HELLEVATOR by pickens-inc

[raw]
made by pickens-inc for Ludum Dare 48 (JAM)

Hellevator is a wave-based shoot-em up where you must descend the ever-maddening depths of hell and slay everything that moves with your dash attack and a whole lotta bullets. Harvest their (really cute) souls to keep yourself topped up on health and ammo, then hit the button and keep descending. Be mindful, because even the weakest of enemies pose a threat to the careless, and a poorly aimed dash can leave you surrounded.

hellevatorScreen.png

controls_LD3.png

Post your high scores below!

The left machine costs 1 soul and heals you a small amount. The right machine costs 3 souls and will overload your ammo to 10.

Ratings

Overall 433th 3.81⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Fun 145th 4⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 1351th 2.881⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Theme 877th 3.667⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 929th 3.667⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Audio 824th 3.3⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Humor 854th 2.735⭐ 19🧑‍⚖️
Mood 1139th 3.325⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Given 23🗳️ 22🗨️

Feedback

mhorth
27. Apr 2021 · 00:14 UTC
Great game! I'm going to keep playing it to try to beat my score. Literally the only thing I can critique is the audio is quite loud. The sound effects themselves are great, just need some mixing levels.
🎤 pickens-inc
27. Apr 2021 · 09:19 UTC
@mhorth Thanks a lot! That's a really good point, some of it is quite loud. Thank you for playing, I welcome you to post your high score!
LDJam user 242054
27. Apr 2021 · 14:37 UTC
hehe nice one

like survival shooter vibe

hate dash towards cursor)
Nikl
27. Apr 2021 · 14:45 UTC
This is fun to play! I couldn't make it below 2500 though, because the whole platform just gets flooded with enemies. One thing buged me a bit about the platform: you can't walk behind the metal chains. That killed me a few times. But appart from that it is a polished and fun game, good job.
Danga
27. Apr 2021 · 14:46 UTC
Nice the game feels super good to play. I think something that would go a long way is some sort of blip if you try to shoot before the cooldown, or just lower the cooldown. It feels a little clunky to only sometimes shoot when you want to.

Awesome game overall though, I love the initial elevator starting effect. I got to like 1500m~
Vivien Fargette
27. Apr 2021 · 15:01 UTC
damn that was fun :D

as said above, some sound effects are quite loud.

I think the game would work better in full screen: I lost many games cuz my mouse went out of the game and opened my internet browser. Sure that's on me not managing to keep my mouse within game screen but it can be easily avoided by putting the game fs.

Other than that, the game is really cool: nice graphics and background music, different type of enemies, ... I love it
niterich
27. Apr 2021 · 15:09 UTC
Everything looks and plays great, but I think there's something wrong with the gun? I can't seem to fire it at all, and can only attack by dashing into enemies. I think it's a testament to how good the game is that that was fun enough on its own, but it definitely feels like something's wrong with the game.
Staquet Sylvain
27. Apr 2021 · 15:14 UTC
Realy cool game overall, fun to play and the game balance is interesting
Thiago Nascimento
27. Apr 2021 · 15:21 UTC
This is fun!
It would be nice to sttack bullet upgrades though
Simon Rahnasto
29. Apr 2021 · 10:52 UTC
It's awesome that you guys have such a strong style that one can tell that this game was made by you. I liked your previous entry, but this is even better. I love score attack games, it's basically my favorite kind of Jam games to play. This does so many things right, most importantly it makes you feel like a total bad-ass!

The music and sound effects are also on point, everything feels very polished!

I managed to get to around 2450m, but will try to beat that record later.
Langotriel
29. Apr 2021 · 11:36 UTC
Polished, high octane action and the only way we're going is down :sunglasses:

I managed to get 2258M down :muscle: which must make me the world's most average player :sweat: Still, fun was had and monsters died. Solid entry :thumbsup:
🎤 pickens-inc
30. Apr 2021 · 18:01 UTC
@nikl Thank you for playing! That's a pretty good score! My personal best is 5406m, but that's a bit unfair as I am one of the devs hey. :laughing: For sure, you can walk behind the chains, but the hitbox on them is a bit big, something that might need tweaking.

@danga Thank you for playing! I think the gun's cooldown or max mag size might need a look at in general! The sound effect idea is a really good, easy piece of feedback, thanks!

@vivien-fargette Some lovely praise! Like most apps, Alt+Enter toggles full screen, but we should have added a button for it. :sweat_smile: Thanks so much for playing!

@niterich That's super weird! Were you using a controller? I'm glad you still had fun, I certainly wouldn't have without being able to shoot! I've not heard of any bug like that at all so I'm very curious.

@staquet-sylvain Thanks for giving it a go!

@thiago-nascimento We thought of that too! I'd like to make the gun powerup machine a bit more interesting in general, and stackable. :)

@simon-rahnasto Thank you so much for playing Simon! Good to see you about again, your feedback is always super lovely. Really glad you got the exact feeling we wanted to evoke! Badass satisfying combat with your little Bean Marine! That's a pretty good score, but I know you've broken it by now!

@langotriel "The only way is down" is *such* a good slogan for the game. Yoink. Thank you for playing! Glad you had fun. Any score above 2000m is pretty decent!
niterich
30. Apr 2021 · 20:32 UTC
@pickens-inc So I redownloaded the game and it suddenly works fine now? My only guess is my overly-zealous antivirus removed a key script somewhere.
🎤 pickens-inc
30. Apr 2021 · 20:39 UTC
@niterich Ahh, that's both really weird, and a relief! Thanks for giving it a retry. Must have been the issue!
JUSTCAMH
01. May 2021 · 17:13 UTC
Hey matey, thanks for submitting your game to stream! I enjoyed playing it, here's the vod, I hope the feedback helps!

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1007422901
BinaryPrinciple
06. May 2021 · 16:37 UTC
I liked the doom arcade feel of the game. The camera is very well configure, and follows the player without reducing the FOV, which is critical for this type of games.
The mechanics are simple but well done and easy to understand. The currency system is well balanced and never made me felt overpowered. The challenge escales smoothly.
Nice entry and game.
MattWoelk
09. May 2021 · 03:10 UTC
Clear instructions (icons made sense immediately).

I played with a touch screen, which was actually pretty swell.
Ansh Mishra
09. May 2021 · 05:12 UTC
![hellscore.png](///raw/31e/a3/z/424f3.png)
Really fun to play, liked the clay models, liked the enemy varieties, liked the temporary upgrades but it would be even better with some permanent upgrades. Also maybe increase the size of hellevator as you go deeper to allow space for player movement as enemies fill up most of the space.
jk5000
12. May 2021 · 06:51 UTC
The game idea is simple and pretty fun. The visuals and music is good, and it fits the game idea well. Well done.
SleepyStudios
12. May 2021 · 10:30 UTC
Managed to get to around 1925m! This was a really stylish game with a great aesthetic, good enemy design and felt super polished. I liked the upgrades and especially liked that you could get them during a wave so that you weren't ever just out of options. Nice work!
Ravengar
12. May 2021 · 17:11 UTC
It works really well and the art is so cute well done !
Runuchok
12. May 2021 · 17:52 UTC
It's very cool that you worked on polishing feel of the game. Camera shake, feel of elevator going down - very well. In the end waves become a little spammy, with a lot of enemies but no strategy. If you will keep working on a game you should definitely add variety to enemies. Also, you need to change camera angle. It's should follow player giving maximum view of arena at any point.
Omiya Games
16. May 2021 · 02:47 UTC
Had a lot of fun playing this on the stream:

https://youtu.be/aHUsWQeZHns?t=1875

The arcade feel to this game was great: fire rate felt balanced, dash cooldowns feel short enough to make the attack useful without being over-powered, and hitting/defeating enemies were really satisfying. I also really like the variety of enemies in the game that realy forces the player to change their strategy over time. Not much to complain about for the gameplay side of things.

I did think there were still a few improvements the game could have made, though. Primarily, having the camera focus where the cursor is, rather than where the player is, would have really helped get a better view of the arena. Typically, these twin-stick shooter games averages the location of the character and the cursor, and has the camera focus at that point. I also felt like the monsters that could take multiple hits were a bit of a bullet sponge, and either reducing their health, or adding some mechanics to help mitigate their sponginess (e.g. making the enemy stagger on each hit, and/or increasing duration of player invulnerability after losing health) would have made the fight feel more fair.

Still, the game's strong focus really halps make it quick and easy to play. Well done!
Villanelle
17. May 2021 · 21:27 UTC
Pretty fun game, with nice 3D models. The music is great, really fits the atmosphere and keeps you interested in the gameplay. The controls are precise and smooth, player speed, shooting speed, everything is on point making the game easy to understand and play. Nice job!