Bacterial by Megalink

[raw]
made by Megalink for Ludum Dare 45 (JAM)

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Develop your bacterial colony to infect and kill the human you are inside of. Fight against the growing defender population by using your bacteria minions. Have your population outnumber the defender population in order for the "death rate" of the human to increase. Have the death rate reach 100% before time runs out.

Created by Harry White in 72 hours for Ludum Dare 45.

Special thanks to Error for playtesting.


Ratings

Overall 267th 3.75⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Fun 125th 3.875⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 208th 3.675⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Theme 374th 3.575⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 484th 3.65⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Audio 502th 3.1⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Mood 555th 3.342⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Given 16🗳️ 18🗨️

Feedback

simXple
07. Oct 2019 · 20:56 UTC
Great game, I love the overall game idea, but sometimes i just wasted a long time running around triyng to find bacteria minions (but maybe I was just bad). I think you could have improved the atmosphere a lot by adding music, but the other soundeffects are quite nice. Nevertheless it's an awesome game and I really ejoyed playing it!
gartibald
07. Oct 2019 · 21:00 UTC
Nice! Gameplay, idea, realisation. Good work!
Kenarf
07. Oct 2019 · 21:09 UTC
It's a well crafted game. Can't believe what people can achieve in just 3 days! Bravo!
Vaibho
08. Oct 2019 · 17:13 UTC
Too evil for me! LOL! but nice game with simple graphics and nice concept. You should have added music to make the gaming experience better but still it is good with sound effects. Nice work.
Arcus
09. Oct 2019 · 09:55 UTC
Cool game! Well done :)
monsterjail
11. Oct 2019 · 11:55 UTC
Pretty cool idea for an arena shooter, requires a bit more management and strategy
JoeShanahan
11. Oct 2019 · 11:55 UTC
This was really well made, I enjoyed it a bunch! The tutorial was really well done too, making sure the player had understood before moving on. The sound effects were also great, and overall the game felt very polished.

One problem I had was working out if I was moving horizontally. When moving up and down I was okay, but because the background is kinda samey - I couldn't tell if I was actually moving side to side. Maybe some variation in the background could give reference to the player moving?
Honey Pony
12. Oct 2019 · 18:14 UTC
Really well put-together game. The tutorial was super clear, and in general everything worked smoothly and had good player feedback.

However, moving around was sometimes really disorienting. I agree with @JoeShanahan that the background doesn't help with that, but I also think that the camera controller contributes to the problem and could use some tweaking. In particular, the camera should probably stay centered on the character when you don't move your mouse (that is, your character should only move with respect to the camera frame when you move your mouse).

As I side note I never really sprinted when playing. Perhaps that's just me though.
PIXAMENTORY
13. Oct 2019 · 09:16 UTC
"Impressive game, Very cool concepts. I left wishing that there is more.
Had a lot of fun "
Rhymar
13. Oct 2019 · 20:01 UTC
massiv Steam potential keep on
PhilStrahl
13. Oct 2019 · 23:25 UTC
Very cool game! I like the concept and presentation, though I didn't quite figure out a good strategy to win, but probably I just missed something crucial. If you're curious about my attempt, I played it on my stream today. And apologies for having an overlay with an incorrect title in the video :( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSZQiTfcXF8
🎤 Megalink
14. Oct 2019 · 08:54 UTC
That's all good! Thank you very much for playing it! @philstrahl
🎤 Megalink
14. Oct 2019 · 09:02 UTC
Thanks for the feedback @honey-pony and @joeshanahan ! The camera and background issue in terms of identifying movement was something that I had a lot of trouble fixing during development. One solution I tried was having a grain effect rather than having scanlines, where the grain would consist of squares that were mapped onto the background instead of being locked alongside the camera. Unfortunately it didn't look all that good compared to the scanlines, so I reverted back. Having more objects in the foreground is another way that it could be solved, and I do really like your ideas of having a proper varied background and a more centered camera position so that movement is more obvious.
SpaceMonkey
15. Oct 2019 · 12:14 UTC
Very cool minimalistic art! Very polished, loved those subtle particle effects. I won on first try but I didn't get all the mechanics I think, or maybe I did and you are basically just growing over time? This is fine but I didn't feel enough like I was growing I suppose, or maybe I wasn't doing anything to deserve growing? Hard to say. I always wanted to make a similar game and this will be a good inspiration once I finally get to it ;-) Have my follow. Keep making games!
🎤 Megalink
16. Oct 2019 · 09:05 UTC
Glad you liked it and thanks for the feedback @spacemonkey ! The growing system functions in a way where collecting the pickups will multiply your current population by 2, but in doing so your bacteria will become smaller. It should have been better indicated to the player through visual feedback and the UI. More ways of expanding your population outside of the pickups would also have helped with this, in my opinion. :)