LudumData

NeonTropics by neontropics

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

Screen Shot 2017-12-05 at 02.23.43.png

  • Move with Arrow keys or WASD

  • Attack with Space

  • R to restart level

* ESC to quit game

*FOR MAXIMUM SCORE, EAT AS MUCH FRUIT AS POSSIBLE BEFORE KILLING THE ENEMIES *

Solo Jam game by me. It's self-titled I guess, the name seemed to fit!

Theme was "The more you have, the worse it is". I didn't follow it super literally, but basically it is a bunch of interconnected levels where you try to get as good of a score as possible on each one by collecting fruit.

So, theme: Killing enemies makes fruit disappear, so to have MORE fruit you have to move around a bunch of enemies without killing them to get a good score. This makes the levels more fun to play as a score attack kinda game if you're into that!

Also the more you have explored, the harder it is? I dunno I mainly wanted to make a NES Zelda style game on a cool island. I was gonna make more enemies appear after each eaten fruit but didn't really have time to balance that element enough to release it.

To open the blue walls and advance to the next screen you need to kill all the (killable) enemies in one screen - after doing this once this level is open forever though.

Best scores + how far you have advanced is saved between sessions.

EDIT: I rebuilt the Web version with higher quality settings so it should be the same as the downloadable builds. Best played full-screen. The downloadable versions are probably more stable but the web version seemed fine!

The music theme can be found here: https://soundcloud.com/neontropics/neontropics-theme-for-ludum-dare-40-jam-entry

Tools used:

  • Unity

  • Bitwig + SH-01A Synth (plus a Korg Arp Odyssey for the background wave sounds... pretty stupid use of it!)

  • bfxr for sound effects

  • MagicaVoxel

  • PyxelEdit

  • Tiled

macOS https://neontropics.itch.io/neontropics-ld40-jam-entry
Windows https://neontropics.itch.io/neontropics-ld40-jam-entry
HTML5 (web) https://neontropics.itch.io/neontropics-ld40-web-high-quality
Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/40/neontropics

Ratings

Overall 707th 3.308⭐ 28🧑‍⚖️
Fun 657th 3.222⭐ 29🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 791th 2.923⭐ 28🧑‍⚖️
Theme 1068th 2.574⭐ 29🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 498th 3.611⭐ 29🧑‍⚖️
Audio 220th 3.611⭐ 29🧑‍⚖️
Humor 782th 2.477⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Mood 549th 3.308⭐ 28🧑‍⚖️
Given 25🗳️ 27🗨️

Feedback

nardandas
06. Dec 2017 · 02:43 UTC
Really fun little game! I definitely seen the similarities with The Legend of Zelda. Were the flying enemies inspired by peahats? Perhaps some inspiration from octoroks and moblins too? The only issue I had was the feel of the knockback - it's too harsh and disorienting snapping back, and the hitbox for your swing felt hard to judge. Other than that, great game!
rargrave
06. Dec 2017 · 02:57 UTC
Neat game, love the sounds and music. A few suggestions would be to add some feedback when you are hitting an enemy and at first I was confused how to exit the room. I also hit a bug at one point where I respawned in a room after dying and instead of moving left towards the room I still had right held down and I walked off into blackness. Guys kept shooting me though :)
Kutase
06. Dec 2017 · 22:24 UTC
Great game. I like this neon lighting.
Andreas Ragen Ayal
06. Dec 2017 · 23:42 UTC
Nice voxels! The enemy design is pretty interesting.

I think you need some UI prompts to help with navigation and understanding where the player needs to go. I restarted the first room three times before I understood I needed to go left. And in the second room I tried going up, because I thought that was where I needed to go.
secretstage
07. Dec 2017 · 00:27 UTC
Cool music. Was positively surprised to see a day/night cycle in such an arcadey game. Would love to see it with more neon! A bit clunky and sometimes collectibles would disappear after killing an enemy, but overall fun experience.
dimesto52
07. Dec 2017 · 23:48 UTC
Good music, graphics in agreement with the visual. Bad it was too hard for me =)
Minemes
08. Dec 2017 · 00:19 UTC
The Web-Player Lnk isn't working for me
Aviland
08. Dec 2017 · 00:39 UTC
Got to level 6~ before quitting to save my keyboard from my wrath. The disappearing fruit is what did me in :grin:

Why move left though? Moving right seems like it'd be more intuitive...
🎤 neontropics
08. Dec 2017 · 00:53 UTC
Thanks for the feedback so far!

It definitely needs a couple better tutorial levels to ease the player into the game, and the fruit/enemy mechanic is not really very obvious from playing the game.

@nardanas: hah yup, peahats, octoroks and moblins are the first 3 enemies you meet in the NES Legend of Zelda as well. They're all pretty basic enemy archetypes of the Archer, Fighter and Unpredictable Annoying Flying Thing though. Will probably try and add some more original enemies as I expand on this game.

@Minemes - hmm, do you get to the site at itch.io and it doesn't load, or does it just say the page is missing? It's https://neontropics.itch.io/neontropics-ld40-web-high-quality right? It works for me in Safari and Chrome
mase
08. Dec 2017 · 00:53 UTC
The setting felt nicely alien and I enjoyed the character designs.
I would've liked some attack power-ups; as I progressed, the game became harder but also monotonous. The difficulty is increased mostly by increasing the quantity of enemies so it becomes a chore to clear them all out one headbutt at a time.
FerNandXor
08. Dec 2017 · 13:33 UTC
I played web version. Game runs well, but I discovered by accident that you can change levels using number keys. I never needed to kill enemies, so.
🎤 neontropics
08. Dec 2017 · 14:23 UTC
@fernandxor: yep I left that in there in case people get really stuck and still wants to see the rest for whatever reason (+ for myself for fast traversal when checking new levels).

You still won't unlock the walls around the levels or save your scores unless you beat them properly so err if you want the real game experience I would not use the transport cheat.
esquirolaire
08. Dec 2017 · 19:30 UTC
Nice game! Aesthetics, enemies and level design are cool! On the other hand you should fix controls and make it more intuitive for first timers.
dunin
10. Dec 2017 · 13:19 UTC
I had a strange feeling when playing this game.

Controls are a bit hard (or is it the point of view?), going to the next area wasn't obvious and I stand a long time in the first level without knowing what to do...

And is it normal that you can go back to the previous level? It is annoying when you try to dodge and you suddenly are in the previous screen..
furet
12. Dec 2017 · 05:12 UTC
I like the neon art style and audio, and it's neat to be able to walk between screens. I thought the first enemy looked like an evil TV :) The difficulty progression started out good, until at one point I was swarmed with enemies and missiles and had to cheat to see the other levels. There was once a bug where I'd respawn stuck in the upper left corner. It'd be cool if the trees/bushes provided some cover from enemy fire, and if the main character glowed a different color than the enemies.
AdroitConceptions
20. Dec 2017 · 00:31 UTC
really interesting game.
* movement between zones needs to be explained better
* some of the light dark cycle made it really hard to see the details.
* some of the enemy models were hard to differentiate
* graphics were nice over all
* SFX and music were pleasant.
* not sure exactly how the game followed the theme
King Kujito
20. Dec 2017 · 09:56 UTC
It's a nice start to something that could become a full game. Still a bit too rough for me right now. You did a good job :-)

Also it's really easy to clip out of bounds by exploiting the respawn mechanic:
![Schermafbeelding 2017-12-20 om 10.53.57.png](///raw/cb5/z/eafd.png)