LudumData

ORB by blaster391

[raw]
made by blaster391 for Ludum Dare 46 (JAM)

title4.PNG

* This game uses compute shaders for lighting effects, if you have any problems (or just want to see the difference) the lighting effects can be toggled by pressing the 1 and 2 keys *

OBJECTIVE

Keep the Orb alive for as long as possible! The orb is constantly losing energy, but can absorb more from nearby crystals. Beware, the crystals have a limited supply! Sacrifice your orbs energy to build defences to try to hold off endless waves of aliens. The enemies strength will continue to grow, so keep moving to keep alive.

screenshot 1.png

Controls

We highly recommend you play the tutorial!

  • Move: A/D
  • Jump: Space
  • Pickup Item: F
  • Open Shop: E (With Orb Held)
  • Throw Held Item: Mouse 1 (Hold for stronger throw)
  • Force Push: Mouse 1 (Hold for stronger push) (Hands must be empty)
  • Force Grab: Mouse 2 (Hold for stronger pull) (Hands must be empty)
  • Toggle Lighting: 1/2

screenshot 2.png

Credits

Programming

Jack Hardy

Karl Davies

Robert Arnold

Art + Animation

Jason Ware

Audio

Daniel Matarov

Youtube https://github.com/Blaster391/LD46
Youtube https://blaster391.itch.io/orb
Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/46/orb

Ratings

Overall 759th 3.684⭐ 51🧑‍⚖️
Fun 660th 3.602⭐ 51🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 725th 3.543⭐ 49🧑‍⚖️
Theme 759th 3.867⭐ 51🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 633th 4.02⭐ 51🧑‍⚖️
Audio 648th 3.543⭐ 49🧑‍⚖️
Humor 1646th 2.455⭐ 46🧑‍⚖️
Mood 1028th 3.49⭐ 51🧑‍⚖️
Given 87🗳️ 72🗨️

Feedback

ARBEX
21. Apr 2020 · 18:16 UTC
Lovely
Pagetb
21. Apr 2020 · 18:25 UTC
Cool game with cool graphics and style, good job!
Anastasia Goncharenko
21. Apr 2020 · 18:25 UTC
You made pleasant and good looking game. Also the music fits well) I enjoyed playing. Nice job!
ben657
21. Apr 2020 · 18:28 UTC
Difficult to manage all the picking up and dropping of turrets and the orb, but I like it. Cool take on a tower defence!
Scornz
21. Apr 2020 · 18:29 UTC
Played it until I got the highscore, nice work! I could see out of the edge of the map, but love the concept of having health be a currency.
shark6100
21. Apr 2020 · 18:30 UTC
Love the shop feature and the speed of the game. The tutorial felt rushed so I missed some details and had to replay it. A lot of fun with really nice graphics. The shrinking crystals were really cool as a metric and all the UI was super intuitive. Nice graphics and fun using life as money!
TateTate
21. Apr 2020 · 18:30 UTC
Very fun and unique! The only major problem I have is that the controls aren't very intuitive. I think switching the pick up/put down button with the shop button would help a bit. I feel like making it so there's only one strength of push and pull would also help, especially since the lighter options seem kind of useless.
Stacka
21. Apr 2020 · 18:34 UTC
Looks great! The art is pretty. It was really difficult for me to move away the enemies, I think I need to practice a bit more.
Mezaka
21. Apr 2020 · 18:36 UTC
I really like the concept. The thing that seems to be holding it back is that the character controller feels very unresponsive... it drags behind for a long time and i just dont feel like im in control. Loved the music and mood!
Zlabya
21. Apr 2020 · 18:37 UTC
what a good game, i loved everything.
EternalXP
21. Apr 2020 · 18:40 UTC
I really liked it. It was fun to throw objects around! The charging mechanic was interesting. Really enjoyed the visuals and the sound. I did however find it a bit hard to control, the player is just a bit too fast. But very fun and the lighting effects are fantastic!
polarfuchs
21. Apr 2020 · 18:41 UTC
Very nice idea. It was a lot of fun to play. The walking of the person is a bit weird. Knowing which item you will grab when you press 'f' would have improved the gameplay, too. The music fits perfectly to your game.
leroivi
21. Apr 2020 · 18:42 UTC
I was impressed by this work, especially when I saw the leaderboard system, updated while in game, great job
A tutorial, nice graphics, a leaderboard, a great presentation of the game, what to ask more ? ;)
Jokku
21. Apr 2020 · 18:43 UTC
The lighting was really something else. I haven't seen that kind of strong use of lighting in a 2D game before. It was really cool to see the aliens glowing while they charged towards me. The second lighting mode was a little bit weird for me. I thing the lights really made the game pop. I hope you will find more interesting uses for that lighting system in the future. The gameplay was unique. I think it combined elements of different genres well.

Controls felt really sluggish to me. I would have liked way more snappier controls. But movement felt fast and I liked how you could dodge using your double jump and momentum. I saw that you had 5 person team working on this game and I think it shows really well in the polish of the game. I really enjoyed playing the game because of that polish!
Nurk
21. Apr 2020 · 18:48 UTC
I love good light in game and it's very beautiful here ! Well done ! The concept of health is money for create defense for health is pretty cool !
Aphid98
21. Apr 2020 · 18:53 UTC
Good Work!

Movement feels a little floaty for my taste; It seemed like the player should have some sort of default attack that doesn't do much damage just to protect themselves a little

Graphics/sounds were great, I loved the lighting.

Overall well done! I liked it.
flyingthunder
21. Apr 2020 · 20:11 UTC
Its perfect. THE LIGHTING. also need to adjust the controls... Too sensitive.
![38sl3l.png](///raw/5db/b2/z/31ed5.png)
🎤 blaster391
21. Apr 2020 · 20:34 UTC
Thank you for all the valuable feedback everyone!

Player controls are always a weakness of mine, especially platformers, I'm going to spend some time prototyping before the next jam to try to develop some more solid feeling movement :)

Also shoutout to @jaybaus for his art! And @productshard for his beautiful lighting tech!


(and @karltechno for programming wizardry, and @dmatarov for audio wizardry)
ColeSlaughter
21. Apr 2020 · 20:39 UTC
Super jealous of the lighting effects going on here!

As for the gameplay, I found it super interesting. :) I didn't really find a reason to ever drop the orb after I picked it up, but I did enjoy accruing and spending your life points in order to survive. Very high-risk-high-reward, which was engaging for sure.
HuddyBuddyGreatness
22. Apr 2020 · 02:37 UTC
Great graphics, but on my computer it was more of a slide show than a game lol. I appreciate that you added the button to change that!
Daniel Whittaker
22. Apr 2020 · 19:49 UTC
beautiful lighting and art, controls a little difficult to pick up but good fun once you get into it. I lob it
Brendev
23. Apr 2020 · 20:51 UTC
Top 3 haha! Fun game though! I loved the art, but I thought the particle systems didn't fit in very well with the otherwise high quality art. Overall great job, the online leaderboard is impressive with such a short time constraint.
Ulcius
24. Apr 2020 · 14:36 UTC
it was a little complicated at the beginning, even with tutorial. But once i replayed tutorial and game again I finally got a grip of how to handle it. And it was very fun afterwards.
Love how the lightning works. Love variety of mechanics and the art.
Impressive that you managed to add all of that during one jam!!
Chris Rock
25. Apr 2020 · 02:07 UTC
The tutorial took me a couple of tries to get (I've only had 1 beer I promise) but it seems like a fun concept! Tower defense games aren't really my bag but I think you did a good job here. I agree with most of the others saying that the controls were a bit touchy. Slow acceleration and deceleration are tough to deal with in a platformer. Jumping felt good though. And those lights were very impressive. Keep up the good work!
MrsTari
26. Apr 2020 · 18:11 UTC
i love it! :heart: Just the A and D is a little bit to fast, but so far good work! :slight_smile:
chtimy
27. Apr 2020 · 18:58 UTC
Too heavy for my computer It's quite slow
Maybe check the optimizations.
But very nice game!
ReallyQbert
09. May 2020 · 15:07 UTC
Nice idea and graphics! The mechanics are nice but I found myself having to do too many things at the same time. Moving was a bit awkward too because it wasn't always easy to stop. The tower defense aspect was neat. Took me a while to figure out what each did though. Great job overall!
ThePirateNun
09. May 2020 · 21:51 UTC
This was a nice idea! I really enjoyed the visual style and the lighting. I think the gameplay could use some tweaking because it felt like there were just a few too many things to manage and move around. the audio matched the style pretty well, but I think some background music would be awesome as well. Overall, I enjoyed it, well done!
Space_man
12. May 2020 · 02:49 UTC
Enjoyed this game, the graphics are great - amazing lighting! It was fun finding a balance between building up defenses and saving up for once I had to move on to some new crystals to keep my orb alive. I was mostly holding onto the orb because I wanted to buy defenses, so I may have missed out on some options for throwing around rocks - there's a lot going on. Good game overall!
mharring
12. May 2020 · 19:47 UTC
Player movement was a little too fast and felt like you were sliding around too much. I also felt like the screen was a bit busy - it was sometimes hard to see every object distinctly. The core mechanic was fun and I liked how your health was your currency (a nod to ldjam 44 ;)). Nice job!