Combat Medic by Celdur

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

You must keep a wounded soldier alive while you fight your way through a hostile battleground. Pretty clearly inspired by commando, with a lot more jank added on top. Fight and heal your way through 2 levels featuring grey and slightly less grey.

medicfoot.gif

Overall I'm fairly happy with the results, though I feel like there's some wasted potential in there. As always I had a lot of fun making it, though this is the first time I've had someone help me out with something other than art (shout out to @pixxel).

First thing I would change if I had more time is the AI, it is really poor right now. Other than that, I feel like the gameplay needs a lot of tweaks for it to really work. And music of course, couldn't get anyone to help me out with that sadly.

Programming/design: @Celdur, @pixxel

art: Navigantor

Ratings

Overall 1693th 3.286⭐ 23πŸ§‘β€βš–οΈ
Fun 1399th 3.238⭐ 23πŸ§‘β€βš–οΈ
Innovation 1604th 3.095⭐ 23πŸ§‘β€βš–οΈ
Theme 367th 4.071⭐ 23πŸ§‘β€βš–οΈ
Graphics 1734th 3.214⭐ 23πŸ§‘β€βš–οΈ
Audio 1491th 2.55⭐ 22πŸ§‘β€βš–οΈ
Humor 1974th 1.944⭐ 20πŸ§‘β€βš–οΈ
Mood 1906th 2.952⭐ 23πŸ§‘β€βš–οΈ
Given 29πŸ—³οΈ 14πŸ—¨οΈ

Feedback

karln
21. Apr 2020 Β· 20:30 UTC
I saved!

That was an interesting mechanic. I beat the second level by just leaving my dude at the start and then coming back for him when I was done (actually I took him in two stages, first to the buildings in the middle then to the end), which is probably cheating a little but it worked :)
DubDisk
21. Apr 2020 Β· 20:31 UTC
Idea is cool but you need more practice in graphics.
Jaxter
21. Apr 2020 Β· 20:34 UTC
Nice, but it lacks better graphics
Nisanick
21. Apr 2020 Β· 20:47 UTC
I like the idea, it captures the theme perfectly. It is quite hard to aim which is the only issue i have with the game. I like it a lot, good job.
dummydojo
21. Apr 2020 Β· 20:53 UTC
I love the art. Feels very nostalgic. The concept has potential, but the execution needs some work. My critiques:


-Wasn't very obvious that there was only one guy I needed to carry across. I was expecting to run into multiple guys I had to heal, so I left the first guy at the start and finished the level without him. You can fix this by adding more visual aid to the instructions screen or by just having it so that you save multiple guys w/o carrying them across. The latter sounds more fun imo.


-Carrying the guy isn't fun. It makes the game very sluggish and tedious. I very much enjoyed the core gunplay of the game, but the carrying dragged it down.


-Red barrels need to explode. Its video game law. (jk here obviously lol)


Good jam game. Looking forward to seeing future projects.
Disthron
24. Apr 2020 Β· 19:58 UTC
Very nice use of theme here. However, the tool tip for the med kit says I can use it to heal my comrade but it doesn't seem to work, also right when you get to the med kit is when you need to give your friend a top up.

Aiming at the enemies is pretty difficult too. I had real trouble hitting them, also the bullets just vanish after a while was annoying.

Overall, I thought it was pretty good, but I couldn't figure out how to prevent my guy from not loosing too mucfh blood.
🎀 Celdur
25. Apr 2020 Β· 01:00 UTC
@disthron

Ah yeah, big oversight but I forgot to mention that you can't use the medkit unless the patient is cured of any ailments.
That's a shame though, did you try curing him with bandages?
James Gillespie
25. Apr 2020 Β· 04:39 UTC
Pretty fun game, I liked the concept and it was well put together. The enemies were pretty hard to hit and had some advantages over the player like shooting over sandbags and their bullets travelling further. I also couldn't really figure out the healing. Fun experience though :)
SleepyStudios
25. Apr 2020 Β· 15:26 UTC
Really good take on the theme. I also really liked the old-school arcadey feel with the art style and animations (especially the death animations for the enemies).
curleysam
25. Apr 2020 Β· 15:39 UTC
I saved! I enjoyed this entry a lot. Had a retro, arcady feel to it. I would have liked to have a bit more variety in weapons or something. But overall a solid entry πŸ˜ƒ Well done
Ovid
26. Apr 2020 Β· 19:12 UTC
It's a very cool game! I liked the theme of that, very innovative. I enjoyed the levels. The graphics are also looking grate.
Shakedimus
29. Apr 2020 Β· 15:02 UTC
The graphics and sounds gave it a good atmosphere. all the animations and especially the carrying of the comrade looked quite funny. The object of the game was not completely clear to me as I didn't know if the comrade was supposed to get up and help or we just move him. Also the enemies sometimes shot through walls so the concept of cover was not there, which ould make it more tactical. It was quite difficult but a very nice idea. Overall solid game with a nice twist.
Plepletier
03. May 2020 Β· 14:52 UTC
Wow!! Great game! My game has the same idea. Good Job. Its remind me doble dragon of master system!
Khyrgrim
04. May 2020 Β· 09:05 UTC
Great Jam entry! Cool adaptation of an escort mission in hostile territory. Good work on graphics and animation!
Just a piece of advice for improvment : Controls could have been reworked to make it work on all keyboard configuration ... using "ctrl", "alt" and "space" key instead of "z" "x" "c" because I have an β€œAzerty” keyboard and it was a little bit messy at first.