ATTACK! OF THE UNSTABLE LIFEFORM by Dan Davis

made by Dan Davis for Ludum Dare 49 (JAM)

The Game

Somewhere in a secluded valley, a dangerously unstable lifeform known as The Chaos Spore has escaped from the secret research facility where it was contained! It is up to the humans to defend the valley and cleanse it of this menace before it takes over the village; the last barrier preventing its global spread, and the doom of humankind.

Hybrid Multiplayer: While each level is played solo against the AI; the outcome of this struggle for survival is contributed to by all players! Each won/lost zone is updated for ALL PLAYERS who play the game.

Controls:

Movement: W A S D Action: LClick Mouse or Spacebar

Choose a team:

Chaos Spore: Slink and slither across the land, infesting everything in your wake. LClick/Spacebar to leap towards the red circle indicator to kill humans before they can spray you.

Human: LClick/Spacebar to hose down the entire area to cleanse The Chaos Spores from existence. Watch out though, the spores can leap at you if you wander into their field of vision.

Which team will you choose? Recruit others to help you take over the map for your team and win the round!

Updated Download Link	https://alienairship.com/bin/Attack/Attack_RC_LDJam49.zip
Original URL	https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/49/attack-of-the-unstable-lifeform

Ratings

Overall	1069^th	3.275⭐	22🧑‍⚖️
Fun	1395^th	2.7⭐	22🧑‍⚖️
Innovation	600^th	3.45⭐	22🧑‍⚖️
Theme	1197^th	3⭐	22🧑‍⚖️
Graphics	838^th	3.5⭐	22🧑‍⚖️
Audio	892^th	2.825⭐	22🧑‍⚖️
Humor	926^th	2.647⭐	19🧑‍⚖️
Mood	1106^th	3.056⭐	20🧑‍⚖️
Given		13🗳️	14🗨️

Feedback

very high ping

05. Oct 2021 · 03:00 UTC

the game sounds really cool, but the link doesn't work for me sadly

Dominic Graziano

05. Oct 2021 · 03:28 UTC

@very-high-ping I had this issue as well, please try copying the URL and pasting it into a new browser window.
**update** The URL has been fixed!

Prismapunch

05. Oct 2021 · 03:48 UTC

Fun game, seems really slow, would like to know my health!

3mpty

05. Oct 2021 · 04:28 UTC

Really interesting concept, I think the spore creatures have the much more exciting gameplay avoiding humans but unfortunately having to cover the map in goo is really slow and boring. I think more time being put into the combat mechanics would have made this much more interesting.

Really impressed that theres an infected and uninfected version of basically every sprite, theres a lot of art in this one!

very high ping

05. Oct 2021 · 07:37 UTC

@dominic-graziano thanks it worked!
3mpty has already said everything i have to say about the game

fre

05. Oct 2021 · 21:00 UTC

Nice idea and well executed!

I played a couple rounds, hopefully swaying the balance back towards the human side :sweat_smile:
I could not finish a round with the spore, even after infecting everything I could, the map would not end. Maybe I missed something.

I agree that the combat mechanics could use refinement, but maybe to keep the scope small and focused on the persistence idea, simply shrinking the map by ~half or ending the level as soon as the opposing side is eliminated could help make rounds faster and let people get to the end state, assuming there is one :smile:

marrs

05. Oct 2021 · 21:00 UTC

Thanks team, I enjoyed playing the game. Only played as human so far, but it all looks nicely polished!

Khelian

05. Oct 2021 · 22:39 UTC

Well, can't say I enjoyed it too much, cleaning up/infesting each area feels a bit tedious... Nice idea though, and nice work on the graphics and ambiance part, especially all the infected sprites.

The music could be nice but is quickly unnerving though, the bass loops are way too short. Combined with the size of the areas to conquer, it really dulls their effect by overrepetition.

So overall, cool concept which could have benefitted from better balancing.

VarunDevs

07. Oct 2021 · 03:45 UTC

Good one ;)

Profugo Barbatus

11. Oct 2021 · 02:20 UTC

Was unfortunately very dull for me - Playing as humans just involved walking slowly around the map while spinning in circles with fire held down, and playing as spores mostly involved dying and not understanding why. The audio loop was grating fast, and a mute button would have been appreciated.

BGDC

14. Oct 2021 · 09:43 UTC

Gameplay could use a lot of improvements, right now playing as human only involves spraying things until it's over. Not to mention the enemies on the beginning of each level aren't particularly challenging and can be easily dealt with and the map is a tad huge for a fairly basic gameplay. Playing as spores are a bit hard too considering the rigid movement and there's a lot of humans around.

Perhaps adding much more enemies and more enemy varieties like one example there's a spawner enemy which spawns regular enemies until killed by chemical sprays and so on. Would love to see more gameplay and mechanics on the map phase too (the one where you're supposed to get rid or infect a tile) which allows strategic play.

BGM can be louder, right now it's too quiet compared to the SFX. Thanks for the submission :thumbsup: !

BlushingCrow

16. Oct 2021 · 00:58 UTC

I love the concepts of asymmetric gaming but I felt this one was unbalanced a little too much - humans seem to win just by slowly moving around and holding a button down and spores.. I just didn't quite get how to win with them. The whole thing could definitely be speeded up and maybe have a volume adjust option [music didn't do a lot for me - on a slower game when it loops it unfortunately becomes more noticeable].

Art and grid layout is solid and I feel there's a solid idea lurking behind all this - I'd keep at it, once you've ironed out the mechanics.