Slimelands by Wagner

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

Fight a huge oncoming horde of slimes, as numerous flying islands build a world around you. Collect slimeballs dropped from the slime horde to form more islands. How large a world can you form before the slime hordes get you?

This was our first time participating in Ludum Dare and we hope hope you enjoy what we've created. Please feel free to post how many islands you gathered along with your feedback :)

(A small side note: The floating islands setting of this game is unrelated to the possible LD theme of "Floating Islands", the reason we made it like this because we thought it was cool. The game is supposed to follow the theme of "The more you have, the worse it gets" by becoming more difficult as you gather more islands. Just wanted to clarify as there has been a bit of confusion with others :) )

Ratings

Overall 820th 3.173⭐ 28🧑‍⚖️
Fun 980th 2.759⭐ 29🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 716th 3.019⭐ 29🧑‍⚖️
Theme 765th 3.185⭐ 29🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 526th 3.574⭐ 29🧑‍⚖️
Audio 653th 2.519⭐ 29🧑‍⚖️
Humor 910th 2.109⭐ 25🧑‍⚖️
Mood 866th 2.885⭐ 28🧑‍⚖️
Given 8🗳️ 10🗨️

Feedback

OrciFried
05. Dec 2017 · 07:21 UTC
It's a very interesting concept and I like the idea and execution!

It's also super interesting that I get the urge to explore even though I know all the islands are the same. Maybe do some different graphics biomes, secrets, different enemies, etc. Just changing properties according to the island sent to the world.

The minimap also works super great to give this feeling of progression as you can see all the islands you've succeeded on gather.

A couple of general fixes:
- Adding some more feedback when damaged
- Doing mouse-based rotation even when not attacking (because of clear feedback on the control direction)
- More merging of slimes - I think that mechanic doesn't come to fruition until later in the game
mess110
05. Dec 2017 · 18:24 UTC
Couldn't get it to run on Linux, think it needs to contain sth else than exe. Please ping me if you get the linux build up
Kegnarok
05. Dec 2017 · 18:33 UTC
I like the fact that your island gets bigger, and thus spawns more slime! However, I think the game would benefit from islands attaching to other sides than the top one, so you can get swarmed faster. Great art too!
Dlaha
05. Dec 2017 · 18:38 UTC
I like the mechanics of merging islands, that is really interesting bit. However the attacking doesn't feel right. It might be because character is rotated in mouse cursor direction only during an attack.
jushiip
05. Dec 2017 · 18:41 UTC
Nice! Good job on finishing your first Ludum Dare. :grin: I was able to kill like 70+ slimes.

With music you could have made the game's mood a bit better. Was there a reason you didn't include any music?
MrAssassin
05. Dec 2017 · 18:41 UTC
Cool core idea! Looking at it from my point of view, it seems like your scope was just a little too big to pull of perfectly. You could have done with some Menus and some sort of controls list (I firstly picked up my controller and the character moved, making me think that your game supported controllers and didn't realise that the only way to attack was by using the mouse.

Honestly though I think that this has got loads of potential, I'd love to see you develop the combat into a more complex and reactive system :)
jfraser314
05. Dec 2017 · 18:41 UTC
It reminds me of Minecraft Skyblock, but with adding islands connecting. Unique and fun. Good job
unit684
05. Dec 2017 · 18:42 UTC
Really nice artwork and animations, the sound is great too! I like the idea and it plays really well, the only things to add are just a bit of polish and stuff, maybe make the enemy death particles spread a bit like an explosion, plus a bit of screen-shake or something, and have a way of joining the islands together graphically - bridges maybe?
Lamossus
05. Dec 2017 · 18:43 UTC
I sometimes got stuck between islands for a while which lead me to getting hit. I wish there was a bit more content like different islands with different slimes or maybe some islands that had NPCs on them because at the moment the game gets repetitive pretty quicly but I guess such a short development time justifies so little content. I'd really like to see the post-jam version of the game if you are planning on doing it because the idea of the game is great and it has a lot of potential!
Plepletier
05. Dec 2017 · 18:44 UTC
I like the idea of ​​the floating island and other islands come and join forming a dungeon in the sky! If you create monster generators on the islands and you must go and destroy them, you will give more importance to explore the islands. Good pixel and animation. Good work! Congratulations
dcolgan
05. Dec 2017 · 18:44 UTC
First of I would give an explanation that the mouse is used to attack. Islands are great and floating islands are maybe even better so I love the setting. The graphics are nice and movement feels clean, but attacking is a bit off.
Sir Magic
05. Dec 2017 · 18:44 UTC
A very neat concept here. I liked how the islands sort of flew into each other, thus creating a bigger island and more enemies.

## To Improve

The idea was very good but I felt that it could be better if you were to alter the collisions so that I can't walk off the grass and onto the rock. It would also be nice if you could have multiple weapons so that that the player has a difference in gameplay as the game goes on. Overall, however, a great game.
Local Minimum
05. Dec 2017 · 18:45 UTC
Interesting concept. I got to 4 islands before letting myself getting slimed to death. In a way the game got easier with more islands since the slimes headed straight for me and would just fall off the other islands. But that might change if you survive longer. For that to be interesting though, the islands has to come more often and probably the slimes need to be smarted about how to find you.
AluminumAlienist
05. Dec 2017 · 18:45 UTC
I like the graphics, I like the UI, I like the little map. Good stuff overall.
Dogydogsun
05. Dec 2017 · 19:15 UTC
Thank you to all of you for all the great feedback! We are really happy that so many liked our game concept and will look into if we want to add more to the game.

A lot of you seem to have a problem with the general combat, which I know I also found a bit wonky and lacking at times, we did have plans to create more kinds of abilities and attacks and an upgrade system, but we sadly didn't have the time. But it's definitely something we will do if we do continue working on the game. We also know that there are a couple of pretty noticeable bugs, like the fact that you can walk partway of the islands, which we also just haven't had time to fix yet.

But thank you to all of you for playing (and hopefully enjoying) our game! It means so much to us to have other people from around the internet playing something we have created.
Dogydogsun
05. Dec 2017 · 19:19 UTC
@jushiip The reason we didn't add music was simply that neither of us has any experience with music (and just sound in general) and that we didn't have enough time to do even if we did. But you are right, if we do continue working on this game music should definitely be a high priority. But I do hope you enjoyed what we did have time to make! Thank you for your feedback.
🎤 Wagner
05. Dec 2017 · 19:28 UTC
@mess110, I've uploaded a new build which, according to Unity, should work for Windows, Linux, and Mac. It's still just an .exe, though.