PowerGem Arena by Wizard.Exe
Endless arena shooter score chaser with an interesting power mechanic. Fast and tight. This is my very first game dev competition! I'm so excited, it was really fun to make this game and I hope you enjoy playing it!
Shooting drains power which reduces the effectiveness of your weapon.
Pick up power gems and weapon tokens to refill power meter. Weapon tokens change the active bullet style.
Scoring is as follows: Enemies and Powerups are worth a base point value. Score is equal to [base value] x [player level] x [player hp+2]
This game was made in GameMaker 1.4, with Aseprite for all graphics and sfxr for all sound effects.
UPDATE: Check out version 1.0a for the latest balance changes! I did not change or add anything to this version beyond the LD submission besides changing and tuning some numbers to make the difficulty be more reasonable and better progression, as well as a bug fix that was related to the difficulty tuning. Hopefully this is OK for the compo.
Patch notes for v1.0a
- increase minimum enemy spawn distance from player
- lengthen enemy spawn-in animation time
- game now auto pauses when window loses focus
- fix bug where it was sometimes possible for laser blasts to hit more than 3 times before disappearing
- fix bug where laser blasts could in some cases hit the same enemy more than once
- slight tuning of laser blast damage, the damage now reduces slightly for each hit beyond the first
- adjusted spawn patterns across all levels for better game balance and difficulty progression
Ratings
| Overall | 92th | 3.795⭐ | 46🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 29th | 3.955⭐ | 46🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 500th | 2.705⭐ | 46🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 187th | 3.75⭐ | 46🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 230th | 3.523⭐ | 46🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 125th | 3.465⭐ | 45🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 27🗳️ | 34🗨️ |
Your game is evry hard though: I retry a few times and couldn't make it past the second level: 3 life is not enough I feel (considering your power is decreasing fast and the ennemies are faster than you). Other than that: great game, I had a lot of fun.
However, their comments drove me back to the game and I had a good time being frustrated at how bad I am at this game :grin:. It's a solid game though. Nearly every time I died, it was because I hadn't moved just right, not because of a glitch.
There were one or two exceptions. When I was playing in windowed mode, I accidentally clicked outside the game and the game kept playing in the background, leading to my inevitable doom. Also, when I re-entered the game, my direction key acted as if it was pressed even though it wasn't. Though if I remember right, this may be a Gamemaker engine problem.
Either way, the game itself is good. I'm glad I could play it, even if I never finished level two.
I hear what you are all saying about the enemy spawns, I also feel they are too close and need a little adjusting. I'll be working on a tuning update to make enemies give you a little more clearance when spawning, as well as a adjusting a few other numbers for balance.
Also, I will be continuing work on this game even after the jam, I have quite a few things I want to add! More weapons, enemies, spawn patterns, *online leaderboards*, maybe even subweapons or skills, or alternate game modes. Hope you continue to enjoy!
But the gameplay is really satisfying in a way that most LD entries are not. Great job on that! Plenty of style.
I see other people already commenting about enemy spawning. Other than that, if the player can pick up items that recover health it would also be easier.
The spawn around you + same speed as you + power up on other side of enemy group made it really had at times to actually get to the power up.
So much nostalgia here
Aside from those admittedly minor things it was a solid entry! enjoyed it! :D