LudumData

Mech & Aliens by firellon

[raw]
made by firellon for Ludum Dare 50 (JAM)

Somewhere far away, on a dry desert planet...

A powerful Mecha has been vaporising some alien bugs!

Sounds like a hell of a lot of a familiar story, alright?

Screnshot.png

Well, in this game we are not trying to fight the inevitable formulaic of such a scenario - we revel in it!

What if... Mecha the Exterminator wasn't the hero we needed?

What if the aliens were merely protecting their home?

Would they be able to stand up to the aggressor?

Up to you to decide!

RULES: - Control just about nothing and watch endless aliens die gruesomely - Gather the XP (extermination points) and get new levels of Alien badassery! - Develop new alien types, make existing ones totally OP (overpatched) and hand this Mecha's rear end to it with the overwhelming waves of incoming brutality! - Do not allow Mecha to kill your little buggers for more than 10 minutes - he will get bored eventually and the game will inevitably be over in that case! - Have fun!

P.S. By the way, you are not the only one getting upgrades out there. Mecha's getting stronger with every slain creep.

CONTROLS: - Mouse - click the Alien upgrades as they come up. - Upgrades come in 3 varieties: new Alien Types, Alien improvements and Alien waves. It's up to you decide on the winning strategy!

ALIEN TYPES: - Crawler - the most common alien, simply tries to catch the Mecha and bite it to death (usually that does not really happen). At least there will always be a lot of them. - Brute - a buffed up Crawler, effectively: very tough and hard-hitting, but also slow and does not spawn in same quantities as its little brother. - Spitter - a ranged attacker that will provide a rather agile but also unreliable source of damage to the Mecha. Isn't particularly sturdy. - Boomer - a fragile suicide attacker that will hit the Mecha for a significant damage if it manages to explode nearby. - Spider - a reasonably healthy and quick fighter that will slow the Mecha down if it manages to successfully attack it. Can be really dangerous in a combination with other Aliens!

You might own up to 4 Alien Types in total.

Link https://nebulate.itch.io/mechandaliens
Link https://nebulate.itch.io/mechandaliens
Link https://nebulate.itch.io/mechandaliens
Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/50/mech-aliens

Ratings

Overall 570th 3.607⭐ 30🧑‍⚖️
Fun 402th 3.643⭐ 30🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 482th 3.518⭐ 30🧑‍⚖️
Theme 1165th 3.143⭐ 30🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 503th 3.875⭐ 30🧑‍⚖️
Audio 338th 3.696⭐ 30🧑‍⚖️
Humor 640th 3⭐ 26🧑‍⚖️
Mood 709th 3.462⭐ 28🧑‍⚖️
Given 44🗳️ 34🗨️

Feedback

Bearacus
05. Apr 2022 · 18:50 UTC
Yooo! With the surge of AFK games, i'm surprised to see one in Ludum Dare! :D That being said, the music, the visuals and the concept it self are very well executed and i'm constantly cheering on Katelyn Walpol! Very cool game.
sansman01
05. Apr 2022 · 18:52 UTC
First of: The graphics look very cool and polished. Very cool aesthetics :)

This is a very innovative idea. I can imagine it can go to either a typical idle management game or maybe it can get multiple levels and you need to find the correct strategy / upgrades to win for each :)
BinarySpark
05. Apr 2022 · 18:54 UTC
This is a wacky game if I've ever seen one. I didn't expect to be playing something where you control basically nothing at all. Hats off to the AI work for the mech, it's really solid. I didn't manage to win in the end, I think, but I did find that the spiders are pretty good for boxing the mech in. Boomers didn't seem that useful since their range is really tiny, and the mech is quite fast.
Jonrei
05. Apr 2022 · 18:54 UTC
This was a really fun game! Finally got the mech down with only 38 seconds left. Spider + brute combo ftw!
Szkocka
05. Apr 2022 · 18:57 UTC
![Better than watching football.png](///raw/077/c2/z/4cc63.png)

Hi,
Full game please ;D
nyanpierre
05. Apr 2022 · 19:04 UTC
Nice but I'm a little disappointed not to have had more control over the monsters
Griggy
05. Apr 2022 · 19:04 UTC
To be honest, at first glance I didn't think the game would hold my attention but I stand corrected. It was really fun! I like the idea of out numbering the enemy. Great visuals as well. Awesome job!
amkingTRP
05. Apr 2022 · 19:20 UTC
Absolutely brilliant. I'd psyched myself up for some mindless bug blasting and this gave a complete reversal. I ended up spamming the brutes; upgrading them whenever possible and choosing waves of them when offered; this seemed to be the best way to win.
Flying Dog Fish
05. Apr 2022 · 19:54 UTC
That was surprisingly fun for a game where you can't do that much. The graphics and animations are great and the music is nice. Spitters seem to be the most useful creatures.
Tvorojok
06. Apr 2022 · 22:24 UTC
OMG! just Grat Job!
Matt Rice
06. Apr 2022 · 23:01 UTC
This looks great and was fun to play! I would like to have a little more control over the mech but blasting the bugs was fun!
Alex Xing
06. Apr 2022 · 23:04 UTC
Surprisingly fun for a game where you don't have control over anything but upgrades. The sound effects are on point and the visuals for the mecha looks amazing. Seeing a massive horde of crawlers descend on the mecha during the last few minutes felt extremely satisfying.
PickyBurrito49
06. Apr 2022 · 23:07 UTC
I will admit that I didn't know what to think at first. Then I started getting annoyed as I couldn't do any damage to the Mech. So I started again and tried another strategy which also didn't work. Getting a little bit more fed up I tried a third time with only spiders and crawlers seeing as none of the other units can a)catch the mech or b) do any damage. I still haven't won yet but realized that I have spend 30 minutes playing this which earns you a 'coveted' spot in my bookmark folder of games that I actually want to come back to. If you plan to do a post jam patch or anything I would suggest floating damage numbers to indicate when your aliens actually do hit the mech as I am still not sure what/when damage is dealt as it seems inconsistent to me. All in all great job! Top marks all around!
Kyra Sanchez
06. Apr 2022 · 23:42 UTC
Really liked the concept of this game although it did take me until (too late) to find the "Brute meta" after realizing how I could get a swarm of spitters or crawlers to scare the mech back into them and do a ton of damage. Kept my attention for a good while!
Jozef
06. Apr 2022 · 23:50 UTC
The graphics are done awesomely. I'm really impressed by the number of abilities and aliens you have managed to implement. The mech AI is really effective, almost made me annoyed by how it manages to outmaneuver my precious bugs. At least it made for more satisfying feeling when I finally killed it!
DarriasArt
07. Apr 2022 · 14:17 UTC
An impressive project, great job
PeachTreeOath
08. Apr 2022 · 04:14 UTC
Haha I didn't expect this evolution of VS-like games to arrive so fast. And it actually works really well? The decision points come down to figuring out what's effective, and then creating an army that can break through the defenses. It's more like a game where you sorta just run different experiments over and over and observe the results.

The fact that the mech upgrades as well is a GREAT twist to the idea. It puts a lot of pressure on you to time your upgrades well, otherwise it just keeps gaining speed and firepower and makes mincemeat out of you. It definitely feels bad to be on the receiving end of this deal for once.

The game has enough build flexibility that I was willing to try several attempts and combos. After the first run, I had a sneaky suspicion that the best build would be to power up just 2 species and then try to spawn big wave of them. That way you would be efficient. As fun as it is to upgrade the entire army, surely it's just free food for the mech.

That ended up being the right call, mostly because speed is such a huge factor so you really need to specialize. I was able to win at 3:03.

This game really does have good future potential. Having different mechs, maybe even mech parties, and having different monsters to choose from sounds like a very fun formula. Even better if you throw in branching upgrades like how other roguelites do it. You already proved it out halfway, hope you keep going with it!
elysiagriffin
09. Apr 2022 · 11:39 UTC
Thanks for submitting your game for me to play on my stream!

If you’d like to rewatch the playthrough, you can find it here:
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1450143040?t=9h30m01s

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

💜 Elysia Griffin AKA Button Feedback Lady

https://www.twitch.tv/elysiagriffin
Confidant17
15. Apr 2022 · 16:31 UTC
funny enough we amde similar entrys xD! i went pixel youw ent 3d xD! great job overall.
Doot
19. Apr 2022 · 20:11 UTC
Super cool game! I love the idea, I love the execution, good job on everything ✨

I failed but was sooo close haha.

Thanks for the game I had fun!