LudumData

Anti-Automata by thegunmaster

[raw]
made by thegunmaster for LD 42 (JAM)

Anti-Automata Start.png I spent the first 2 days of the jam on 2 entirely different game concepts that ultimately failed, so this final game is made from scratch in a single day. Here is a post about the other 2 ideas: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/anti-automata/$116174

I started off by making a general platform for cellular automata, and then constructed a custom rule set to turn it into an actual game. I have only tested this on chrome, and some things might work incorrectly due to different css behavior in browsers. Everything is made in pure html/css so without any canvas. I just did this because I am very familiar with html, so this was quicker to pull of for me, but performance might suffer a bit from it.

You can control the player by either using the arrow keys, or wasd. You shoot automatically by moving in a direction, but can choose not to shoot by holding space. (The space functionality was reversed in the past, but I received some complaints)

Anti-Automata Playing.png Anti-Automata.png

Thanks to selulance for providing the song: https://soundcloud.com/selulance/selulance-chip1-remastered And sancarn for helping with general ideas.

I will post some pics of the experiments of the first 2 days in the near future as well.

HTML5 (web) https://tarvk.github.io/Anti-Automata-LD42/build/
Source code https://github.com/TarVK/Anti-Automata-LD42
Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/anti-automata

Ratings

Overall 366th 3.596⭐ 54🧑‍⚖️
Fun 272th 3.577⭐ 54🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 289th 3.5⭐ 54🧑‍⚖️
Theme 109th 4.096⭐ 54🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 548th 3.5⭐ 53🧑‍⚖️
Audio 206th 3.585⭐ 49🧑‍⚖️
Humor 796th 2.143⭐ 44🧑‍⚖️
Mood 764th 2.93⭐ 45🧑‍⚖️
Given 50🗳️ 32🗨️

Feedback

huskitch
14. Aug 2018 · 10:11 UTC
Love the idea
Tednesday
14. Aug 2018 · 10:13 UTC
Really polished. Looks great. Impressive that you did it in a day. I had a tough time with the movement and shooting. The movement felt sticky. I found it difficult to move directly to an adjacent cell and I kept overshooting. Which was frustrating because I kept getting killed.
Steffo
14. Aug 2018 · 10:19 UTC
Fun game! Too bad it gets laggy at higher multipliers, or I would have kept on playing for quite some time...

![Highscore](///raw/d4d/z/19095.png)
LSD
14. Aug 2018 · 10:36 UTC
Very fun game! Having to keep space bar pressed is a little annoying (maybe always shooting the first time you press a direction would be a better idea) but it's a great game nonetheless. Good job!
Azo
14. Aug 2018 · 11:36 UTC
8608! Not as good at this game as everyone else, but its really fun and is very polished. One of the few games I've reviewed so far to offer a lovely volume slide to stop myself from destroying my ears (occupational hazard when you play game jam games I suppose). Gameplay is fun, graphics great, sound effects good, not much to fault. Even more impressive to have built this in a day! I would say that sometimes I found it hard to differentiate the player from the shots, as there is not a huge colour/size difference. Other than that, great job!
🎤 thegunmaster
14. Aug 2018 · 11:37 UTC
@tednesday Ye, the controls aren't precise at all. That's mostly due to the cellular structure of the code. There is basically no global data tracking the player, each cell just checks both the controls and their neighbor cells each tick. So if the controls don't fall in that 1 tick, they won't be registered.
So ye, part of the gameplay (including performance) was compromised by my idea of building it entirely as a cellular automata.
I am glad to hear you liked the looks though, that's always a difficult aspect for me :)
And also thanks for the nice feedback @lsd , @steffo , @huskitch and @tednesday
Yohann Geoffroy
14. Aug 2018 · 11:47 UTC
Great game, love it
Tednesday
14. Aug 2018 · 13:39 UTC
@thegunmaster Oh I see what you mean now. That's quite impressive.
drikdrok
14. Aug 2018 · 15:09 UTC
Great game! Impressive how much you got done in a single day, especially considering the burnout that would probably be present after scrapping 2 games!!

My only real problem is I kinda had a hard time distinguishing myself from the shot.

Overall really solid!
KostblLb
14. Aug 2018 · 15:18 UTC
both graphics and shooting are very nice, concept looks simple but promising though. good luck with that!
SkyreX
14. Aug 2018 · 16:01 UTC
Sometimes shooting works, sometimes not
🎤 thegunmaster
14. Aug 2018 · 16:04 UTC
@skyrex can you be more specific? I haven't had that issue myself yet. Are you holding the spacebar constantly?
(edit: I now made the player shoot by default)
MandaRad
14. Aug 2018 · 16:19 UTC
This was pretty cool, and I liked the art style. It had some satisfying little touches, like the screen shake.

Destroying a bunch of the green cells is also super satisfying.

Shooting was a bit difficult, though.

Overall nice job!
FlorentJamet
14. Aug 2018 · 18:15 UTC
Your game is very fun! The game mechanic work pretty well and the fideback is so cool.
AwiX
15. Aug 2018 · 07:16 UTC
A good game idea, the music should be improved. The graphics are good.
Try our game too, maybe you'll like it)
cbenoit
15. Aug 2018 · 18:34 UTC
Pretty neat idea, and as others said impressive given that you pulled it off in a day. I was at times a little lost while spamming shots around the level when it came to keeping track of where I was or how many bullets I've fired, since the bullet trails are very similar and it's a little hard to see where one ends and the next begins. Other than that though a pretty solid game, nice work!
Weine
15. Aug 2018 · 19:03 UTC
Impressive game for the time used! I like that the enemy automata are so dynamic and everything feels alive.
I respect that you wanted to make everything automata-based for purity reasons, but in the end the player doesn't see the underlying architecture and would prefer more precise controls.
Player 2
15. Aug 2018 · 19:04 UTC
I liked the music as it was perfectly fitting with the type of game you have made. The graphics are simplistic yet also quite pleasing. The game fits the theme very well with the later stages becoming very difficult to charge up a shot, leading to you losing.
Overall i liked the game and enjoyed the few games i had of it.
The only downside was the difficulty to keep track of where you were in the constant changing of the environment. However, this is not a large issue.
🎤 thegunmaster
15. Aug 2018 · 19:30 UTC
@player-2 thanks for your feedback :D I too liked the music quite a bit. Selulance (the guy who made it) is a friend of mine, so I just ask him if he has something that fits my stuff and then he sends a bunch of songs to pick from :)
Ever
15. Aug 2018 · 20:21 UTC
Very good core idea, I love it!
The screenshake is very satisfying but I don't know if it is a bit laggy or the fact that you are transparent when moving but it feels like it could use a bit more feedback.
Well done for doing this in one day!
Eclahn
15. Aug 2018 · 21:43 UTC
Nice for something done in one day! A bit laggy as many have said but html is probably to blame for this. Funnily enough, repeatedly going back and forth between two tiles was the best way to hold for me, firing in both directions.
Bomb-X
15. Aug 2018 · 21:50 UTC
Simple but juicy just like the art style ! Well done :)
Greyo
16. Aug 2018 · 21:16 UTC
simple and effective, great job for a game made in one day!
Chupachu
17. Aug 2018 · 12:15 UTC
I really liked the concept and gameplay mechanics, however I found that the game began to slow down significantly after a while, to the point where my inputs started to drop. Along with this, I found it was pretty easy if you just make a plus shape (up/down/up/down,right/left/right/left) repeatedly. Other than that, the graphics matched well with the gameplay, the music was cool, the sound was nice, and the movement felt good. If the lag is reduced and chain reactions are made less effective, I think this could be a pretty amazing game!
mediyaz
17. Aug 2018 · 12:48 UTC
I think there's a few really interesting ideas here – I like how you move when you shoot, and you have to balance moving toward the green goo to defeat it without falling into it. I also really like the minesweepery aspect of if you hit the big joined-up middle bit of the green goo it AAAALL gets destroyed - that was very satisfying and I enjoyed aiming to get the biggest chain reaction I could.

Great work, especially for a single day! I read your post-mortum and sympathise - I've experienced having to make a bunch of u-turns in a game jam before, but my game has always been better for it, rather than persevering with an idea that's just not right. I also find game jams go better when you follow the fun, if a mechanic is not working for you and you're not enjoying creating it, just ditch it man! It hurts because we humans are suckers for the sunk cost fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunk_cost#Loss_aversion_and_the_sunk_cost_fallacy but it's worth powering through!
gord10ahmet
17. Aug 2018 · 20:51 UTC
I liked the music!
Akuirako
18. Aug 2018 · 18:28 UTC
This game looks promising but I found the controls were pretty hard to use.
Haberworks
18. Aug 2018 · 19:34 UTC
nice work for a day! the concept was strong and i really enjoyed playing it. easy to play, and simplicity can be a good thing! i liked how one action worked for multiple efforts - moving and firing
huminaboz
18. Aug 2018 · 19:59 UTC
Love how the space bar ties into the mechanic!
ProdigalSon
19. Aug 2018 · 00:29 UTC
For a one day project this is really solid and I'm sucker for simple but clean and vibrant colors. Simple but so well executed and fun to play. Strange how people suggested to reverse the role of the space bar as I prefer to press space to shoot (unless it is more of it breaking the behavior of the browser lol). I honestly just spent time doing nothing to watch the room be filled up and then shot here and there to see the chain reaction of tiles being broken. That was satisfying :D

Me saying I would've liked to shoot by pressing the space bar is for two reason: I want to be more in control and it makes it hard to see as shots, though cool looking, sort of blend with the player before they become their own entity making it hard for me to always track my player and making me hesitate as I think something is happening and I need to stop. :D I know I can simply hold down space and release when I want to shoot and it is more or less the same thing...just takes some getting use to
🎤 thegunmaster
19. Aug 2018 · 22:37 UTC
@prodigalson Thanks for your extensive feedback, glad that you liked it :)
Initially the space behavior was totally reversed, so basically you had to hold space to shoot, not simply tap it. This is understandably something many people found annoying, and people that didn't read up on the controls often didn't even figure out how to shoot. So I thought the simplest 'fix' was to just swap it.

And @mediyaz indeed, it was really hard taking distance from the code I spent so much time on. And the sunk cost fallacy comes in play even more if you only have 3 days of course XD. I do think the ideas themselves worked, just not the execution. And that was not something I could fix in those 3 days.
goudagames
23. Aug 2018 · 10:11 UTC
This is a really cool idea, and I absolutely love the art style, especially the destruction effect. I did feel like the controls where a bit unresponsive during hectic situations with a bunch of keypresses, but nothing too serious. I also felt that it was a bit difficult to keep track of the player due to the trail behind it and the bullets constantly coming out of the front along with the screen shake. Knowing exactly which tile I was on was a bit difficult to tell.

Great job, especially considering you only had one day!
Tornquist
25. Aug 2018 · 20:38 UTC
This is one of my favorite LD42 games. I really like the growth mechanic that controls what groups will be destroyed. This was fun!
Liven
25. Aug 2018 · 20:48 UTC
4485

But I didn't understand the multiplier stuff.

Never mind, it was funny.
RoronoaCherry
26. Aug 2018 · 02:23 UTC
Great game! I liked how feel the camera shake.
Team Yarn
31. Aug 2018 · 19:11 UTC
Good simple idea, I like how polished it felt. Good job!
Repusv
31. Aug 2018 · 21:07 UTC
Excellent game! It's very fun! It could be a very enjoyable mobile game! Well done!
camilovr
31. Aug 2018 · 21:12 UTC
Congratulations
Great dynamics
I really liked the colors and music .... a little more polished would be a great game for iPhone
Brendo
01. Sep 2018 · 17:07 UTC
Lots of great aesthetic feeling to this game from the sounds, graphics, screen shake, and music. Quite fun and a great execution on the theme! The move-and-attack mechanic felt a little off to me, but it did force me to consider my choices carefully. I wonder if reversing it so you attack away from your movement like a recoil would feel better?

I'm on an older Macbook Air, and I did have performance issues when there was a lot of destruction to be done, just FYI.
erikkire
02. Sep 2018 · 07:23 UTC
The music is amazing! The cellular automata is a nice touch and interesting to watch. This could very well be super fun to play, however, the big problem for me are the controls. They feel slow and unresponsive. Some tweaking there and this would be one of my favorite games this year!
Andrei9
03. Sep 2018 · 16:42 UTC
Nice game! interesting graphics :thumbsup:
Inferture
04. Sep 2018 · 05:38 UTC
Simple but polished and fun to play ^^ It's impressive that it was done in just one day in pure html/css ^^