Vacuum Queen by Prof.Suarez

[raw]
made by Prof.Suarez for Ludum Dare 46 (JAM)

A game about a cleanly queen, attempting to clean her castle. It just so happens that her basements is a dungeon infested with zombies and ogres. She must use her haunted vaccuum to destroy monsters, or absorb them to add weight to her pummeling vacuum cleaner.

Play here:

https://www.construct.net/en/free-online-games/vacuum-queen-12140/play

Ratings

Overall 2499th 2.5⭐ 30🧑‍⚖️
Fun 2443th 2.431⭐ 31🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 2434th 2.389⭐ 29🧑‍⚖️
Theme 2449th 2.589⭐ 30🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 2274th 2.328⭐ 31🧑‍⚖️
Humor 1483th 2.611⭐ 29🧑‍⚖️
Mood 2209th 2.661⭐ 30🧑‍⚖️
Given 23🗳️ 28🗨️

Feedback

Bentebent
21. Apr 2020 · 13:32 UTC
Had some trouble vacuuming enemies and the blue guy was a real pain in the butt but in the end I managed to smack some undead basement dwellers!
Miklo
21. Apr 2020 · 13:34 UTC
Cute, minimalistic art style and some nice effects when a chest spawns. Unfortunately had some problems with controls as both the vacuum and attack buttons seemed a little bit unresponsive. My character sometimes got stuck in the attack animation even though I pressed the button only once and I could not do anything else. Also the blue enemy (death?) sometimes spawned right on top of me killing me instantly with no chance to react. Still, a cool concept.
Llewellyn and Michael
21. Apr 2020 · 13:42 UTC
Really struggled with the blue guys and I didn't figure out how the chest worked but killing the zombies was fun :thumbsup:
🎤 Prof.Suarez
21. Apr 2020 · 13:55 UTC
@bentebent Thanks for the review. Yeah I think I want to add an animation and some recoil for when you smack them. Will add that, @miklo the blue enemy is OP and is best to run away from, kind of like a nemesis (maybe adding a long range attack option?) @llewellyn-and-Michael I didn’t have time to get the chest working, but wanted to add an item system with power ups.
eldogg
21. Apr 2020 · 21:12 UTC
Cool how tiny everything is. Would be good to add more zombies and save the spawning of blue guys (who you I avoid as per your comments). Like the random dungeons! But I liked the simplicity and unknown element of the dungeon layout. Particle effects when killing things were satisfying too, maybe small ones of them when hitting an enemy?

The scaling of the textures is a bit blurry in the browser, normally in a game engine you need to select nearest filtering to fix this ([something like this for Construct](https://www.construct.net/en/forum/construct-2/how-do-i-18/blurry-pixels-problem-111952)) - I'm no expert though, can be difficult to make web pixel graphics games look right!

BTW we fixed our crash on iOS browsers for our game thanks to your comment (but we've yet to add touch support, but will do as a post fix).
🎤 Prof.Suarez
22. Apr 2020 · 02:32 UTC
@eldogg yeah I think I’m going to add smaller particle effects to version 1.2. Yeah I went with minimalist because of timing, but even then there were so many more things I wanted to add lol
GuitarBro
22. Apr 2020 · 05:44 UTC
Nice concept, but the controls were pretty difficult for me and there were quite a few times I seemed to die instantly upon trying to attack an enemy (not sure if that was intended). Regardless, could probably use a bit of balance tuning.

Also I think there's a setting in Construct 2 to render the sprites without interpolation (so they don't look so blurry). It's great for pixel art and I would recommend trying to use that for a better visual experience overall. Some tiles on the floor would also go a long way to help you know if you're actually moving or not once there are no walls on the screen.
ursagames
22. Apr 2020 · 05:55 UTC
Hello! Your game was played during my stream!

If you happened to miss me playing the game, you can go to this spreadsheet to find what timestamp I played your game
https://tinyurl.com/yau8hjzn

And then look in my latest videos and find your game being play (after the current stream ends)
https://www.twitch.tv/ursagames/videos
🎤 Prof.Suarez
22. Apr 2020 · 14:29 UTC
@ursagames hey man, thanks for the feedback. I'm sorry about the glitchiness. I will be working on that and releasing an improved version this week. I'll send you an update once I do.
KingMatthew
22. Apr 2020 · 15:50 UTC
I like the small art style and the many different enemy types! I got a little spooked when that sword came flying onto the screen to kill me. After I got a handle on the controls I was able to clean up some of the castle. Good work!
Arthur Mairs
22. Apr 2020 · 15:51 UTC
Interesting yet simple concept! those reapers are hard to kill, took some figuring out but i enjoyed it!
PonyPen
22. Apr 2020 · 16:05 UTC
Nice idea but the controls were a litlle difficult and i found the text hard to read.
Simple but enjoyable, still a good game! :) x
Drazihnya
22. Apr 2020 · 16:45 UTC
I liked the theme of the game, but had some trouble with the controls and, as mentioned above, the gray on the floor made me lost sense of space. Overall a cool concept.
🎤 Prof.Suarez
24. Apr 2020 · 03:00 UTC
@kingmatthew Thanks for the suggestion. Maybe a warning system when an attack is coming. That might give some buffer to attacks. @arthur-mairs this is the equivalent to like a nemisis in the dungeon. @ponypen Yeah, it's was hard for me to get responsive collisions but the next version is going to improve on this. @drazihnya good point, thanks for the suggestion.
Lemons
24. Apr 2020 · 03:07 UTC
Cool concept. I had some trouble with the controls, but overall seemed like a good idea.
morcado
24. Apr 2020 · 03:17 UTC
The idea it's nice, but it needs a lot of work to be complete. I found bugs and also you can make the artwork a little larger. Good job
Lenny Rudeberg
24. Apr 2020 · 03:45 UTC
Seems cool, but the controls felt inconstant to me and I couldn't seem to attack enemies
🎤 Prof.Suarez
24. Apr 2020 · 03:52 UTC
@lenny-rudeberg Thanks lenny. I'm going to be updating that, I might have a spawned vaccuum instead of a hitbox. Also add some momentum to the impact on enemies. Thanks. @morcado, I was worried if I went to big, I wouldn't have time to add the rpg features and the random map generator, but I'm gonna scale up now, thanks for the suggestion. @lemons, thanks man, appreciate the drop in.
Busy Games
24. Apr 2020 · 04:25 UTC
First time I played it worked perfectly, the second time it glitched. I like the randomness to the world generated. Pretty good game, I hope you complete more of it post jam!
stephan steinbach
24. Apr 2020 · 05:24 UTC
I kept spawning near the blue guy, had to read through the comments to figure out to run away, still fun though.
mypalmike
24. Apr 2020 · 05:36 UTC
Fun idea. Controls were difficult and the vacuum didn't seem to work.
Hueson
24. Apr 2020 · 05:44 UTC
Cool to see Construct being used. It ran smoothly in the browser.
Gorypixels
24. Apr 2020 · 20:22 UTC
I couldn't figure out much, but that animation when you suck an enemy with your vacuum rocks! jajajaj :D
Trexxak
26. Apr 2020 · 15:23 UTC
The art is really cool, especially the animations for smacking and sucking things up. The text is a bit small though, which makes having any idea what you are actually doing rare.
Eran Haas
29. Apr 2020 · 06:47 UTC
Really lovely animation. You managed to pack so much movement and personality into those tiny icons.
Daniel Ewusi-Essel
29. Apr 2020 · 10:19 UTC
nice concept