Wow, I really liked how you did the transition from more chaotic states hahah!

I always loved the Improbability Drive for Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy which I think this is referencing, it's so cool to see it explored in a game!

@ricardobusta thanks :)

@elveverx thanks and yes, that's the reference :) my idea was using the Improbability Drive on a different kind of spaceship

This was nice! I ended up basically finding a safe spot on each wave and waiting until I got the ship or the tree and then using those to attack. The tetris block was hard for me to use well because it was hard to dodge with.

The tetris transition took me by surprise!
I think one simple improvement would be to have the enemies move. Maybe depending on chaos level?

@agameortwo The second type of enemies were supposed to prevent safe spots but I ran out of time to implement that.

@noctiphobia I thought about doing that (at least moving the whole row left/right, as they're drawn onto the background because of the NES limitations). Maybe I can add moving enemies on a post-jam version.

Thank you both for playing!

I have become a tree. I have become a tetris piece. What am I? Well done NES game. I don't know if these style games are really my thing, but this was executed very well!

VOD Link: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1167820241

Fun little game! I think the sudden changes to the ship nailed the theme, and the tree had me chuckle.
Obviously the game could benefit from being a little more polished, maybe some background (even if just some stars) would be welcome, and fixing the slowdown issues when there's 4 enemies on screen would help too.
I also wouldn't mind more enemy variety.

Other than that, I'm all for more fellow NES devs doing stuff for Ludum Dare and I think this is a great little entry! :)

It was fun. Aside of my game and Gunstable, this is the third game I've played in which unstability changes shooting ability.

Woah this was awesome and fun! This is a fun little NES game that illustrates the theme of Unstable really quite well. It's a very simple concept but makes for a great little demo. At first it was just like a normal space fighter but the tree and tetris was quite surprising at times :D Well done!

@vectrex28 thanks! And you nailed everything I still had on my TODO list. For example, the code is a little bit more convoluted than it should be because it supports multiple enemy types on the same screen, but currently it never happens. The slowdown is probably due to me using C this time instead of Assembly 😅 (even making only 25% of collision checks per frame wasn't enough)

@bloodbane thanks... and, Gunstable is this one https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/49/gunstable, right ? I'll check it (and yours) later

@firetaku thanks for playing... one thing that I liked making is that the first "transformation" takes a little bit longer than the others, in order to surprise the player :)

Really ambitious to make a NES game for a game jam! Interesting take on the theme. Only complaint is that I wasn't really sure exactly where the hitbox was for my ship/tree/block.

Making an NES game for Ludum Dare is rad. I think honestly the biggest thing that would improve it would be just more things to turn into! Good job :)

Fun concept! I liked the gameplay, the tree needs a buff imo ;)

wow, an actual NES game for Ludum Dare? you're a madlad! cool concept and execution, good job!

@verysoftwares there are actually 3 NES games on Ludum Dare 49: https://ldjam.com/tags/platform/nintendo-famicom :D (thanks for playing!)

Really interesting game made in C for the NES console, really happy this exists because making this is a technical challenge that I doubt I would even dare to step into. Huge kudos for making game like that bug free, and on time! Good job!

I want to be... a tree!
It really reminded me of old spedtrum/nes games. Good job!

A fun little thing! Bullet hells are definitely not my type of game, but I did enjoy the different mechanics and the challenge. Minimal yet compelling.

Eu acho que eu ganhei!


Dos jogos que eu vi você fazer, esse foi a mais simples de todos.
Eu preciso te dar umas aulas de música. :D


Parabéns pelo jogo.

@euler-moises eu acho que vou aceitar as aulas viu 😅 obrigado por jogar


Works nicely on my Famicom. Loved the transformation glitch effect.

Awesome job! So good to see the classics being taken care of still :smile: Thanks for letting me play!

@samuli the tree ended up looking better than I expected (for some reason I haven't yet played in on my actual NES, and even then I don't have a CRT). Thanks for playing and for the picture :)

You forgot to bring a towel!

Quite a cool submission!

I'm reading that you are able to play it on famicom, which is a really awesome addition to the event!

Overall pretty simple but enjoyable gameplay, definitely took me back :)

There were moments when there was alot of projectiles on the screen where it lagged out quite alot, but other than that it ran smooth.

I enjoyed the glitchy effect transitioning from different modes!

Overall I enjoyed it, nice work!

Great job, really enjoyed playing this one.

Great take on the theme, the music was very low but felt like a nice atmospheric touch, I liked the way that the ship kept morphing and it gave me a nice surprise every time I saw a new ship (tetris block FTW! and the tree reminded me of a Jurai ship from Tenchi Muyo, where they always have a gigantic tree in their mothership). Even the lag in the game made me feel nostalgic XD Great job!

Insanely impressive to see a real NES game made in such a short time. And very cool mechanics as well! really took me by surprise when it switched the first time. You inspired me to try to learn nes programming!

Super fun. I loved the concept. Turning into a tetris was really unexpected! xD

Decent single screen vertical shmup, the random glitched player is a neat idea and I like the different ships (especially the Tetris piece) and how they shoot and move. Great job!

Parabéns por mais uma conquista de produzir um grande jogo, sei o quanto não é facil produzir para sistemas nes, é realmente um trabalho admirável.

Very fun shmup, especially when working with the restrictions of a nes game and with one developer. If the ship only changed sprites when chaos reached 10 I would have been a little underwhelmed, but since the controls for some of the ships are different, and the bullet behavior is different for each ship, I really enjoyed the gimmick. Thank you for submitting it to the stream, I had a great time.

Super cool that this was an NES game. I liked the mechanic of switching both visually and mechanically (especially the Tetris piece). Awesome job!

Great entry - definitely enjoyed going all kirby's dream land on those ships! I'm not sure how I missed this until now, I go out of my way to find games for old systems whenever I compete, but I'm glad to have found your entry.

There's not a lot to say that hasn't already been said, but I really like how you did the transformations between ships - the attention to detail with how they behave made it quite interesting. It could be pretty fun to see this concept expanded if you ever wanted to.

Thanks for a great entry!

@cppchriscpp Thanks for playing :) And I think I'll expand it - or at least polish what's already there - for a post jam version.

Interesting take on the shmup genre, game reminded me of ROM CHECK FAIL. I would have like a bit more variation in the enemies or projectiles, good potential.

Looks and plays great on the NES

Definitely send me the post jam version. I really like the bones I see here and think this could turn into something really cool. Love the tetrimeno and tree ships. Definitely didn't expect that. Hope there's more hijinks in the future and keep making NES games.

Very well put together game! Thanks for submitting it to the stream! Here's the VOD: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1172843368

that was a cool journey i mistakenly thought the enemy was a boss :D i think that random change of our ship is really scary! and it gets real intense once you have 2 or 3 lives left! good game wanna check it out on NES :smile:

[Thanks for submitting your game to stream!](https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1171489560?t=02h51m24s)

You NES people always really impress me with both your creativity and your technical prowess. Very well done, here!

​I love the NES nostalgia I get from this game

Woo beat the game on my third try. Excellent! The enemy attacks were pretty tricky, yet fair. Really cool that this was an actual NES game. Major props!

Cool little game, I loved the concept and amazing to run on the real machine, I missed maybe more movement and animations from the enemies but overrall really neat entrie

So yeah! Great NES game! So pity it is not a compo submission but still, great one! Really love these random transformations!
Good job!

Hi there! Thanks for submitting your game for me to play live during my Twitch stream!

If you’d like to rewatch the playthrough, you can find it here:

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1173646881?t=2h9m47s

Good luck on your ratings, see you next LD! :D

💜 Elysia Griffin AKA Button Feedback Lady

https://www.twitch.tv/elysiagriffin

Would have loved to see a greater variety in ship types. It really felt like the Tree was a downgrade, but otherwise it controlled a bit too much like the regular ship.

Thanks for the game

It was all fun and games till I turned into a tree. How am I supposed to check my digital watch now?

Aside from the obvious in that it's cool to have a working NES game here, it's a competent and interesting idea. I don't have any particular issue with the control schemes, but some of them aren't exactly intuitive or convenient. It's a fun take on the theme and kept me on my toes.

Unfortunately, the lack of unique projectile patterns really does make the combat a bit too predictable, and there's no real challenge when you figure out how to fit between the consistent bullet paths-- my first playthrough ended up being entirely damageless. I'm not saying it's anywhere near as bad as vogon poetry, but this exploit does end up hindering the combat from being as fun as it could be.

Even if you are unable to add enemy movement, I would try to randomize or iterate on the bullet spawn patterns more so that projectiles have a more unique pattern to dodge-- for example two bullets that aim towards the center, two that aim outward, then both skewed right, then both skewed left. I would also add more forms to a postjam as the more chaotic this gets, the better.

This was a great entry, and bonus points for grounding it in such a fun HHGttG concept.

Really cool game! I featured it in part five of my let's-play-series: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1iYKWqClok

Cool game. I really like the glitch in-game mechanic. Great job!

Nice entry. The mechanic of you becoming other things was very cool.
I wish for more enemies variety and maybe a slower start to get used with the mechanics.
But overall, a very cool and nostalgic game. Congrats

What a clever concept! I included it in my Ludum Dare 49 compilation video series, if you’d like to take a look. :) https://youtu.be/NQWyoBxprX0

Soooo hard! And that's how i like a NES styled game. I'm impressed for making a game ROM in C and Assembly, two really difficult languages. Great, great job.

Very cool to see an NES game! I saw a few streamers playing it so I knew what to expect. Still a good experience. I think the audio is my least favorite part. Would be nice to see a little more of everything (enemies and transformations), but I understand jam time constraints.

Good job over all, very cool!

Thanks for sending your game to my stream! I really enjoyed it, and I love seeing the improbability drive in action. I only wish there were more entities to transform into.

The controls were a bit challenging for me. I did really like that there was gamepad support, although the tetris piece was quite difficult to move with it.

I liked the aesthetic. It really looks like something you'd expect to see from the NES era and not simply filtered down to 8-bits

Awesome game! I love that its an NES and its amazing work writing something like this in ludum dare. Amazing work!

The tetris piece alone nearly gave me a heart attack.

Promise to post up a full comment, but here's the recording from the livestream, including a timestamp:

https://youtu.be/EWJKsLF4MMg?t=8643

Hey there! This game was really a technical challenge! Congratz! Thanks for joining us live!

I finally had the time to come back and rate everything I played so far!

Here is a link to the vod of the review if you wish to see it again: https://www.youtube.be/watch?v=AiVWayIqffU&t=1809s

Full comment:

Well done on making, of all things, an NES-compatible game. I confess I'm not aware of all the NES limitations, so pardon some of my comments that overlooks the feasibility on the actual hardware.

I quite like the chaos mechanic that forcefully switches the controls and firing behavior of the spaceship. Much like *Geometry Wars*, it forced me to constantly change my strategy and keep me on my toes. It would be pretty awesome to expand upon the idea by adding more ships, and with it, changing movement and firing behavior. It might also be interesting to change the chaos meter to be based off of how many shots the player fired, rather than (or in combination with) time.

I did think the enemy layout and firing behavior was really predictable. I also didn't really like that they were bullet sponges, and didn't move. It did make the game rather easy and dull, despite the constantly changing ships. I would have also liked the ship you swapped to be randomized as well. It was a bit too easy to plan ahead and adjust my plan as soon as I figured out the pattern.

I also dealt with some slowdowns, so perhaps it might be a good idea to put a max cap on the number of bullets that can be on screen? Still, I found the game to be short and sweet enough to be enjoyable.

@omiya-games thanks again for playing it. Addressing your comments: I've been making some changes for a post-jam version, I've already managed to optimize my code so there's no more slowdowns. The enemies being stopped is in part a limitation of how they're drawn on screen (but even that I think I found a solution for).

The only thing I didn't get is when you say you "would have also liked the ship you swapped to be randomized as well", because the ship *is* randomized (maybe it didn't seem so because there were only 3 ships, and it never turns into itself?)

@wendel-scardua Oh, interesting. I got the sense in my playthrough it merely cycled the ships in the same order, so I got the impression it wasn't randomized.