Fading Points by SMILEY_4_

[raw]
made by SMILEY_4_ for LD 39 (COMPO)

Try to stop the evil red points from reaching your base by placing obstacles in their way while the world falls apart and you slowly loose your resources.

A small puzzle/tower-defence game with endless mode.

fadingPointsCover.png

  • Download (.jar): https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5fps9CBRoOJbzZ5TGI0dEg5azQ/view?usp=sharing
  • Download (.exe): https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5fps9CBRoOJVmQ2bnpDS2lqSWs/view?usp=sharing

This was my first Ludum Dare and I didn't have much time ( about 6 hours :) ) so its a more simple game. But I had fun developing it and I hope you enjoy playing it. :)

HOW TO PLAY:

Every time you press space the red points move towards the big blue point on the shortest path. Prevent them from reaching their destination by creating bottlenecks with walls/gray points (right mouse button) or destroy the enemies by letting them walk into a line between two blue points. You can place and remove blue points with the left mouse button. But pay attention! You only have a limited amount of blue points and if the red ones hit them directly they dissapear.

  • Space: Next Step
  • Left Mouse Button: place/remove blue points
  • Right Mouse Button: place Walls (gray points)
  • Enter: Generate New Level
  • R: Reset Level

Ratings

Overall 211th 3.519⭐ 54🧑‍⚖️
Fun 283th 3.25⭐ 54🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 69th 3.827⭐ 54🧑‍⚖️
Theme 651th 2.038⭐ 54🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 235th 3.5⭐ 54🧑‍⚖️
Mood 488th 2.574⭐ 49🧑‍⚖️
Given 72🗳️ 11🗨️

Feedback

egordorichev
31. Jul 2017 · 10:51 UTC
Really like graphics style! Nice game :D
LittleLegend
31. Jul 2017 · 11:02 UTC
Awesome puzzle game! the main mechanic is really innovative and fun :) Good job!
ciobeni
31. Jul 2017 · 11:53 UTC
I quite enjoyed this game. Only problem I had was that the key presses weren't recognized every time.
WillData
31. Jul 2017 · 12:31 UTC
Really fun but it seems like there was some random element to which gray circle disappeared and at first that isn't an issue but it made some levels more difficult. Really liked the concept and look though!
MajamiLTU
31. Jul 2017 · 13:05 UTC
Really neat game, enjoyed it!
Wevel
31. Jul 2017 · 13:12 UTC
Cool graphics, some of the levels where quite difficult which was nice
Runuchok
31. Jul 2017 · 13:21 UTC
Liked minimalist style! Smooth "moGraph" animations would have come here very much to the place!
TheMonax
31. Jul 2017 · 15:05 UTC
Cool game :) I like the minimalist style ;)
3mpty
31. Jul 2017 · 15:26 UTC
Couldn't get it to work :(
Xeinix
31. Jul 2017 · 16:07 UTC
Nice minimalist game! I did have a slight problem sometimes where the map would continue outside of the window so some levels were unplayable but otherwise good game!
🎤 SMILEY_4_
31. Jul 2017 · 16:17 UTC
Thanks for your feedback. You should be able to resize the window to see the whole level.
Vehem
31. Jul 2017 · 16:24 UTC
Minimalist, fun, kinda addictive. Mechanic is simple to understand but innovative and it gets quite tricky at times.
Brandon Diaz
31. Jul 2017 · 16:35 UTC
I liked the minimal style quite a bit. Would make a solid casual mobile game.
kippllo
31. Jul 2017 · 16:48 UTC
Nice game, but confusing.
Lazzor
01. Aug 2017 · 00:44 UTC
Nice puzzle game, the visual style is cool as well! I like it!
Herman Chau
01. Aug 2017 · 07:42 UTC
The game mechanic is pretty interesting and it seems like it could lead to some interesting puzzles. I think it would help to add some visual indication of what walls would disappear and where the red dots would move when you press space. Also, it feels a bit too unconstrained right now with placing walls and blue dots.

Anyways, great game for your first Ludum Dare! I certainly had fun and enjoyed playing through the tutorial + a couple levels!
reBTF
01. Aug 2017 · 12:05 UTC
Very simple graphics style to compliment and focus on the puzzle aspect of the game.

I would have appreciated some animation of the movement of the enemies but otherwise a challenging, strategic, solid little game.
Stracker
01. Aug 2017 · 18:53 UTC
Pretty cool, but a bit hindered by some unclear things like which wall will disappear next, and what direction the red dots will take.
Gris
01. Aug 2017 · 18:54 UTC
Very innovative. Some music and sound would help. I don't think the theme is that spot on but it's quite addictive so well done!
dreadloaf
02. Aug 2017 · 02:31 UTC
Very nice an simple graphics with an innovative concept! I can really see this doing well on mobile if its polished up with some audio and what not. Great job!
Zelos
02. Aug 2017 · 21:55 UTC
Very cool idea.

The graphics are simple, but look very polished. The gameplay is fun, but the button placement is very weird. Why do I have to switch between Space and Enter for starting and switching the level? That's really annoying.

The puzzle design isn't bad at all. Was pretty challenging and I think this could be made into a full game.

What's missing is a bit more visual feedback. Like going into the goal should at least spawn some particle effects or something, so I know I reached the goal.

Overall I enjoyed it though.
pyrosneak
02. Aug 2017 · 23:11 UTC
Nice simple graphics, decent gameplay. Reminds a little bit of games likes threes, and those types of puzzle games. Good job.
Emery
03. Aug 2017 · 10:08 UTC
I really enjoyed this game, it was fun and fit the theme. Good Job :)
klianc09
03. Aug 2017 · 19:15 UTC
It was fun discovering the game mechanics. The introduction sequence was well done. My biggest issue was that the keys were only recognized like less than half the time, at first I thought my spacebar was broken.
Nice simple jam game.
Baski
03. Aug 2017 · 20:51 UTC
So smooth, i'm big fan of minimalistic graphics and this is new level of td :) Good job. Keep it up. For me good candidate as mobile app.
benbennett
04. Aug 2017 · 03:03 UTC
The clean look works really well with this game, I really liked it. The one aspect I didn't really understand is why the walls would disappear. But overall it is a solid puzzle game, especially in such a short time.
Schuster
06. Aug 2017 · 01:48 UTC
Great game, the simple style serves the puzzle elements well.
Batheo3000
06. Aug 2017 · 09:39 UTC
Maybe I'm just really stupid but this game is NOT easy :/

It's good though!

The lack of audio is a little sad and I don't see how it relates to the theme in any way.

also I didn't get the pattern of grey dots disappearing.
Knowledge
06. Aug 2017 · 13:43 UTC
Nice game, but some movements seem random.
TheFlyingKeyboard
09. Aug 2017 · 23:30 UTC
Really fun and simple. Puzzles are nice, but could be better if there very more than one solutions for each of them. Good Job!
nusan
10. Aug 2017 · 14:02 UTC
Good idea, I like this simple puzzle game. I didn't understand all the rules, for example why some grey circles where disappearing. A way to improve it would be to add a preview of what will happen the next motion for each enemy. Also I didn't know if every puzzle was winnable. But the core mechanics works well, so keep up the good work.
abductedPlatypus
14. Aug 2017 · 23:32 UTC
I love puzzle games. This one took soem time to figure out and it was pretty great! Graphics are nice, mechanics decent, and the inclusion of level generation awesome! Nice entry!
MufinMcFlufin
15. Aug 2017 · 01:30 UTC
Interesting and unique puzzle game that sticks to its aesthetic well.

Graphics are nice and simple. They convey most everything the player needs to know well, although I would have liked something to tell me how many right clicks I had remaining.

The game was fun as a puzzle game, but I could tell it would get dull relatively quickly. Personally, I stopped playing it before I really ran into that, so it wasn't too big a deal for me.

I didn't find the game very well fit the theme, unless that's supposed to be how/why the grey walls keep disappearing.

I ran into a bug that broke one specific level, but could easily break any level: Small red dots appear to not realize that the large red dot is not navigable. I had the situation pictured below where one red dot was stuck behind the large red dot and would never move itself from behind it, so I could never destroy it. Not a very big issue, unlikely, and definitely not game-breaking, but it is level-breaking, and it shouldn't be too hard to fix. ![ss (2017-08-14 at 01.49.24).png](///raw/ccf/9/z/8e22.png)

The puzzles appear to be randomly generated, which lead to some interesting (nearly impossible) first puzzles after learning the mechanics. The game feels almost too easy on almost all the larger puzzles (it's easy to split up enemies and set up walls to destroy each one at a time) and extremely difficult on smaller ones. I never found myself actually using the second of blue dots, as the usual strategy tends to be bottleneck on one route and destroy anything that comes through while hoping your grey walls hold up. As a side note, it would be interesting to change up the pathfinding algorithms from time to time to keep the enemy dots from being totally predictable when there are multiple optimal routes, and the game could definitely be improved with some better random level generation (look into some maze generation or terrain generation methods, some may suite this game well)

Overall a very interesting game that just needs some more polish and TLC to really shine.
Jason200101
15. Aug 2017 · 20:42 UTC
I've got no idea how to start the game, and I can't find any executable files anywhere. Just game information. Can we have a playable version that doesn't require downloading the source code, becuase I'm really confused on what's going on here!
ZYXer
18. Aug 2017 · 14:58 UTC
Quite a good puzzle game. However, I think once you understood the enemy's AI, it's relatively easy to beat the levels. Super clean and nice graphics, well done!

I'm not quite sure how this relates to the theme, to be honest.

Really impressive what you achieved in 6 hours!
hav24
19. Aug 2017 · 01:56 UTC
I don't get why the grey big bubbles disappear randomly every time you hit spacebar. is it right?
This is a really and unique challenging game with a great concept and cool visuals.
The random disappear of the grey bubbles makes it a little bit unpredictable... I think they should disappear but in a specific way every time so you can react accordingly!
BTW nice game, keep up the good work! :)
pst723
20. Aug 2017 · 09:22 UTC
I really like the minimal aesthetic. Puzzles were generally fun. However, as others were saying, the "wall" dots seem to disappear at random (I don't think it has been explained anywhere) making it hard or impossible to strategize. At least making this predictable and for example highlighting the next dot to disappear would make the game feel more fair.

I ran the game on macOS and it works fine, although I think it didn't register my mouse clicks at first (can't reproduce).
Jupiter_Hadley
31. Oct 2017 · 15:56 UTC
Interesting game! I don't feel like I quite got it. I included it in my Ludum Dare 39 compilation video series, if you’d like to take a look :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hFP2TT_L4k