Invaders From The Next Planet Over! by SimplePotential
This is my Jam entry. I usually go for Compo but I knew 100% life would be a factor so I figure why stress out. I took my time and a great deal of breaks and you know what, I'm really happy with this entry :)
This is based a bit on an old Intellivision game called "Atlantis", similar to Missile Command.
UPDATE #1: Based on feedback I've adjusted variables for the game balance. Enemies get harder faster now. I've corrected a few bugs such as how much damage was being done when impacted by an enemy (bad math). Also the Game Over screen takes 3 seconds before you can click so you don't just auto startover if spamming clicks. Same on the start screen. Hitboxes are more forgiving than they were.
Detail: The object of the game is to shoot down enemy's that are hurtling toward your city. Why are they doing this? They crave your power, or something like that. You must manage your power usage throughout. As you fire, power is consumed. Power is also what protects your city from the invaders so as you use power be careful not to run out. You can get power packs that randomly spawn from enemies to regain some of your reserves. If you stop shooting you'll recharge but at a slow rate. Enemies that make it through the shield will reduce your power and prevent recharging for about 1 seconds (firing your weapons also initiate a 1 second recharge delay). If you manage to get your power above 100%, you'll start to do more damage with your weapons as well. But be careful, the more power you have the more enemies will spawn ;)
The more enemies you kill the more of them will spawn. At level 4, their speed increases and their hit points as well. This will happen with each level after and there is no technical level cap, I've managed to get to Level 8.
There are a great deal of features I wanted to add but ran out of time but like I said, I'm really happy with this one and think I accomplished all of my "Must Haves".
Tools:
Unity/C#
Paint.Net
Bfxr.exe (sound)
Bosca Ceoil (music)
With the exception of that lovely shield, all Art from Kenney.nl.
There is a WebGL version and it should work fine in this game. Previously I mistakenly used the right mouse button for input and realized when it was too late that Mac users and Touchpad users were basically left unable to play. This time around the controls are hopefully much better:
Fire Left Cannon: Control's Fire 1 button, Left Mouse Button, or Keyboard "A"
Fire Right Cannon: Control's Fire 2 button, Right Mouse Button, or Keyboard "D"
Don't like the sound? Press Keyboard "M" to Mute it and press it again to turn it back on! Escape to Quit (Windows Version).
TIP 1: Aim where your target is going to be rather than where it is. You have to lead your targets.
TIP 2: You can fire both cannons at the same time and can even hold the button down for auto fire but don't run out of power!
Preview:
Post Mortem Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_trhDdxdz3E
Ratings
| Overall | 570th | 3.133⭐ | 47🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 502th | 3.022⭐ | 47🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 671th | 2.6⭐ | 47🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 455th | 3.444⭐ | 47🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 533th | 2.364⭐ | 46🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 574th | 1.947⭐ | 40🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 600th | 2.86⭐ | 45🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 47🗳️ | 42🗨️ |
One note:I saw in the description that there was music, but didn't hear any music (HTML5 version, & did hear sound effects), so will refrain on rating audio for now.
@pilly Thanks to you as well! Regarding music, it is only on the title screen. I can hear it on my end in Firefox and Chrome. There is a Mute feature, perhaps you pressed "M", if you can't hear it on the title screen still, try pressing M to see if that takes care of it. I had music on the main game but it was too repetitive and clashed with the other sounds. Definitely needs to be added later. Yep, you need to lead them. I had the bullets going faster so it wasn't as necessary but that felt too easy so I changed it. Definitely more sound and graphics (original ones too) need added. I had planned for additional weapons, an animated shield, animations for destructions, etc... but I had to those features for the jam.
Great feedback all! Keep it coming :)
Adding some sort of powerup would amplify the gameplay but as is this game was a nice entry. Good job!
The concept is really simple, yet it requires good multitasking. Well done !
If I may suggest, don't play the "alert" sound on loop, but rather only once every 30 seconds. If you absolutly want a constant cue so the player knows his energy is low, make it a visual cue so you can ignore it.
Otherwise, nice game overall. As was said above, it does get repetitive quite fast, especially seeing how forgiving the game is of spam. It's very easy to just missile barrage the whole screen and hit all enemies and collect all the bounties at the same time. Maybe the power absorbed by each shot should increase with a "heat" value ? Not sure.
Great entry :)
Feel free to check our game out : https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/39/berzerk-hunt We need some criticism too !
All that said, when you get into higher level it should start to be more noticeable as the enemies get more hit points, move faster, and you have more of them on screen. Levels are increase based on how many enemies you kill, which is always double the last level requirement and I believe I have level 1 set at 5 enemies to advance.
Warning sound definitely needs toned down, not looped, removed, something. It was a last minute addition when a play tester told me they had no idea they were about out of power.
Keep the feedback coming!
**Positive stuff :**
- The Graphics looked good (shame you didn't want any rating )
- The simple controls felt intuitive
- The energy recharge mechanic instead of a finite amount
**Negative stuff :**
- The lack of music (it would improve the mood to have at least some in the background)
Quite solid, i really dig the "old computer game" vibe this one has the space physics where you have to take into account trajectory when aiming was a nice touch as well as independant controls for left and right turrets
Good job overall ! :)
Positives -
Easy to pickup game
Graphicly looked nice and clean
Felt polished
Negative stuff :
Maybe just some background music.
The shoot-sound though almost made me crazy though. Put a random pitch on it or something so it doesn't get so repetative. Great job, really well done.
Please have a look at our game as well, we're below the scoring score! :disappointed:
Really the first criticism to come to mind is to make the power aspect a bit more obvious. Some GUI improvements could help with that.