LudumData

Limited Ssssspace by Quoclon

[raw]
made by Quoclon for Ludum Dare 54 (JAM)

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What do you get when you combine the arcade classic Snake with the Bullet Hell Vampire Survivors-Like genre?

"Limited Ssssspace"

Limited Ssssspace plays on the Ludum Dare 54 theme: Limited Space, by constraining the player within the walls of the level, avoiding collapsing red enemies, and dodging their own lengthening tail. Is it a fun game? Honestly, I'm not sure how you evaluate that objectively after pouring so much time into something.

Looking forward to feedback - what did you like? what could be improved?

Instructions: - Movement Snake Head WASD/Arrows

Avoid: - Red Enemies - Hitting the Outer Walls - Hitting Yourself

Collect: - Green Squares (they add to the Snake, make it faster, and shoot) - Yellow Circles (they are EXP, give Snake Head new abilities, level up snake tail segments)

Win Condition - Last 10 Minute - Screenshot your High Score and post it in the comments!

Bonus Info - Enemies increase speed, health, spawn rate every minute - EXP Meter at top is for the Snake Head - Tail Segments gain EXP, and silently auto-upgrade their attack speed and damage - Tail Segments that are closer to the snake, have been around longer, will be strongest - Critical Hit chance is around 10% for most shots and does either 1.5x or 2x damage - Being right next to the Wall is VERY dangerous, enemies can easily pop in and hit you - If you get hit in the tail, you lose all segments behind you. - If your Head hits an Enemy, a Wall, or a Tail segment - You Lose!

Link https://quoclon.itch.io/snake
Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/54/limited-ssssspace

Ratings

Overall 601th 3.534⭐ 31🧑‍⚖️
Fun 148th 3.966⭐ 31🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 369th 3.586⭐ 31🧑‍⚖️
Theme 771th 3.328⭐ 31🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 940th 2.69⭐ 31🧑‍⚖️
Audio 632th 2.857⭐ 30🧑‍⚖️
Mood 885th 3.071⭐ 30🧑‍⚖️
Given 23🗳️ 40🗨️

Feedback

orangeoceans
03. Oct 2023 · 11:38 UTC
I think it's a really promising idea! I can imagine if you added an upgrade tree in a more fleshed out version, they could interact in some interesting ways.
cawfee_art
03. Oct 2023 · 12:25 UTC
Simple but fun to play :D I also agree with orangeoceans ^^
🎤 Quoclon
03. Oct 2023 · 15:56 UTC
Love it. Upgrade tree is a great idea. Behind the scenes each one of the segments is also upgrading based on EXP they are gaining. So the one closest to you will be the strongest over time. As of now they just gain more frequent shots and damage, but they could be their own "Color" and have their own "Spells" or something too!

More work to be done on Head of the Snake abilities for sure. Different shots (i.e. straight out the sides) and maybe some infrequent powerful spells (i.e. the entire snake goes on fire and can damage enemies).
LDJam user 301711
05. Oct 2023 · 02:23 UTC
I came to this jam with snakes on the brain and man does this game scratch that itch. The controls and upgrades are great and the non-stop action hooks you in to keep playing. A real winner for sure!
VerttiXPertti
06. Oct 2023 · 07:11 UTC
5243 points. If there were more power ups this could be really great.
Blue Pin Studio
06. Oct 2023 · 07:17 UTC
Awesome game, i managed to get to 5341! Its really unfortunate that i lose so much of my tail when something hits me from far away, but i guess nothing can be done! :P
LDJam user 372515
06. Oct 2023 · 07:18 UTC
I was actually surprised with how responsive the character was given his motion. I went all homing and just had fun mapping efficient lines as items were dropping. Fun game!
🎤 Quoclon
06. Oct 2023 · 07:19 UTC
Good thoughts - maybe I could just damage the one segment, and the rest could backfill. Or, maybe each segment has it's own little hp pool so it doesn't die so easily. Or maybe all the segments of the tail are the equivalent of HP bar, and go down proportionally (from the back first) based on how much damage you receive. Thanks for the feedback!
LDJam user 371030
06. Oct 2023 · 07:21 UTC
Woaaaa!!! Super cool and addictive!!! Nice nice! I had fun!

My *only* complaint - you die way too easily. Bumping into the end of the screen should teleport you on the other side like a classic snake game maybe :P

Overall amazing execution! If you keep up the work people will come back for more. :P
🎤 Quoclon
06. Oct 2023 · 07:22 UTC
@aweskybear - appreciate the kind words. I think there might be something there, I feel the pull of "just one more round". I'm gonna sort out the 'you die to easy thing'. I had a bool set to make it classic walls like Snake, but it brought it's own set of challenges (mostly around how enemies spawn near the walls)
LDJam user 371030
06. Oct 2023 · 07:36 UTC
@aweskybear yep, I supposed about the wall thing - every bit of change brings more maintenance, I know :D . Thank you! GL
SnekOfSpice
06. Oct 2023 · 08:01 UTC
A cute idea that combines two well-established games together! It very much feels like a game jam game in terms of polish, as in, I think something like an input queue to quickly change directions would've greatly improved the game feel. Also, only 1 enemy type, and 2 upgrades made the game pretty uninteresting, since there is no addition of complexity over time.

Lastly, I had some off-sync timings with my missiles that felt just bad because 3 of them were all evenly spaced, and the 4th one was just in there with no regard to the timing of the others.

Overall tho, cool concept!
🎤 Quoclon
06. Oct 2023 · 08:07 UTC
@snekofspice - I appreciate the feedback. Certainly polish, in general, is something I'm striving to improve at over time. It's so easy to over-scope, or get distracted by minutia. What I love is that I did a good job behind the scenes with abstraction/interfaces, and setting things up, so adding new enemies, new abilities, and fixing timing issues should be quite easy down the line.

The part about the shot timings I hadn't really thought about, but I guess in Vampire Survivors (for example) the shot type (i.e. the whip) always happens at the same time, even if there's more, or some variation. Then you know the frequency of the attack. Good insights!
amarokczukay
06. Oct 2023 · 08:30 UTC
that's a nice mix of genres! as other suggested, more upgrades would be super cool, because this idea and this game have a lot of potential! it feels like homing missile is the best upgrade.

nice execution, simple art but this is snake, it doesn't need more in my opinion! good entry!
Its_Capp
06. Oct 2023 · 10:15 UTC
simple but pretty fun, I didn't find out the use of expanding the length of my snake until later on but it's fine. it'd be nice if there were more upgrades than there are currently. but overall it's pretty good
Nilan
06. Oct 2023 · 10:33 UTC
Super fun Snake game! I hope they keep improving it because the concept is great. Well done!
Tyrannas
06. Oct 2023 · 10:39 UTC
Love it ! It could be really addictive if it was a bit smoother to play (the snake isnt really nice to play with, maybe if the movement was a bit more continous and not one tile every second it would be better), with maybe better graphics (like neon style ?) and maybe some more upgrades. But I guess there is only so much one can do in a weekend haha Anyway it's kinda fun and think it has potential for a bit more !
kasmilus
06. Oct 2023 · 11:27 UTC
Very addictive, I enjoyed it! There are a few issues, it would feel much nicer with some more polish (although the old-school aesthetic is quite nice too...). It's really hard to quickly change directions which was annoying but I still felt like I want to replay again and again so clearly there something amazing in there :)

Scored 5378!
zubspace
07. Oct 2023 · 20:00 UTC
Good game! Love the combination of snake with bullet hell. The forward attack is a lot stronger I think, but maybe that's just me. There's one thing I did not like with the movement: In my opinion the game should queue the input events, meaning if you press 2 different directions within one step, it should perform them one after the other. But otherwise good job!
🎤 Quoclon
07. Oct 2023 · 20:08 UTC
@zubspace - Thanks for the feedback! I feel like others thought the Homing Missile was better, but I actually agree that the Forward Attack is stronger, it's just also riskier! Behind the scene's I'm working on a better movement system, whether that's queueing (testing this), or just allowing for the player to 'pre-move' before the tick. Thanks again :)
LDJam user 268934
07. Oct 2023 · 21:25 UTC
Interesting combo you choose. The controls worked well and the upgrades were fun.

You made a good game .
Here the feedback for your next jam or update on limited sssspace.
I agree with some comments above. Like more upgrades and like in survivors combo attacks of some kind or a whole skill tree . This is all really time consuming an you only have a short time. So i think easy and quick thing you make this game better is juice. Watch some YouTube on game juice there are some easy wins.
Oh and use a color pallet this is also a simple and great improvement.


( I did a little to much maybe)
Ascenial
07. Oct 2023 · 21:33 UTC
can never go wrong with snake! more upgrades would be awesome!
ColeSlaughter
09. Oct 2023 · 19:03 UTC
[Thanks for submitting your game to stream!](https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1945057375?t=04h00m43s)

I love this concept, and I think it's ripe for some expansion with added weapon variety (and perhaps enemies as well). Really cool stuff you got goin' on here!
Furtive Pygmy
09. Oct 2023 · 19:41 UTC
Great take on an old classic, love the all elements here.
Everything was pretty straight forward to understand and readable.
I'll echo other comments; I think some more enemies and upgrade paths would have been a great addition, as well as a bit of music.
ryusui
10. Oct 2023 · 05:18 UTC
Really good stuff! "Snake but you're a roving gun-train of death" is such a fun idea. XD

I tried twice but I didn't hit the 10-minute mark, for the same reason both times: the game wouldn't react to my inputs for a critical moment and I crashed into a wall. Overall my only big issue is the controls feel really unresponsive at times; like, even accounting for the fact that the snake moves one tile at a time. Smoother controls would be a big help - maybe some kind of visual indicator that an input has been received, too?
🎤 Quoclon
10. Oct 2023 · 05:26 UTC
@ryusui - Nice. Yeah, I've actually got it open in Unity now, working on input. As of now I have it so it's still on movement 'tick', but you can pre-turn now in whatever direction you plan to go. So at least you get that visual feedback, and you know you aren't going to "miss" the turn. I might play around with immediate movement, but then I feel like you could cheese the 'per tick' movement system. Not sure, more work to be done once the Jam Voting is done. Thanks for checking it out!
moonlightbomber
10. Oct 2023 · 06:49 UTC
Snake + shooter. Who would've thought?
KnightGames
10. Oct 2023 · 09:04 UTC
Interesting and fun mechanic, fits well with the theme too! It is very creative, I had fun playing it. Well done!
MikroPiru
11. Oct 2023 · 15:38 UTC
Simple but nice idea! Also worked well, and while I felt like it was perhaps a bit slow-moving at first, that changed when the space started to fill up with enemies.

I also liked having a choice between the two types of missiles which gave it a small strategic element. My only gripe is that I believe one can only make the choice with a mouse, while the snake is controlled on the keyboard — I actually crashed into the wall the first time I made the choice as I was just heading to a wall and then didn't get my hands on the arrow keys quickly enough after making a choice with a mouse. Of course I learned my lesson and kept my other hand on the keys from then on, but I think the selection could easily be done using the keys also.

Anyway, nice entry!
EgorMnc
20. Oct 2023 · 13:55 UTC
I really enjoyed the game; it's quite simple but has its unique twist. The gameplay is quite original, in my opinion. Keep it up. I won't mention all the shortcomings and bugs in the game as they have been described above
LDJam user 206001
20. Oct 2023 · 17:21 UTC
As incredible as it may seem, you managed to innovate in the snake game, I gave it top marks for innovation. Because I don't remember in the snake game you can kill, shoot, the better the shot, you can recover, unless the head is hit. As I don't usually play snake games, these mechanics may already be out there, but I wasn't aware of them, so it seemed very innovative to me. And it's fun, my 5 year old daughter will enjoy playing it when she gets home from school