Plant life - My LD 46 Game by AcidViper
This is a game that was made for Ludum Dare 46, Theme : Keep it Alive Controls:
X - Shoot
Arrow keys to move left and right
Z - To move through the doors
Escape - Hit escape to open the shop during buy phases, from left to right the cost go 5 - 15 - 35, each upgrade helps improve your stats!
Monsters get progressively harder.
Plant life is a game that was made for ludum dare in the compo, so 48 hours, it was made using Libgdx, a java game library which I started learning 3 days prioir (Sorry for the flex) I've never been great at coding, but this was a huge adventure and I loved every minute of it, except for every minute of it. Especially when the theme was announced.
Ratings
| Overall | 720th | 3.231⭐ | 28🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 789th | 2.942⭐ | 28🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 875th | 2.827⭐ | 28🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 376th | 3.827⭐ | 28🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 634th | 3.26⭐ | 27🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 445th | 3.173⭐ | 28🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 674th | 2.409⭐ | 24🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 915th | 2.604⭐ | 26🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 39🗳️ | 18🗨️ |
Some bugs / incomplete stuff (you probably know about most of it, but just in case):
-The "Buy Phase" text shows up before I finish shooting all the enemies (I assume it probably appears when the last enemy is generated?), which was a bit confusing at the start
-There is no way to distinguish between purchased and available upgrades - the icon looks the same
-The sound effect when player tries to purchase an already-purchased upgrade seems to be the same as for upgrades that are too expensive, and coupled with previous point it makes things a bit confusing
-Is there no way to restart the game from the loss screen? It would be nice to have a restart button, so the player doesn't have to close the window and run the game again
But damn, nice job for an engine you're not familiar with :) It's quite an achievement to do that in such a small timespan.
As feedback, maybe try turning the music lower? It's good, but the high pitches get grating after a while.
Congratulations on the entry :thumbsup_tone1:
:purple_heart: :dart: :frog:
- Door mechanic should be removed, instead you could just shoot through the plant. It really breaks the flow to check quickly with Z whether new enemies will come on the other side or not.
- It was like a leap of faith. When I felt (or remembered) that the enemies will now come from the other side, then I changed sides. But this is based on luck (or replay), which I think isn't a good thing. Maybe an indicator would have been helpful.
- Buy phase started before the wave was finished.
- The upgrades seemed a really motivating thing, because at first the attacking was weak, slow, and clunky. I was so happy that I could be stronger, and then I could remember how weak was I at level 1.
- But the enemies are getting stronger, and the upgrades are just good enough so you could be relatively as strong, as you were at level 1.
- Example: I still couldn't kill enemies faster on level 2 with the first damage upgrade, or at level 3 with an attack speed upgrade.
- The only thing that changed that if I wanted to be as effective as before, now I have to press the shoot button faster. But I didn't feel any stronger.
Thanks for submitting, maybe I'll try again later on :laughing: