10 Seconds Cycles by Torhaq
Hey all!
Here is my submission for the Ludum Dare 51 "Jam".
You're piloting a robot that deal with infinite waves of enemy drones. Your robot alternate between 2 cycles. A normal cycle with regular lasers with average damage and a "enrage" cycle when damages and fire rate much more increased. Also, during this second cycle, healing bonuses appears randomly on the map. Be aware that they will desappear at the end of the phase.
The end of the game will be when the robot is out of health. Your final score will be displayed.
I hope you will really envoy testing and playing my game.
I made all the content, except the particles and the sounds. Of course, the game is not very well optimized but it must be playable smoothly on majority of computers.
Thanks for your time!



https://youtu.be/cxgU8QKIxQ8
Ratings
| Given | 28🗳️ | 7🗨️ |
Crisp and polished wave annihilation game with cycling power levels.
### Fun
Pretty fun, I really enjoyed the "enrage" mode, you felt really powerful and it was enjoyable to try and survive in the normal mode and line up the enemies for maximum destruction as that timer counted down to the enrage mode. One critique is that I felt like my shots didn't aim quite right, it was always shooting the ground too close instead of where my mouse was which was frustrating.
### Innovation
The enrage mechanic was fairly innovative to put on the player, usually that sort of thing you see on enemies instead. Good thinking with that idea! The rest of the game was fairly typical however.
### Theme
Great use of the theme, using it as a cycle timer is one of the more unique interpretations I've seen! I would've liked to see more of the theme integrated into the game as well, with maybe an extra large wave of enemies that spawned every 10 seconds, or another type of power-up that spawned every 10 seconds. Just wanted a few more ties to the theme to really make it shine.
### Humor
I didn't find the game particularly funny. This entry doesn't seem a good candidate for this category.
### Mood
Decent job on the mood. I did feel like a robot on the edge of space killing endless waves of robots. The laser effects and noises were very sci-fi and played into the mood well. I would've liked to hear more noises while moving the robot or when destroying the other robots, though maybe because we're in space there's no noise? I think some sort of "drop-pod" or other visual/audio cue for where these waves of robots are coming from would help the mood as well.
Obs: I think it would be nice if the camera followed where you are pointing just a bit so you can see further, mainly to see/aim south.
Regarding the camera, i agree, i will improve the tracking to see a further more.
Awesome graphics, cool gameplay. I cant say anything more, i liked it.
Thank you for submitting a game:)
P.S Got 3250 points:)
Two notes on the health pickups: one, it might be nice to make the pickup range just a tiny bit longer. Ultimately I found it wasn't that hard to pick them up, but I think the game might feel better if they were easier to pick up. Two, I think something that would be cool is making them possible to pickup for just a teensy bit of time after the phases switch--so that's it's possible to have these "got there just in the nick of time" moments right on the turnover between the phases. Sure, it would make the game slightly easier, but I think it would create some fun moments.
As others have said, it is hard to see anything in the direction of the bottom of the screen. Now, this is actually kind of fun in one way -- it means that moving to the "back" of the arena gives you a strategic advantage, as it lets you see basically the whole arena. And this is kind of fun, as it means there is a direction that you always want to be moving, and it also means there is inherent risk in picking up the health pickups that are on the other side of the arena. So I do think that this mechanic could actually be a good thing, but maybe could use some tweaking to find the exact right balance.
But yeah, overall, this is just a nicely polished little highscore game. By the way, my score was 10,810. :smile:
I ended up suiciding at 6500 since the difficulty didn't seem to be ramping and I was still at nearly full health. Perhaps increase the spawn rate of enemies as time goes on (or increase the curve if this is already done?)
Sorry for the late response, but here are some answers i can give to all your suggestions/feedbacks:
- I've added (available in the next version) new bonuses (points and nova). Points will grant you a fixed amount of points and nova will add a nova to your nova reserve (The novas are a new AoE mechanic that deal damage to all enemies in a given radius). I will post and explain this in a future dev blog post.
- Concerning the hitbox of the bonuses, i've increased it (in the next version) and it will be more easy to pickup them.
- I agree on the camera (visibility range, distance and zoom) needs to be adjusted to have more visibility on the playfield and help make vital decisions (kill enemies or rush pickup items)
- Regarding the difficulty, the enemies already spawns faster during enrage phase, but i agree that some tweaking are necessary to make it more challenging at some point, or at least, more harder over time.
- I also planned to add a difficulty selector in the upcoming options menu, to allow the player to choose a between 3 difficulty modes.
Thanks again for your feedbacks, and stay tuned;)