Chaos Vault by Zykra

[raw]
made by Zykra for Ludum Dare 50 (COMPO)

Turn based bullet hell.

Survive! Dodge bullets and avoid traps in this complex mind-bending game!

You can move by clicking a piece and moving it next to another. Your pieces are the solid colored ones. If you touch a piece, you gain control of it. If you lose a piece and remain with less than two pieces, you die and restart immediately.

screenshot.png

If you find it tedious clicking to select pieces, use the number keys to select them.

screenshot2.png

Good Luck!

Ratings

Overall 128th 3.762⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Fun 183th 3.619⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 13th 4.318⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Theme 516th 3.091⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 362th 3.295⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Audio 41th 3.955⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Humor 391th 2.441⭐ 19🧑‍⚖️
Mood 152th 3.579⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Given 23🗳️ 0🗨️

Feedback

Forgin Bits
04. Apr 2022 · 09:20 UTC
Holy shit that music is FIRE! :laughing: so I had a lot of trouble understanding the game at first, especially when you can and cannot move a piece on the traps, because it kinda lacks a bit of visual feedback or transition between the moves. But once I got it it was pretty fun. Kinda reminded me of a Crossy Road kind of game somehow xD good entry !
knexator
15. Apr 2022 · 09:33 UTC
Really fun & original concept! My only complaint is that sometimes I died without knowing what had got me - this could be fixed by adding slow-mo death animation, for example. Would love to see the game improved in a post-jam version!
01FE7E
15. Apr 2022 · 09:51 UTC
I like the concept and the way the pieces move is an intresting twist on the bullet hell genre. Overall the game plays more like a puzzle game, which, i think, the graphics and audio should reflect more. It is really hard to undestand, what is happening, because every turn everything happens at once. Perhaps animations that show the changes between the two turns would help.
deniskazantsev
15. Apr 2022 · 10:01 UTC
It's really mind bending) I liked the music. It's really nice to see when people trying to do something innovative.
Brachistosauro
15. Apr 2022 · 10:15 UTC
One of my favourites, really good idea for a sort-of-puzzle game; the contrast between the high-adrenaline graphics/sound and the delicate gameplay is so fun. I just found it a bit harsh to have to restart the game from scratch each time I died, maybe checkpoints would've been nice.
LDJam user 267116
15. Apr 2022 · 10:35 UTC
This is a spectacular game. A very clever idea, well executed. I squandered my blue piece in the zone before the pink piece, and had to sacrifice the orange piece to make it through after that. I think I was pretty close to clearing the area after the pink piece, but it got very tight and I didn't have enough pieces to burn after the earlier misplays. It's a major achievement to make a game this dynamic in 48 hours, very nice work.
Itskdog
15. Apr 2022 · 10:38 UTC
Good job with this puzzle game. It took a while to figure it out. I think a beginner's level would have been good. The beginner's level could be short and let the player know that they need to move on traps when they fire off. You really have to think about the time of how the traps and bullets work.
LDJam user 235146
16. Apr 2022 · 10:49 UTC
Thank you for the comments!
To address some of the points raised, i wanted to add the death animation and different maps, but i decided to work more on the music and polish. The most time went in the map (and i think it still gets way too hard too early).
The dissonance between the thoughtful puzzle genre and the action atmosphere is partly wanted, but ended up unbalanced towards chaos.
Jones
17. Apr 2022 · 02:05 UTC
I really enjoyed the game, as others have said I def thought that slowly ramping up would be better, even if it was just only turning on more and more traps as the game progresses, but I had a fun time either way, and would def check a longer post jam version.
LMB
17. Apr 2022 · 03:04 UTC
This is a very original idea (if a bit detached from the theme), really interesting. As others said, quite difficult to understand how to play, how the traps cycle, how the bullets move, even to understand I am on a sort of track and I am supposed to move up... but once one everything clicks, the game becomes really interesting. There's a lot of potential here!

I agree when you say the game gets too hard too early. Took me many attempts to reach the first additional piece of ship. By the way, I couldn't find a way to get it without sacrificing one of the two original pieces. _If_ this is intentional, I think it is a quite clever design, but probably something to be used later in the game (again, to not make it so difficult so fast).

I didn't play much longer after getting that first additional piece. mostly because I got tired to replay the whole first section. This is also something you may want to improve in the event of a post-jam version. Random/crazy idea: a rewind feature that allows me to go back in time one turn at a time so that I can retry without replaying everything.

Details aside, you have a very solid and unusual/original core mechanic here! Well done!
mikouaji
21. Apr 2022 · 00:38 UTC
Interesting idea! Very nice graphics and a really cool soundtrack :)

Would certainly use some kind of tutorial level or longer explanation of how everything works (the [?] instruction does help but imho its not enough). It also can get a bit frustrating with the resets, but I didnt mind
T C
21. Apr 2022 · 04:43 UTC
After like.... 10 tries I *got* it. Not winning, just... it clicked. And woah. Super cool moment when that happens! I think a little bit of pushing the player to charge in a direction might be good, but it was a very cool "aha" moment for me, followed immediately by another one when wondering how the heck you can get past bullets spaced only 3 apart. Cool submission!
Tanner Shelton
21. Apr 2022 · 05:23 UTC
I was struggling a lot with understanding exactly what I was supposed to do. Maybe not the best player feedback could be a culprit. I did like the idea though.
piscythe
21. Apr 2022 · 06:01 UTC
Really fun and innovative concept! This really would have benefited from a more tutorial-like intro - the one that exists is very intimidating even though the solution is simple. There's little guidance as to where to go, either. It took me a long time to realize that I could go up to reveal more area. I eventually got the pink piece, but I failed what I'm pretty sure was the very last section and I don't feel like replaying the entire thing from the beginning just to get back there. Excellent work!