Systems Unstable by David Brož

[raw]
made by David Brož for Ludum Dare 49 (JAM)

A space shoot-em-up where the more damage your ship takes, the more unstable its systems get. Engines and guns start to behave funny as yout ship gets more damaged. Short game.

Controls: Mouse - "Point and click" but without the click!

Systems<em>Unstable</em>ScreenShot.png

Ratings

Overall 1256th 3.083⭐ 26🧑‍⚖️
Fun 1101th 3.083⭐ 26🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 1482th 2.313⭐ 26🧑‍⚖️
Theme 1060th 3.188⭐ 26🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 989th 3.333⭐ 26🧑‍⚖️
Audio 725th 3.174⭐ 25🧑‍⚖️
Humor 1234th 1.556⭐ 20🧑‍⚖️
Mood 1245th 2.864⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Given 20🗳️ 24🗨️

Feedback

Kimbsy
05. Oct 2021 · 16:33 UTC
This is a really cool concept, I made it through without taknig damage the first time so I had to replay it!

The looser controls was a great way of showing damaged systems, great work :D
Icehunter.wm
05. Oct 2021 · 16:37 UTC
A game which respect the theme and do his job. Basic with lots of possibilities. Also nice to have a web version.
Vitor Nakama
05. Oct 2021 · 16:56 UTC
Very good idea, the art overall is very polished and charming
NPr0nn
06. Oct 2021 · 22:02 UTC
I loved the smooth control of the spaceship, the audio and the graphics are really cool and give an fun atmosphere for the game, however maybe making the enemys shot or giving more challenges would make more engaging, also I didn't catch how the theme relate
Harry Jacobs
06. Oct 2021 · 22:04 UTC
Great idea! Very enjoyable to play. Only one issue with it was that its very easy to make it through by just staying on the sides and avoiding the enemies - so maybe some kind of incentive for taking down enemies, or making it harder to avoid them, might have made it more challenging. But other than that I thought it was a fun game that fits the theme well
GreenXenith
06. Oct 2021 · 22:18 UTC
The gameplay reminds me of the Bloons Super Monkey games. Decent music, and nice sprites. Would be cool to have a counter for enemies destroyed.
🎤 David Brož
07. Oct 2021 · 18:54 UTC
@npr0nn The idea was to have a ship that gets more unstable as the ship takes damage and the game progresses. It would behave more erratically and its attributes would mutate but I didn't quite manage to do it well in the short time. The ship behaves erratically when you lose health but I didn't manage to create the right difficulty and/or make the game long enough for you to take damage reliably and so you likely managed to get through the game unscathed and thus you didn't see the the "unstable" part of the game.
djcoil
08. Oct 2021 · 07:38 UTC
Nice work! The volume of enemies also added a bit of chaos to the gameplay, which upped the ante with unreliable controls. I enjoyed the visuals and audio too.

The immune obstacles you have to fly around could benefit from a different color border (perhaps white or light blue, instead of the enemies' red) to make a little more apparent that they are not killable.
Martynas
08. Oct 2021 · 14:31 UTC
Interesting take!
🎤 David Brož
08. Oct 2021 · 18:44 UTC
@djcoil An intesting idea with the colors. Btw they are killable.
LDJam user 271014
10. Oct 2021 · 02:07 UTC
Super easy to jump into and play. I really like the pacing of difficulty, and how the game gets progressively harder as it goes on. The music fit the mood of the game perfectly, and the sound effects and graphics combined gave it that classic space shoot-em-up feel. I appreciated the outlines on the enemies and player, which made it easy to see them against the background. Short and sweet!
Celtican
11. Oct 2021 · 15:56 UTC
Classic arcade game! Makes me want to play Gradius again.

Some things I would have liked to see in the game:

- A crunchy sound effect for when a bullet is fired/hits a ship. There's already one in there, but it took me a while to realize it existed
- More juice for hitting a ship/getting hit. e.g. camera shake, ship wobble/shake, explosions
- Faster bullets, weaker enemies! This is an action game, I wanna see my gun go zooooooooom
- To show the fact that the ship becomes unstable, make the ship become gradually more unstable over time
- A longer level in general

Also, I had a bug where I died near the end of the stage, and it said Victory. Oopsie!
🎤 David Brož
11. Oct 2021 · 16:59 UTC
@celtican Thank you, I thought of and originally wanted to do all of these. But you know... there are only 72 hours in 3 days and I had to compromise a lot of things to make the deadline (including the bug). I might go back and finish the game after the rating period is over. (I don't like to edit the game while the rating is going on)

If you want to "gun go zooooooooom" you can get "gun go zooooom -> gun go snaaaaaaaaaail -> gun go zooooooom again" when the ship gets 10 or less health.
LDJam user 270875
13. Oct 2021 · 15:06 UTC
Solid effort with plenty of scope for further development.

Might be worth thinking about increasing visual separation between the foreground entities and the background.