Worm Protect Egg by Gunturtle

[raw]
made by Gunturtle for Ludum Dare 46 (COMPO)

WORM PROTECT EGG

Play as a worm, protect your egg.

Enemies that collide with your tail will be stunned, eat them to increase your length.

New segments for your tail can be dropped with Z, these will block enemies too!

The longer the tail, the slower you move.

Eat lots of enemies in a row to rack up a combo and get more points! fuzzworm_12.gif

Ratings

Overall 303th 3.659⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Fun 517th 3.295⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 256th 3.636⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Theme 147th 4.068⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 58th 4.273⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Audio 66th 3.929⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Humor 550th 2.682⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Mood 299th 3.5⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Given 16🗳️ 9🗨️

Feedback

studioNOKOI
20. Apr 2020 · 01:44 UTC
very cool game, love the game feel and the sounds, feels like it's straight out of an arcade. :thumbsup:
MikDionio
20. Apr 2020 · 16:42 UTC
Great looking game and really challenging, just like old arcade games :D
Lepton
20. Apr 2020 · 17:15 UTC
Its really hard, but fun even if you lose all time :D
Belea
20. Apr 2020 · 17:16 UTC
Cool graphics! I love them. It has some good retro vibes. I found it a little to difficult for me though.

You made a really good game!
ck656
20. Apr 2020 · 17:52 UTC
very good and reallyy fun to play! well done
Anuke
20. Apr 2020 · 17:57 UTC
Very difficult, but rewarding when you finally manage to get into the flow of things. I had to retry at least 5 times before surviving for more than a few seconds; perhaps a slightly less steep ramp-up for the first 10-15 seconds could have helped?

Otherwise, an overall great game. Sound effects and graphics feel well-polished.
Sacrface
21. Apr 2020 · 02:25 UTC
Art is fantastic, but I did really struggle to read that font.

Gameplay has potential, but I do want to echo the issues some are having with learning curve. Maybe a couple less enemies at the beginning and ramp it up as the player gets 5-10 points?
Random-storykeeper
21. Apr 2020 · 17:07 UTC
I enjoyed it. Took me a bit to realize the egg was solid. Makes sense I guess, but I think it might have been better if the egg weren't solid since you need to maneuver around quickly to protect it from enemies in all directions. The enemies look so funny when they get stunned! I like the idea of using the snake mechanic to get longer, thereby having more tail to protect yourself.

The difficulty curve was the biggest issue I had with the game, as many other comments have mentioned. It's pretty steep, especially for new players who do not fully have a grasp on the responsiveness of the controls. I'm also not really sure what the pink creatures do in the game. I thought they were additional pickups you could use to gain segments, but wouldn't harm the egg, but it seems inconsistent as eating one at the beginning does give me an extra tail, but another one in succession of that does not. Do you have to eat a certain amount of small bugs to gain a segment?

The game is quite fun, and I think the other elements like graphics and audio are great (although the sound effect with the worm at the menu - I think it was a sound effect but it was...bloopier - anyway, it was kind of annoying but that was the only thing), particularly the sound design. The idea in itself is quite fun, but the steep difficulty curve makes it hard to get into, especially with that tutorial screen popping up every time you replay. *I already know how to play after my 5th attempt, dangit!* :laughing:
azagaya
22. Apr 2020 · 01:11 UTC
Really cool game! The retro art is great, and the theme fits perfectly. I liked a lot the egg explosion effect. I just found it a bit too hard.. but perhaps its me that i suck
Motley
22. Apr 2020 · 19:31 UTC
Cool concept, never seen such game before!

I would decrease the enemy count at the beggining to let the player get used to the mechanics in a safer environment
emil0227
11. May 2020 · 02:22 UTC
Great art, and I really liked the 8-bit style music : ) The settings on the right hand side was also friendly. Well done!
Demandooda
11. May 2020 · 02:38 UTC
This game was really good! It was pretty hard, there were so many enemies. The art was good, and I thought the music and sound affects really fit with the pixel style. Great job!
LCStark
11. May 2020 · 06:31 UTC
An interesting idea! Combining a tower defense game with Snake worked really well for your game. The presentation is also amazing - I just love well-done Pico-8 games. ;)

My one issue with it is the difficulty - it takes a lot of attempts to survive more than a few seconds. A more gradual buildup would probably serve the game well. Also, I don't think having to stun your enemies before eating them works really well here. The tail-stunning mechanic works fine, I just wish the worm could simply eat anything that came near his mouth. Sometimes you will miss an enemy by a very small amount and you have to maneuver quite a lot to try and stun them again, wasting precious time. Which almost certainly means you'll lose, since the blue bugs need only one touch of the egg to destroy it.

Overall, it's a great compo entry. I've enjoyed playing it. ;)
kjscott
11. May 2020 · 10:12 UTC
It looks like the hit detection of the bugs is in the head, that means after a certain point you're watching them attack the egg when it's impossible to stop them or interact with them. By that point the game should get to the game over just a touch quicker so you can jump into the next game a little quicker.

The game needs a slower difficulty spike, it's too fast and too frantic to start to develop strategies and understanding of how you should handle it if it's game over within 10 to 20 seconds.

There's definitely a huge amount of potential here, using the PICO-8 fantasy console it's allowed you to create a very well polished game very quickly and I am itching to play it more but would need to be able to ease into it. I will keep an eye out for future developments if you make them.
LunacyEcho
11. May 2020 · 11:32 UTC
This was a super fun game with a cute atmosphere! As comments have mentioned, there definitely is a bit of a difficulty spike—perhaps one thing that might help would be to give the egg more 'lives', as it were? Allowing it to be hit multiple times might make the player feel less pressured to combat each and every single blue worm. Fun stuff!