Heart Break by gnx

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

A heart ❤️ still beats in a dark world. You, the last blood knight, tirelessly defend the heart from a horde of approaching ghosts 👻. The raining blood 🩸 rejuvenates you, as you charge against the invaders. If only you could keep it alive.


Less lyrical instructions

  1. change direction of the blood knight by clicking the heart
  2. destroy ghosts by running into them
  3. refresh your blood knight by collecting blood drops
  4. see how long you will last before heart break maxes out.

Made in Phaser 3.

Code, art and sound by me.

Thanks for playing!Screenshot 2020-04-21 at 1.37.50.png

Ratings

Overall 1742th 3.265⭐ 36🧑‍⚖️
Fun 834th 3.515⭐ 36🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 933th 3.426⭐ 36🧑‍⚖️
Theme 816th 3.838⭐ 36🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 1884th 3.074⭐ 36🧑‍⚖️
Audio 285th 3.864⭐ 35🧑‍⚖️
Humor 1537th 2.571⭐ 30🧑‍⚖️
Mood 1653th 3.133⭐ 32🧑‍⚖️
Given 24🗳️ 41🗨️

Feedback

Actyl
20. Apr 2020 · 23:46 UTC
Love it! I didn't read the instructions but got it pretty quickly and then it was really fluid and enjoyable. Great music!
ColeSlaughter
21. Apr 2020 · 05:23 UTC
I really like the look and sound on this one! The classic aesthetics really jive with the super simple low-res art. I especially love the slow-mo effects that come from holding down the click button.

...Maybe I'm just dumb though, but I couldn't figure out how to actually get the character to move where I wanted. The instructions say to click the heart to move the knight, but he seemed to choose a random direction to move when I clicked it, so I felt like I had no real control over him. :/

Again, maybe I'm missing something though. I really like everything else about this one though!
Nitero
21. Apr 2020 · 16:11 UTC
Good game, the soundtrack is awesome! However it's kind of weird how the music is stopped when you press the heart. To me this got kind of annoying when I pressed it too often.
With a bit of polish this could be amazing. Gives me rythm game vibes too, maybe have the enemies attack / die on the beat?
megamasterx
21. Apr 2020 · 18:44 UTC
The best entries have the simplest controls! For doing everything on this one solo, you did a fantastic job. A lot of people fall prey to scope creep and I think you hit the balance just fine in terms of mechanics vs quality of assets. All around, very strong entry to be proud of!
marccspro
21. Apr 2020 · 18:49 UTC
I love the minimalist look and feel of the game !
Playing by only using the mouse click is fun and I like it a lot
Great job !
sadsmile
21. Apr 2020 · 18:56 UTC
Looks like a cool game and i think the core idea is fun as well, but i think there needs to be some tuning to the knights speed , the ghosts speed and some of the collision detection (or maybe i just suck at the game haha). Anyways, keep it up!
Aimainiac
21. Apr 2020 · 23:53 UTC
Pretty cool game! But maybe you should check its resolution; it's blurry on my end.
NemoGG
22. Apr 2020 · 22:47 UTC
Great job, I love how it all comes together so simply and so well. Did i notice the music get more intense as the "health" got low?
Only thing you could improve in my opinion is some UI, but the game is very good as is!
AdonisDevs
22. Apr 2020 · 22:50 UTC
I really liked the simplistic style :D Very challenging too. Interesting game!
Twistashio
22. Apr 2020 · 22:57 UTC
Really liked the art style. Game needs a bit more polish on the mechanics side. Clicking the heart shouldn't stop the music entirely. It could and a effect or something but try to keep from removing the sound. The simple game play is really cool and hope you continue jamming. :)
Hoboris
22. Apr 2020 · 22:57 UTC
Simple one button game! hitboxes can be frustrating but it's quite fun nonetheless!
marcusnystrand
22. Apr 2020 · 22:59 UTC
Cool artstyle!! Simple but striking
g12345
22. Apr 2020 · 23:40 UTC
A one button game that is nice and still complicated and challenging! Also really nice music too! Well done!
LordDaniel
23. Apr 2020 · 19:58 UTC
Nice, Phaser 3!
I liked the idea, very simple but can be hard. it feels a little bit too luck based because of the droplets randomly drops ( and quite fast drops so it hard to pick up one).
Quarter Up Studios
23. Apr 2020 · 20:00 UTC
Neat game, cool idea for a 1-button setup. Seems maybe a little hard to get where you need in time but that might just be part of the skill. Cool entry.
tylerstraub
23. Apr 2020 · 20:06 UTC
really great simple concept, loved the music
MrHassanSan
23. Apr 2020 · 20:07 UTC
Took me a second to get what was going on (I definitely should have read the instructions—but the red flash every time you press the heart made me think I was doing something wrong!), but this was a fun game! The simplicity is pretty elegant now that I know how you're supposed to play. Bravo!
Dis0rder
24. Apr 2020 · 20:47 UTC
It's strangely addicting, although I'm quite bad at it.

I tried it many times, but couldn't get very far. The blood drops became more unpredictable when you progressed (at least that's how it felt).

The music is really good. I stayed idle in the title screen just to hear the tune fully a few times. It restarts when you die, and I never made it far enough to hear the full song.

Keep it up!
Grentacular
25. Apr 2020 · 07:36 UTC
I'll admit, when I first started playing, I wasn't expecting much from this game, but the gameplay is surprisingly addictive! I would have preferred maybe a little wider angle of view so you could see ghosts and blood coming from further away, but it plays pretty well as-is. Love the choice of music, too! Nice job!
NathanT
25. Apr 2020 · 07:51 UTC
Really liked how the audio was connected to changing directions. Also ran into the hit collision issues, but played really well otherwise. I imagined the blood knight was protecting me, but being a blood nice seems alright too. Excellent art style. Keep it up!
Alexander Wayne
25. Apr 2020 · 22:45 UTC
Hi, I was really confused when I started the game - like - "What in the God's name am I supposed to do here? Does clicking anything even do anything? Do I use the keyboard?" After getting a heartbreak and a half, I got what I was supposed to do, and I really enjoyed the game. The graphics and audio are really good, as well as the idea and the way you handled the theme, great job there!
Only thing I think the game lacks is some sort of difficulty scaling. Once you get the gist of it, it is basically just a matter of luck, how long you survive, which is a pity. Probably new kinds of enemies emerging, some bonuses and such could help?
I think you should keep on improving the game, and release it post-LD. Keep up the great work!
Leon Oost
28. Apr 2020 · 12:07 UTC
Funny small game! Didn't know what to do in the begin, so maybe a small instruction in game would be nice. The audio was amazing! Good job
Matootsy
28. Apr 2020 · 12:59 UTC
Congratulation. It's an very "simple" and addictive game. One button and lot of possibilities to manage how to destroy the ghost and keep energy. I love the progressive song. Definitively, A good simple mechanic. That's the most important in a game :)