ModuMon - Barebones Edition by nerdysl0th

[raw]
made by nerdysl0th for Ludum Dare 45 (COMPO)

ModuMon(Modular Monsters) is a top-down 2D "fighting"(There's literally just one attack) arcade game in which you start out with nothing besides your skeleton. You have to try to snatch the loose remains of dead enemies off the ground and get to the safety of the goal-hole. Capture.PNG

In there, you can reassemble your body using the parts you've gathered. Every part has different statistic modifiers, so if you're made entirely out of bones you can move really fast, but you're going to be a lot weaker. On the other hand, if you're built mostly from fleshy parts, your attacks are going to be strong, but your movements slow and sluggish.

poopoo.PNG

Once you're done creating your new body, you can test it out by going outside and trying to brawl with some enemies. If you survive, you can find another hole to crawl into and repeat the process.

peepee.png

If you have some body parts you don't need, you can sell them on the hole black market in exchange for health. If, however, your reach your maximum hitpoint amount, the hole community won't be interested in trading with you any more, so your only way of getting rid of unwanted body parts will be just dropping them, presumably into unsuspecting citizen's windows and mailboxes.

There's no ultimate goal besides getting the high score and maybe creating the silliest looking monster possible.

How to play:

a tiny strategy guide

I saw some people confused about the gameplay loop, which is completely fair. Here's some advice:

In the first 1-2 levels, don't engage in combat unless you're confident you're experienced/strong enough. Instead, wait for the big guys to brawl it out and pick up the better parts.

If you prefer being fast, and you accept having low strength, I'd recommend picking up bones.

If, on the other hand, you want to be stronger and don't have a problem with slower movement, the meaty/robot parts are for you!

Try different balances of body parts. Maybe a robot hybrid with meaty legs suits your playstyle best! Or maybe a skeleton with a muscular body and arms? Who knows! Experiment! If you've found a configuration you like and have some useless parts laying around, sell them! It's going to increase your HP.

That's another thing that should motivate you to pick up parts. Even if your build's perfect, you'll probably want to heal after the round ends.

Once you're confident in your build's ability to battle, engage in combat to earn points and increase your highscore! This is an arcade game, after all!

Hope this helps. Have fun!

The Controls can be found in the game's menu.

Ratings

Overall 233th 3.46⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Fun 284th 3.16⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 107th 3.72⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Theme 179th 3.62⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Given 21🗳️ 20🗨️

Feedback

dqmhose
07. Oct 2019 · 17:24 UTC
It looks really good, I like the idea but I can't win even a simple fight. I've tried for a long time now and I seem to die instantly with one punch and my punches seem to do nothing :( I'm shit at games though..
Igoreshka
07. Oct 2019 · 17:38 UTC
I never seen so tiny and revelant character editor) Fun gameplay) Thanks for 10 minutes of happyness :smile:
🎤 nerdysl0th
07. Oct 2019 · 17:42 UTC
@dqmhose Try picking up some of the dead enemies' muscly or robot body parts and incorporating them into your character! You might move slower, but your punches will become more powerful! Also, the unused body parts you don't need can be sold for additional HP.
Hope this helps!
🎤 nerdysl0th
07. Oct 2019 · 23:26 UTC
@igoreshka Thank you! :smile:
Nithin
08. Oct 2019 · 01:04 UTC
I saw your game in the discord and was excited for it. The music was good and the gameplay was interesting and I loved the blood effects. The issue I take with your game is the screen size which really takes away from a game that's actually fun.
🎤 nerdysl0th
08. Oct 2019 · 08:52 UTC
@nithin Thanks for the feedback! As I said, unfortunately I wasn't able to program in proper scaling in time. I might upload a patch that resolves this issue soon.
WFMG
08. Oct 2019 · 15:37 UTC
Nice game, man! It was a little opaque to me, but it made sense after a little while. I learned quick that I needed to keep some parts to upgrade with, and that it didn't need to have four legs, a torso, and a head in order to work. It's not really my kind of game, but it is a lot of people's game. This is one of those games that many people would probably play on their breaks at work or school and get really good at. Well done!
blint6
08. Oct 2019 · 19:36 UTC
A bit hard to grasp, but then quite rewarding! Except when you accidentally misjudge another skeleton that for some reason can one shot you despite being full HP haha

Graphics stick well together, the theme fit is good and the customization mechanics are cool. Many ways to experience your game, congrats!
🎤 nerdysl0th
08. Oct 2019 · 21:29 UTC
@wfmg @blint6 Thanks, I appreciate the feedback!
Hcursino
09. Oct 2019 · 04:17 UTC
Talk about not giving any hint to your players about what they are supposed to do. Guess I should have read the game description before playing it hahaha. I had to play it twice. At first I was completely lost, I thought all I had to do was to go deeper and deeper into the levels, I was made only of arm bones, even my body and head so I could run faster and reach the end. Everything was pointless, and in the end my score was zero. Then I came here, read the description and understood the game, then I had fun! built a balanced monster and sold the organs for hp and enjoyed some fighting and running around. Good game, good game. The music gets a bit annoying after a while, and you could add the game description into the game itself. Other than that,good work!
OgelGames
09. Oct 2019 · 12:55 UTC
Interesting game, I died within about 2 seconds on my first run, before I realized what I was actually controlling, after that it was quite good :thumbsup:
YorisFresh
14. Oct 2019 · 19:57 UTC
Nice game, it was a little difficult to figure out how to play at first, but then it gets quite addictive.
Suchista
15. Oct 2019 · 08:04 UTC
Original stuff. Some indication od where your character is would be nice. I had a bug where I couldn't see myself nor do anything, but the game was still going (maybe I died, but there wasn't any text about it). Also I couldn't deal any damage, but maybe I'm doing something wrong. Picking up different body parts feels rewarding and trying out combinations is fun. Good job!
Gleb Shishov
17. Oct 2019 · 23:00 UTC
A fun, complex and dynamic game. It was hard enough to get used to living for at least 10 seconds. Well done.
Bungalow
19. Oct 2019 · 00:48 UTC
Nice little game with simple but effective graphics and tight intuitive controls, awesome job!
🎤 nerdysl0th
19. Oct 2019 · 15:40 UTC
@hcursino @ogelgames @yorisfresh @suchista @bungalow Thanks for the feedback, I really appreciate it!
philomory
20. Oct 2019 · 03:05 UTC
I haven't seen anyone else mention this, but for some reason when I try to move parts around or sell them, I have to click anywhere from 3-7 times to get the game to recognize I've done anything. I'm not sure what's up with that.

Otherwise, the game seems neat, but, there seems to be that there's no real defensive options; if you're close enough to hit the enemy, they're close enough to hit you, and as far as I can _tell_ none of the parts reduce the damage you take from being hit. You can it so you can deal more damage to the enemies, but no matter what you do you're still dying almost immediately if you do get hit :no_mouth: Maybe I'm just bad?
itsdanidre
20. Oct 2019 · 05:37 UTC
@philomory I thought it was me alone with my low battery mouse's issues,but I guess it is common.

I did have to click a bit before it is placed everywhere. I was able to juke enemies when I'm lighter by punching them and running away before they punch me. But after a beafy full health very strong me goes out. It's brawl to the death, be chased down, and die :sweat_smile:

Still love the hilarious creations from the drops though!
karlipoppins
20. Oct 2019 · 06:03 UTC
Played once and got a bunch of different parts but then was moving super slow. Went back and read your description / strategy guide and went back to play a bunch of times. Very cool entry, I love the original take on the theme! The music and the mood were spot on (albeit maybe a tiny bit repetitive) and the gameplay was suer fun. Loved the ability to sell stuff to the black market to get some health back, loved seeing enemies kill each other (you always hope that there's a double death lol). Great little game!
🎤 nerdysl0th
20. Oct 2019 · 09:13 UTC
@philomory @itsdanidre Thanks for rating! Your critsisms are completely valid; My UI system was haphazardly programmed and the balancing of the gameplay was amateurish to say the least. I should spend more time on that during the next Ludum Dare.
@karlipoppins Thanks! I'm really glad you enjoyed it, it's nice to see my little strategy guide actually managed to help someone :smile:
Coda Highland
21. Oct 2019 · 13:58 UTC
Bones meta FTW! Like @hcursino I was all arm bones... but I was fighting it out, using my speed to take potshots and then get out of the way before taking any damage. I had a score of 2550 before I spawned right on top of an enemy at the start of the round and was killed even before the camera could focus on me.

The music doesn't worn on Mac, sadly, so I can't meaningfully rate this game on audio.
🎤 nerdysl0th
21. Oct 2019 · 17:38 UTC
@coda-highland Thanks for playing! I haven't encountered the spawning bug before, I deliberately set it up so that kind of scenario would be pretty much impossible :thinking: Then again, it might be the scaling I quickly threw together for the bugfixed version
Also, I'm sorry to hear the audio doesn't seem to work on Mac. Luckily you're not missing much :laughing:
Cydouzo
22. Oct 2019 · 10:00 UTC
I think its way too easy to die in this game. Fighting is completely useless, the only strategy that I found was too go full bone and flee (which is boring cause I didn't need to pickup any part, since we start in full bone mode). Robot and meat parts make ou way too slow => Impossible to evade any attack => you die even faster.
The concept is really fun though, I enjoyed the few levels I've played