Gem of Stability by JakobTheQuizGuy

Protect the Gem of Stability while balancing on a precariously placed board, keeping enemies at bay and facing strong winds. Can you get the highest score in this unstable arcade game?
CONTROLS:
Left and right arrow keys/A and D keys - Balance
Left mouse button - Shoot

Gameplay info: The goal of the game is to not fall down for as long as possible. Enemies will try to get to the gem under your board. If they get to it, they will self-destruct and imbue it with dark magic, turning it into a Gem of Unstability for 3 seconds. During this time the board is unaffected by your movement, and instead leans 10 degrees in whatever direction it was leaning when the enemy hit the gem. If multiple enemies get to it in a row, you'll get put in a dangerous situation!
Another Ludum Dare, another small game done. Feels great! This time I wanted to try making a really expressive character. I hope you have lots of fun playing!
FIX 2021-10-04: added support for WASD so you don't need to have your hands in an uncomfortable position if you have a smaller desk.
Ratings
| Overall | 142th | 3.75⭐ | 32🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 180th | 3.617⭐ | 32🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 276th | 3.333⭐ | 32🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 107th | 4.067⭐ | 32🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 75th | 4⭐ | 32🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 254th | 3.183⭐ | 32🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 241th | 3.3⭐ | 32🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 37🗳️ | 42🗨️ |
Really impressed with this entry, great work!
Oh and quick bug (at least I assume its a bug) if I press F, game freezes and page has to be reloaded.
EDIT: and also the graphics in their entirety are the best I've seen so far in the jam. (this is 10th game I think)
Also the graphics are really cool !
That's a really solid game! Well done!
I think you could have worked a bit more on the clarity and difficulty though. I got to about 230 score and as the yellow and black coloured enemies started appearing, I started to wonder "Oh, these seem to be faster? Oh, they seem to take more hits?" but I think there could have been more to differentiate the enemy types than just colour.
The balancing act paired with the shooting was a nice idea and it made the game a lot more interesting. For future work, if you plan on continuing on this, I'd look into making the game a bit more varied. The only lose condition seemed to be that there will just come a time where you are overwhelmed because enemies are spawning too fast to be even theoretically shot down in time.
And these are some wonderful graphics you've got here. Great animation as well, very smooth and with a nice flow to it. I noticed that projectiles are shot from the character's finger, and there's even a recoil animation! I always love attention to detail like that.
At first, I though the game was a bit too simple at first. And it is, but MAN if it isn't well executed then I don't know what IS. Things do get quite hectic around 200 seconds in, but even then it was still fun. I guess one thing I didn't like was that, if I was close to an edge and wind started blowing, I couldn't prevent myself falling. But then again, that's not necessarily the game's fault, is it?
The music is interesting, and it does serve it's purpose, but it's nothing too special. But the sound effects, that sound of hitting an enemy is SO perfect, you can FEEL the impact; but it's a good thing you don't actually feel it. And the player's footsteps as well is great, it's normally low and in the background, but when you're nearly off the edge, it gets faster along with your steps, warning you of your situation.
I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little jealous after skimming through your other entry pages. But that doesn't matter, what does is that this is one amazing entry! Give yourself another pat on the back!
And yes, it shouldn't have taken me so long to respond.