Klone Karts by ABRDs

[raw]
made by ABRDs for Ludum Dare 47 (COMPO)

Klone<em>Karts</em>1.gif

You have been found guilty of your crimes.

Your punishment? To race the loop, until dead.

The infamous Klone Karts arena creates lesser versions of you to keep costs low, and to ensure that you do not make it out alive. You are doomed, but you might as well not your name be forgotten. Don't forget. Klone see, klone do.

WASD/Arrows: Movement Space: Use Abilities Clones repeat your previous laps, using power-ups included Green Blocks: Swap obstacles on track Blue Blocks: Get Random Power-up

Klone<em>Karts</em>3.gif

Ratings

Overall 211th 3.583⭐ 20🧑‍⚖️
Fun 231th 3.447⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 376th 3.139⭐ 20🧑‍⚖️
Theme 96th 4.053⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 66th 4.105⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Audio 237th 3.278⭐ 20🧑‍⚖️
Humor 214th 2.875⭐ 18🧑‍⚖️
Mood 212th 3.389⭐ 20🧑‍⚖️
Given 29🗳️ 9🗨️

Feedback

patetfisk
05. Oct 2020 · 13:14 UTC
Really cool game! Love the graphics!!
Ale
05. Oct 2020 · 13:34 UTC
The graphics are great! I think a health bar or other status indicator would be helpful, as without it death comes unexpectedly. Good use of the theme though, and finding out what all the powerups do was fun.
🎤 ABRDs
05. Oct 2020 · 14:00 UTC
@ale Thanks for playing! If it clears things up there is no in fact health, just hitting a wall to fast causes you to crash!
PetTurtle
05. Oct 2020 · 18:08 UTC
Graphics look great and the audio is good! But I wish the track was more complicated.
🎤 ABRDs
05. Oct 2020 · 23:07 UTC
@petturtle thanks! You and me both would love a more complicated track!
pkenney
06. Oct 2020 · 04:20 UTC
The second I saw the art I rushed to play the game.

I love driving/combat mashups and I love drifting in the mud, and from the screenshot/gif it looked like this game was going to be ***** METAL!!

And it was fun -- but I didn't feel the METAL. I felt like it needed a few tweaks. I'll go a little deeper on what I was hoping for and some issues I ran into, not because it's a bad game but because it's good and could be great.. I hope this is constructive:

First problem is the main design challenge of any driving game: you have a discrete input (keyboard) controlling a vehicle usually controlled by a continuous input (steering wheel). With a steering wheel I can turn a little bit left, or a lot, and express any precise angle I intend. But with a keyboard, I can only press or not-press "D". How does a driving game create the ability for a player to express their intent for turning angle? This game doesn't have an answer, and so what happens is the classic problem: every single turn is at exactly the same radius. Extra-unfortunately in this game, that radius is not well-matched to the radius of the track's curve, and every turn goes the same way: gradually out toward the wall. You can see this problem happening in your gif.

There is no perfect answer to this design problem, but here are three ideas you could try that might improve the feel of this game: Letting go of "W" while holding "D" could sharpen the turn. Or I could have a brake/drift on space that I can tap (and weapon goes to another key). Or at least the car's turning should be TIGHTER than the track and not looser, because then I could use quick bursts of releasing "D" to realign with the track. In this game, I can't press "D" enough, so I always go into the wall which isn't very METAL.

Second problem is the killing. I was pretty excited for it, but I struggled to get satisfying kills. The best ones were purple-box items rocket and land mine, which were both satisfying. I could have used a 10 or 20x increase in how often I can use those features. The smoke screen was always a disappointing pickup because it meant "no fun kills this lap." I didn't find the green boxes worth it, they just slow down the driving for me as well as the Klones, so I rarely got them... perhaps I just misunderstood their use?

Since the weapons of war were so rare, and I wanted to get my METAL combat on, I tried ramming people into wrecks or into the wall. But it was hard to line up rams, and when I did get into position for a ram what often happened is that I hit the wall and died. So I felt a little discouraged to experiment with rams.

Anyway, if I could steer better, drift a little, ram people, and get 10x as many weapons, I think would really get into this.

The basic idea is great, and there's something really special about the badass way it looks and *almost* feels.

Hope that wasn't too much critique! I definitely had some spikes of intense fun with it.
🎤 ABRDs
06. Oct 2020 · 11:45 UTC
Wow @pkenney, that is quite the post! I agree with all of your points, having been too ambitious with my target some of the designs weren't as well fleshed out as I hoped. I appreciate all of the feedback, and glad that you can see my vision for what I meant to ultimately create
madbookstudios
06. Oct 2020 · 17:07 UTC
Really awesome work - what you've achieved in just 48 hours is incredible! The style reminds me so much of the old school mario kart games, it just made me smile so much! Really well done :)
Zepapa
06. Oct 2020 · 18:13 UTC
This was great! Brings me back to the classic 90's racing games. I thought it was going to be the same track over and over but was pleasantly surprised with the changes in the track. I crashed a few times but once I got the hang of it, it was quite a fun loop.
The music didn't seem to work for me. The sound effects were working and I made sure the music was selected before starting.
Overall, great work!
pekuja
06. Oct 2020 · 18:20 UTC
I like the visuals and audio, but the car is kind of hard to steer around the track, and the jerky camera doesn't help. :/ I had trouble seeing whether my clones were actually repeating what I did, especially because the game starts with so many other cars on the track to start with.

My game is actually kind of similar, except without powerups and traps, just driving.
🎤 ABRDs
06. Oct 2020 · 18:30 UTC
Thanks for the feedback @zepapa & @pekuja!

Sorry to hear that the music was giving you issues, and weird that it was just the music! Could you give me some information on what browser & versions you were using?

I will definitely check out your game @pekuja interested in seeing how you approached a similar idea!
Zepapa
06. Oct 2020 · 18:48 UTC
@abrds - I was using google chrome on the HTML5 version hope that helps!
Cieroceramics
06. Oct 2020 · 21:11 UTC
when I finally figured out 1. its not a race, and 2.to slow down a bit before making turns, I had a much more enjoyable time. this was a good take on the standard kart battle. and the visuals made me feel really nostalgic for 8 bit arcade style racing games.
Nolife_M
09. Oct 2020 · 15:16 UTC
Amazing COMPO! It's really a great work in 48hrs, good job dude.