Droplet by madcoil

[raw]
made by madcoil for LD34 (COMPO)
My challenge was to do as much of the graphics as possible using only a fragment shader. In this game you are a droplet of water and you are trying to become bigger by merging with other droplets. You have to avoid red droplets as they are evil and will absorb you!

It uses both themes:

Buttons are A and D (only two)
You grow as you absorb blue droplets.

The bigger you are, the more speed you have. Your score is the number of droplets you've merged with.

The droplets are all rendered with a custom Unity shader that raymarches distance fields. I cram data into it from unity (lights, objects) in an ultra hacky way that works somehow. It looks cool for fluids!

It's not something I'd call finished and it's a 1 and a half day-ish job, but it was fun!

Source code is here (it's MEGA hacky!):
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/o77p0brbvou9c18/AAAY4n7ZA7WTRCYgL19FaNiIa?dl=0

Ratings

Coolness 41% 1679
Overall 3.27 451
Audio 3.57 122
Fun 2.82 709
Graphics 3.95 118
Innovation 3.55 244
Mood 3.38 218
Theme 3.86 372

Feedback

TheEpicLazyTaco
13. Dec 2015 · 22:21 UTC
I loved it really unique. :P
esayitch
14. Dec 2015 · 09:26 UTC
Really solid fluid (lel) mechanics :P.Would have liked to see farther below (ahead). Graphics are ok, sounds are calm and very nice, even though the game can get hectic.

+ for using both themes, and the usage of the growing theme being very well-implemented.

Good luck!
Foofanoo42
14. Dec 2015 · 09:44 UTC
Very impressive, nice job.
Cyranh
14. Dec 2015 · 10:12 UTC
Even though the gameplay might not be that innovative, there's some feel to this game that keeps you playing. The game makes good use of both theme's and the graphics are great. The audio just fits the game perfectly and creates a real underwattery feeling. I have to admit I instantly died 8 times before I even got one blue droplet, but once I understood the game I got as far as 18.

Well done!
ChristianBraun
14. Dec 2015 · 10:14 UTC
Good sounds and interesting idea. It was a bit hard to see where the drops will be landing.
zybit
14. Dec 2015 · 10:17 UTC
Cool concept! I got to 35.
DracoLizardStudios
14. Dec 2015 · 19:16 UTC
Very fun and challenging game! graphics are nice and great fluid mechanics! by far one of my favorite games i have played this Ludum Dare!
psychomonster
14. Dec 2015 · 20:23 UTC
nice liquid fx.. good controlls... but there could be some more stuff to do. I like the way the liquids are floating ... good job
amras0000
14. Dec 2015 · 21:55 UTC
As much as I realize you were sticking to a theme here, I think this game would work much better without the control restriction. Most notably, I'd like to be able to look around to find the blue blobs.

While building your own shaders is nice and all, you could accomplish something indistinguishable visually with a semi-transparent solid-color material in unity, a rotational animation on the droplet, and a normal map on the ground.

I think you tried too hard to reinvent the wheel and ended up running out of time before you built the cart. The game doesn't have enough to do and the controls feel like a hindrance more than a design feature.
walaber
14. Dec 2015 · 22:07 UTC
Cool to see you using LD as a way to give yourself a technical challenge, the rendering looks really nice!
thebrickanator
15. Dec 2015 · 08:06 UTC
It was nice to see someone try something unique, thats more of a technical challenge/demo than a game, and even as a game it was still quite fun too play. A couple ideas though: maybe you could have it so you can absorb the red blobs that are smaller than you, as sometimes I just didn't see them when I was looking at the big ones :D And you already implemented the theme of growing well so I think you should have opted for multi direction controls instead as the left/right which feels quite limited :P its quite impressive what you could do with just shaders... I might have to look further into them at some time :D
GAFBlizzard
15. Dec 2015 · 09:04 UTC
I got to 14 once. Pretty with the shaders, and very impressive, but also very frustrating. Almost invariably, a red sphere would appear directly from the bottom of the screen, leaving you with hardly any reaction time. If the camera centered on the ball closer to the top of the screen, that would allow more time.

Also, there seemed to be a LOT of red spheres compared to blue spheres.
🎤 madcoil
15. Dec 2015 · 18:10 UTC
I guess it is quite hard, but I can easily get to 50. :P
emmes
22. Dec 2015 · 01:43 UTC
Wow. Very relaxing mood, great graphics with bump mapping etc., nice sound.
The game itself is unfortunately pretty unfair, almost no chance to react. A little finetuning could do wonders here, so you're not far from a really nice experience.