Gut Reaction by blacksheepza

WARNING! WARNING! BREAKFAST INCOMING!
Play as a wily stomach dino battling cheecky snacks to make sure that the stomach doesn't run out of space.
Collect acid ammo, shoot the food to digest, and get the waste to the 'exit' before it rots.
Controls
WASD - Move
E - Pick up waste
Mouse - Aim
Left click - Shoot


| Windows | https://groupeffort.itch.io/ld42-gut-reaction |
| macOS | https://groupeffort.itch.io/ld42-gut-reaction |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/gut-reaction |
Ratings
| Overall | 589th | 3.391⭐ | 25🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 453th | 3.364⭐ | 24🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 682th | 3.091⭐ | 24🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 472th | 3.636⭐ | 24🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 340th | 3.818⭐ | 24🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 287th | 3.205⭐ | 24🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 784th | 2.909⭐ | 24🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 29🗳️ | 8🗨️ |
+10 for the butt joke
- Good graphics and presentation
- The music didn't feel like it fit very well but that's okay. The popping sound of shooting was also a bit out of place.
- There feels like there's too many things to wrangle at once - the ammo crates don't supply enough ammo at a time to make you ever feel like you've got much agency, the need to pick up enemies after you defeat them and walk over there to press E again, and health constantly getting chowed while you're worrying about ammo, etc... The systems feel unfocused. Perhaps give players more ammo per pickup so they have longer time to do stuff that need doing. Perhaps do away with ammo system altogether, or make ammo a byproduct of getting rid of waste. Make more intertwined systems rather than independent systems.
- It took a while to realise the E to pickup waste thing. It would be very easy to put that on the screen during play. Don't assume people read the manual outside the game (I often don't and I'm sure many people don't, I prefer it that way because a game can be a self-contained unit the better it is anyway)
- Why do we even need a E button for pickup? If the player is close enough to something pick upable, pick it up, if they're close to the hole while holding something, drop it. It seems like a better solution. Pressing that button is not an interesting challenge/decision.
- Not being able to see enemy health doesn't fit with limited ammo.
- Not sure where the dinosaur player character fits in with everything
You have definitely given me some things to think about and some good pointers. Going forward I am going to try to put more effort in tying systems together. As I practice and jam more I hope to get to the point that I can put more effort into design rather than having a mad dash to get the thing working by the deadline!
I found it really hard to keep up with clearing out the enemy corpses to the point where it didn't really feel worth doing. Perhaps there should be some kind of reward for that? (eg. health replenishment, score multiplier etc.)
However, I think my main piece of feedback would be that for a score attack game, it's nice to be able to see your current score on screen. Especially when the score is so granular. You want to create that tension of being on a good run and being close to your highscore.
What resolution are you playing at? Win or MAC?
Please do check my game maybe you’ll like it and leave some feedback.
I also missed the "E" to pick up at first.
It controls well though, the shooting is satisfying and pushing enemies back feels good (before knowing about "E" I was shooting enemies towards the hole).
Though the player damaging bounding boxes are a bit unclear (particularly for the acid). Given the camera angle I feel like they should damage you when your feet are near them (rather than damaging your head when it overlaps the acid).
I would have liked a way to deal with the loss of health, or a way to improve my ability to receive ammo. I felt I was a little bit at the whim of the world, with my only ability to avoid getting hit while having to pick up every single ammo drop before it disappeared and no way to solve some of the problems I was facing (like low health or low ammo or the clogging up of acid piles). I'd like to see you take this further and play with that possibility space.
When I did get a bit further in the game (I got to Day 3) I had a nice moment where I was being ganged up on by a horde of sickly food.
Have you seen that Adventure Time episode with the zombie candy? That's what it reminded me of, with that wonderful tension of food trying to eat YOU. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9OOLl2rdCY
I'm not a fan of enemies that hurt you just by overlapping you (unless they're covered in spines or something). But for the purposes of a jam I think it's fine. If you do take it further I'd suggest trying to add in enemy attacks (like maybe just for the sickly food, who can then vomit just in front of them, making temporary vomit piles that damage you, while the other enemies just slow you).
The UI was very clear and helpful once you played a bit. The first few times you play, you're a bit too overwhelmed to notice the UI. After that, you notice the dots on the clock telling you when the meals are and the notices when a meal is coming up which is fairly handy.
The game is fun, but it's really hard. I found I was running out of ammo way too quickly. A lot of enemies spawn at once and there's not a lot of downtime between the waves of enemies. And enemies seemed to be deteriorating so fast that I had no chance at all to deal with them. I couldn't keep up with killing enemies, grabbing ammo, and taking dead enemies to the hole. The game is still fun. The shooting is fun and killing enemies, then needing to dispose of their bodies is a neat mechanic. I just found that I could only play a few days at a time. I would play about 2-3 days, then lose and then just start again at day 1.