Martian Masher by juyr

[raw]
made by juyr for Ludum Dare 59 (COMPO)

Fight off foes and contact lost friends.

  • Move: WASD / Left Stick
  • Fire: Left Mouse Button / Right Stick
  • Alt Fire: Right Mouse Button / Right Trigger
  • Dash (Hold): Space / Left Trigger
  • Toggle Fullscreen (Windows only): Alt + Enter

How long can you survive?!

72188.jpg

72187.jpg

https://youtu.be/VXbEv9MUBPQ

Ratings

Overall 18th 4.13⭐ 29🧑‍⚖️
Fun 10th 4.185⭐ 29🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 254th 2.778⭐ 29🧑‍⚖️
Theme 249th 2.815⭐ 29🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 13th 4.37⭐ 29🧑‍⚖️
Audio 69th 3.667⭐ 29🧑‍⚖️
Given 28🗳️ 33🗨️

Feedback

LDJam user 409682
Apr 20th · 16:37 UTC
Wow! It’s a small game, but it has so much content and soul! I really like the visuals, the sounds, the upgrades, and the gradual increase in difficulty. Thanks for the experience!

Was there anything you didn’t have time to implement or would have liked to add?
Mekuire
Apr 20th · 18:46 UTC
The visuals are really great. The gameplay is simple and easy to understand, too. It turned out really well—the only thing missing is the soundtrack.
Nikiroz
Apr 20th · 19:16 UTC
nice gameplay and graphics
hajpappan
Apr 20th · 20:00 UTC
This game is gorgeous. Quite fun to play too, and with more content than you would think at first. I like the sounds, but think a nice soundtrack could have put this over the top. Great job!
🎤 juyr
Apr 20th · 20:33 UTC
@mekuire @hajpappan I would have liked to add some music but ran out of time :'(
poddub
Apr 20th · 22:13 UTC
what a charming visual and juicy gameplay, like it 💚
Lexu
Apr 21st · 03:53 UTC
Feels very polished! Amazing graphics, great job!
Avi
Apr 21st · 04:05 UTC
This is such a stunning game! here is my 2nd playthrough

https://youtu.be/5Nc5dR1f76A
penagwin
Apr 21st · 04:07 UTC
The aesthetic is great! It's super easy to understand what to do, it feels very polished.

Gotta add some screenshots to your page so more people check it out :D

![screenshot-3.png](///raw/0ef/z/71ca4.png)
FoxEcho
Apr 21st · 04:12 UTC
Very polished. The art has a lot of style, and the sound effects work well too. There is also much more content than I expected. Really good.

My only issue was that later on the screen shake became so strong that it was hard to see clearly.
OldDog
Apr 21st · 07:03 UTC
The game is perfect and feels amazing to play. You've nailed the art style and the controls. I’d love to see where this goes next—hopefully, there’s more content on the way! It’s a solid 10/10 for me
🎤 juyr
Apr 21st · 11:51 UTC
@foxecho thanks for the comment, yes I agree the screenshake definitely is too much - I will work on reducing it

@avi thanks for the video, it's super useful :)
Loig
Apr 21st · 12:00 UTC
Very nice graphics, I loved the feeling of playing this game. Very well done!
🎤 juyr
Apr 21st · 12:07 UTC
@penagwin I definitely need to add some screenshots, thanks for the reminder
udfblr
Apr 21st · 13:08 UTC
A very holistic game. Looks like nothing. Really liked the visuals and sounds. Separately, I will note the impact of the murders. Everything is simple and ingenious! :))

Thanks for the opportunity to play in the browser!
udfblr
Apr 21st · 13:11 UTC
I'm sure this is a place in the awards
LDJam user 179040
Apr 21st · 22:17 UTC
Wow. This felt like a much better-looking version of the kind of arcade games I played as a kid, like "Gyruss" with free movement and power-ups. Incredibly polished for a jam game, and a fun gameplay loop. Most excellent work.
lanatra
Apr 22nd · 16:13 UTC
Juicy gameplay! Sometimes a bit hard to see what's going on with the splatter dead enemies leave behind, but maybe that's part of the gameplay :)
Pincushion
Apr 22nd · 16:19 UTC
Nice mix of enemies and buffs. The gameplay is so smooth. The water drop sounds for the weapon is kind of funny, rather than the usual blast sounds.
🎤 juyr
Apr 22nd · 17:44 UTC
@lanatra yes I definitely was aware of that (it is why the player's splatter lasts significantly less than the enemies). I think it adds to the challenge in a fun way but can understand it would be a bit frustrating.
cogcomp
Apr 22nd · 20:20 UTC
Nice graphics, well balanced gameplay, the only thing missing was some cool background music. Great game!
Kandvise
Apr 23rd · 14:44 UTC
Cool solid game! The impact of the shots feels good. I liked the unusual attack modes
Avhatar
Apr 23rd · 20:04 UTC
As always, blew half an hour of my life on bullet hell. This genre sucks me in no matter what form it takes =)
A bit of progression between runs would've been nice — some roguelite elements would've fit perfectly. But otherwise everything's great, I had a blast. The art is really juicy. Some background music on top and it'd be absolute perfection.
![Screenshot_16.png](///raw/6fc/d1/z/72819.png)
Roroto Sic
Apr 24th · 09:44 UTC
A very polished and juicy game ! Very impressive for a compo ! i love the aesthetics !

my hs :

![Capture d’écran 2026-04-24 114000.jpg](///raw/d93/94/z/728e3.jpg)
🎤 juyr
Apr 24th · 11:31 UTC
@roroto-sic thanks, getting past 60s is what I consider the "win" state. I have seen scores of up to 3.7k :o
🎤 juyr
Apr 24th · 11:33 UTC
@avhatar woah! nice job. I think you must been in top 3 players ;)

I agree that some progression mechanics would be nice but I am unsure how to go about that. I am in process of updating it a little to rebalance a few things and add some music.

I wonder if anyone will hit 4k...
Avhatar
Apr 24th · 12:59 UTC
@juyr I'd recommend checking this out: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/59/qwadrant. It works really well in terms of progression (just push through the start — the difficulty curve is brutal, you get wrecked at the beginning).
![Screenshot_22.png](///raw/6fc/d1/z/72936.png)
🎤 juyr
Apr 24th · 15:57 UTC
@avhatar interesting game, I think I may go more along the lines of Devil Daggers with no progression but I've not made up my mind yet.

well done on the score, definitely top 1 now lol
ruthiepee
Apr 26th · 00:11 UTC
My top score is embarrassing compared to the other folks in the comments. But yeah, wow, this is a really polished jam game and it's actually fun to boot. There's lots of fun to discover with the powerups and different enemy types and I feel like the speed scaled nicely. Amazing work!
loveapplegames
Apr 27th · 11:51 UTC
Good to see an good old fashioned arena shooter! The game is fun, looks good and feels polished. I found the dithered outside area visually confusing, maybe alpha blending would be less so.
henk
Apr 29th · 15:23 UTC
This is great! After I got the hang of it I found that my score seemed to be somewhat dependent how unlucky I got with the monoliths, though.

![reached 281.7s and scored 5780](///raw/437/c5/z/72f44.png)
OadT
Apr 30th · 18:12 UTC
Very juicy gameplay! The water droplets sounds were a bit unexpected but cool :smile: Was a very smooth gameloop, I think you did a good job balancing the progession and I like that it seems like the spawn point of enemies always focuses on 1-2 spots. Great entry!
qmdev
May 01st · 18:51 UTC
The game is cool and pleasant to play and well polished
🎤 juyr
May 02nd · 18:02 UTC
@henk yes there's definitely some balancing to be done