybe because of postprocessing.
🎤 CatsPawsGames
05. Dec 2017 · 17:07 UTC
Thanks! I planned to change color and intensity of enemies "cores" with damage, but didn't have time to implement it - really easy task so I left it to last 2 hours, which I instead spent trying to make a working build ;)
🎤 CatsPawsGames
05. Dec 2017 · 17:14 UTC
Regarding sounds and hitmarks - I totally agree, these features are necessary but, sadly, time run out. If I decide to polish it further in the future, those would be my first priorities. It looks closer to UE4 because of linear colorspace along with PBS rendering and, indeed, post-processing. I think UE just does that by default while you need to switch a couple of things in Unity.
sgadrat
05. Dec 2017 · 21:21 UTC
The graphics are beautiful and the idea of the battery (A munition stock that you have to use) is super interesting. Great work!
Abilean
06. Dec 2017 · 00:32 UTC
Definitely pretty. And controls really well. Hard game but fun. It is sad not to have sound, but I'm extremely impressed at how much is in there... a few days goes by so fast.
mateusculpo
06. Dec 2017 · 00:32 UTC
I liked the theme, I did not listen to music, or I accidentally turned it off.
06. Dec 2017 · 00:44 UTC
Love how it looks! Controls felt sluggish and it was unclear what my goal was.
Hertz14
06. Dec 2017 · 01:37 UTC
I could only play for a short time because even on low settings my laptop can barely handle it, but the visuals are very nice- the lighting and colour really capture the feel of the game theme and objectives. Like other people have already commented, it suffers a bit from lack of sound but the premise of the game itself is solid and fun, and it fits the theme well. Nicely done!
NotSpaghettiGames
06. Dec 2017 · 02:41 UTC
Visuals are incredible! I like the concept of the game. Maybe with a UI or startup screen, with a more clearly defined goal you would have an amazing game to show off.

Check out my game if you would like!
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/40/virus-detected
elitegoliath
06. Dec 2017 · 02:50 UTC
So the Mac version works, just so you know. However, there was no sound. Not sure what was going on with that.

The graphics are by and far the best part about this game. Very well done there. However, it isn't very playable. The controls are too sluggish. Also, when your shots connect with...things, there is no feedback. By that I mean I had no way of telling what shots were doing anything to anything. Also, the UI was missing a little context.
Seanbeans
06. Dec 2017 · 02:52 UTC
Really good mood, although without music (you can put the excuse that in space there is no sound beacuse the lack of oxigen, lol). Good job!
mahalis
06. Dec 2017 · 03:00 UTC
This is impressive - the gameplay's unusually elaborate considering the amount of work you clearly put into the graphics. The enemies are really well-differentiated; there's enough variety there to demand actual strategy when dealing with them. I spent a fair bit of time confused about what was going on and why my guns weren't firing, so it could probably use some clearer feedback... overall, though, this is an ambitious and well-executed idea. Nice job!
Versatile Box
06. Dec 2017 · 03:28 UTC
The best game I played so far. Really nice AI!
furet
06. Dec 2017 · 03:52 UTC
This is a neat concept. First off, love how it looks, especially the weird architecture, and details like the ship above and how enemies dissolve. It took a few tries, and at first it felt like too many enemies too soon. But once I figured out what it takes to move fast and survive, it's pretty fun.
TheMadStrauss
06. Dec 2017 · 21:11 UTC
I enjoyed a lot the game. Easy to play and have fun. The enemies were fantastic.

I think that my UI crashed (the bars were not moving)

Great game!
Junber
07. Dec 2017 · 21:57 UTC
I had a lot of fun! But the game would have been greatly improved by having feedback for whether you hit an enemy or not (visual or audial). I got to 1302 before dying. The graphics were really cool.
Stefan Richings
09. Dec 2017 · 10:27 UTC
Really cool game, some very nice visual effects in there. The energy weapon beams are very cool. Look forward to seeing your next one!