Audio Hook (formerly Hook, Beat, & Keeper) by mrjoshuamclean

made by mrjoshuamclean for LD 39 (COMPO)

Music is power. Don't run out.

Collect!|Defend! :-------------------------:|:-------------------------: screenshot-2<em>shrunk.png | screenshot-1</em>shrunk.png

You're the conductor. Collect stems and protect them from Red Cylinders of Evil before they get you.

Controls

Start or left click to begin the game.
Back or escape to quit on the title screen, or return to the title from the game.
left click or A button to fire hookshot.
Hold right click or either trigger to show aiming reticle.

Known Bugs

Sometimes the stems get a life of their own and fly off into infinity. Don't worry - they'll come back soon. Or they should. Apparently sometimes they won't. :(
If too many big enemies spawn, they might push away the stem(s) and force you to wait a really long time for them to come back. Sorry.
Linux and Mac builds are untested and untestable for the Compo version. There may (will) be bugs.

Updates

5 August 2017: Add Mac and Linux builds.

Windows	https://mr-joshua-mclean.itch.io/audio-hook
macOS	https://mr-joshua-mclean.itch.io/audio-hook
Linux	https://mr-joshua-mclean.itch.io/audio-hook
Original URL	https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/39/hook-beat-keeper

Ratings

Overall	335^th	3.319⭐	49🧑‍⚖️
Fun	139^th	3.553⭐	49🧑‍⚖️
Innovation	183^th	3.447⭐	49🧑‍⚖️
Theme	631^th	2.426⭐	49🧑‍⚖️
Graphics	618^th	2.13⭐	48🧑‍⚖️
Audio	74^th	3.66⭐	49🧑‍⚖️
Humor	333^th	2.268⭐	43🧑‍⚖️
Mood	356^th	2.886⭐	46🧑‍⚖️
Given		133🗳️	8🗨️

Feedback

Strigifo

31. Jul 2017 · 20:24 UTC

Really got into the zone on this one but just couldn't reach the cube. Very addicting though, nice!

Lyon

01. Aug 2017 · 01:23 UTC

This was a fun concept, although yeah, there were some times where the cube just would not get into range, I think because it ultimately wound up getting bumped too far away by the spheres. Awesome sound effects and voice-overs! Great work

GoldRanger

01. Aug 2017 · 02:21 UTC

Cool!

The music is awesome!!

If there are some more level, it will be much more fun to play with!

I just start feeling fun and nodding with the music, then it ends!

Little advise:

If you let the player hook the first cube earlier when the stage start (especially the first stage), it let players get into the game because they know they are doing things!

gwinnell

01. Aug 2017 · 10:46 UTC

I completed it! Really enjoyed the music building up over time as you collect the blocks. Didn't see any of the bugs you mentioned either.

Would have loved more enemy types/content and shine but I really enjoyed what was here. (Rotating menu text ftw!) For an audio guy just dipping into development, this is a really great entry. :thumbsup:

hgcummings

01. Aug 2017 · 19:06 UTC

Interesting mechanics and fun to play. I like the mechanic of collecting then having to defend for a period. It worked really well and gave a nice arc to each level. The music was cool too!

James Dunlap

01. Aug 2017 · 20:17 UTC

I liked this game. It was a very interesting premise. I really enjoyed the idea of building up a tune by collecting the notes and then having to defend them to keep them. I agree with @GoldRanger, though. I found it a little hard to figure out what I was doing since the cube started so far away from me in the first level. I thought the entire mechanic was to shoot the cylinders until I finally got the cube when it got close enough. On at least the first level, I would start the cube closer and at least one of the cubes on each level after. Getting the music was the most rewarding part of the game, so if I can just start it early, it makes me want to keep going.

My only other criticism would be that I'm not sure that I see the theme of running out of power in the game, but that's a choice that everyone can make as to whether to follow the theme or not and how much it impacts gameplay/

Regardless of my criticisms, though, I would play this game a lot.

gonutz

01. Aug 2017 · 20:19 UTC

I really love your game, the music is nice, your sounds are funny ;-)

I would have played another couple of levels, but I am also happy that I finished a game here :-)

There is a funny graphical glitch, whenever you shoot, no matter the direction, there is one frame of the bullet going straight up :-)

Very good job, thank you and keep up the good work!

Johnny Turbo

01. Aug 2017 · 20:29 UTC

Tough for me to figure out at first but once I got it, I was all in and I played through the whole game. I think that at times, the game got in the way of itself a little bit and that was a bit frustrating. I did find a bunch of the sound effects to be pretty humorous.

Congratulations on making a complete game!

litill

01. Aug 2017 · 20:35 UTC

A lot of fun, and very satisfying (both just playing the game and finally getting to gather all the blocks and listen to the music). I did find the rushing enemies quite annoying in a bad way, perhaps an audio cue for when these spawn would make it feel more fair (or maybe have them bee a different color, i at least had some problem spotting them before it was too late).

Baski

01. Aug 2017 · 20:58 UTC

Great game, little bit buggy, but keep it up Good Luck

Bocodillo

01. Aug 2017 · 21:34 UTC

Fun game, great voice-overs. Liked the core mechanic and would like to see the game expanded upon!

Brent

01. Aug 2017 · 22:28 UTC

Had a great time playing, was wanting more when I finished it. Not sure with the right click did so never used it. Good job!

jekstrom

01. Aug 2017 · 23:03 UTC

Interesting game. I think there is supposed to be music, but I don't hear any? I hear the voice overs and sound effects, though, which are nice. The mechanic is neat.

FDR

01. Aug 2017 · 23:38 UTC

This was a great surprise. The game started out fairly slow and while it was novel it was only moderately interesting. The suspense really picked up in that last level though and I could feel what this game was meant to be! I would definitely recommend for future jams you ramp up the game early on to catch the interest of people who otherwise wouldn't keep playing and wouldn't find out what an awesome game you made!

Kodiqi

02. Aug 2017 · 02:04 UTC

There were some cool ideas in this one. I like that you collected pieces of the music as you grabbed cubes. The controls were responsive, so you were able to take the timing of the hookshot into account. The hookshot makes for a more interesting weapon than just firing bullets, though if there were some power-ups or other things to grab that would be fun. There were only a few levels so it was a short game but the difficulty was balanced well for those levels.

The graphics were just boxes, so not much to comment on there. Maybe add some music notes to them to give it more of a theme?

tayopi

02. Aug 2017 · 03:45 UTC

I liked the idea but I wish I would have had more range on my shot or been able to move around. It felt like there were times where I was just sitting there, waiting to be able to do something. Maybe there was a mechanic that I didn't understand. I think this game has a lot of potential and the concept is very novel. Good work.

duskpn

02. Aug 2017 · 08:49 UTC

Nice idea, you really don't see many games based around music.

Music which, by the way, is the star of the show, of course! I've clicked on a few of your song through twitter and you never cease to impress me. Good job!

nintendoeats

02. Aug 2017 · 23:40 UTC

Not intuitive, but I got it after a while and it was kind of fun. However, I think there is an issue with the way you are handling input, because some angles are impossible. Straight in any direction works fine, but a couple of degrees to the right or left doesn't. I think the issue is the controller deadzones, which is pretty common when using the analog stick to indicate aiming in a direction. Normally we tell Unity to ignore input in a direction of less than say 0.2. However, when the player is aiming slightly right of straight they might actually want the value of 0.1 to be recorded and included in the game. Did I just really over-explain that?

I don't know if a lethargic cannon is really a fun mechanic, but this is a pretty good experiment that I think explores it reasonably well.

The music is fun and didn't become annoying, even when I was struggling to hang on to all the bits for long enough.

binary_coder

03. Aug 2017 · 01:32 UTC

Pretty fun loop once I figured it out!

JCMonkey

03. Aug 2017 · 02:38 UTC

really cool game, i enjoyed the music after collecting the blocks, with some polish, and hd music this could be a really good game

BeamKirby

03. Aug 2017 · 02:58 UTC

Interesting game. It could definitely go somewhere if you work on it some more. Although, I actually had to play this game twice because the first time I somehow skipped the second level when I died on it. I don't know how, but it happened. :P

I think that the goal of adding more layers to a song by collecting enough objects is a cool concept, but because you're using songs with a strong beat, the gameplay seems off to me. I think that perhaps a simple, quiet beat should always be playing regardless of how many cubes you have and your hooks can only be fired to the beat of the music. It just feels weird to be playing a music-based game that's not a rhythm-based game.

sketchycode

03. Aug 2017 · 03:33 UTC

Liked it, music mechanics are the best. It was a bit easy, maybe some different approach patterns for the pylons. Good job! (btw, wasn't working for me, maybe double check it).

Dolash

03. Aug 2017 · 05:33 UTC

Certainly very different and creative, you manage to do a lot with a little considering the limitations of the competition. It was a little tricky to get the hang of what I was even supposed to do at first but there's a neat rhythm to this game. Like Space Invaders if you were a car speedometer. Honestly the game was curious and interesting enough that I'm struggling to come up with any additional observations, good job.

PhilStrahl

03. Aug 2017 · 16:58 UTC

Very arcadey, I like that. Also found the concept of building up a music track of stems very original. Sadly, it appears I had a bug in level 3 where one baddie snatched a steam and it just disappeared and never came back. Nevertheless: Good job!

AdroitConceptions

03. Aug 2017 · 17:32 UTC

:( Unity game and no Linux (64bit) export... or Mac build for Mac users..

Steel_Dev

03. Aug 2017 · 22:07 UTC

had lots of fun with this game! very well done! :D

PhilStrahl

04. Aug 2017 · 15:33 UTC

Aaaaand now the video is online of me playing your _Hook, beat & Keeper_, among others: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1DmR4rQzW7o :)

AdroitConceptions

05. Aug 2017 · 20:45 UTC

Linux build is 32bit... :(
Universal build should run on any systems. (64bit is probably all that is needed...)

pyokoanarogue

07. Aug 2017 · 16:42 UTC

My only complaint is that I don't find the main action sound effect very ergonomic , but take this with a grain of salt as my ears are very sensitive and my sound system tends to to be configured wrong for that type of sound other than that(insert a comment full of support, good vives and encouragement, here ) also the design of the core of game is very good and fitting in scope for such a short timed project and that is something im not able to do as well as i would like !

AdroitConceptions

09. Aug 2017 · 21:44 UTC

the hook sounds was a bit painful on the ears. Interesting concepts. had issues wish shooting the 'hook' it seemed to have a very limited range that wasn't clearly communicated.

I will say this was unlike any game I have played (props for that) and it was interesting how grabbing the 'stems' made the music 'fuller'.

Some clean up on the sounds and art and you could have a nice little game. Appears that it would be very suited for mobile and touch controls.