Terminal Hydrophilia by 6smith

you are a drop of water in a petri dish, fighting against evaporation, using tools at your disposal to sublimate, freeze, and absorb

Controls - WASD - move - Left click - fire - Right click - dash
| Link | https://github.com/benpm/ldjam50 |
| Link | https://ben-m.itch.io/terminal-hydrophilia |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/50/hydrophilia |
Ratings
| Overall | 321th | 3.821⭐ | 30🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 189th | 3.857⭐ | 30🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 917th | 3.071⭐ | 30🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 1097th | 3.25⭐ | 30🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 362th | 4.036⭐ | 30🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 447th | 3.536⭐ | 30🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 830th | 2.711⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 530th | 3.64⭐ | 27🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 19🗳️ | 34🗨️ |
polished and smooth
It may have been out of scope, but I think your little creature evolving or getting larger would've added a lot and given a sense of progress (Maybe that happens when your bar fills but I didn't get that far)
I very much love this game, truly and accomplishment for 72 hours. Well done.
Blind first playthrough:
https://youtu.be/BJrZ6eyu3Ok
Nice blue color scheme, pleasant music and neat graphics.
I would expand this game with upgrades for the player, but also more dangerous enemies at the same time.
But i felt like the difficulty could be ramped up a bit. As in more enemies - i only really died because i ran out of bubbles as i could not find enemies or they were not spwaning fast enough.
But i like the visual style and the sounds did work (again?)
thanks for playing everyone! i really appreciate the detailed feedback.
to address your general suggestions, here are the features i was planning but didnt get the time to implement, as well as things im aware need fixing:
- increase in size or some other visible evolution of the player bubble
- particle effects and other kinds of visual effects for various things
- more pickups, as well as a systematic bullet styling that respects all the upgrades you've picked up so far
- more enemies! i had so many ideas that i didnt get a chance to add:
- ice enemies that are immune to freeze bullets and much stronger. these would also have a distinct visual style, as well as the ability to damage you by running straight into you >:) ice crystal droplets as currency for stronger upgrades would also be cool
- possibly fire enemies as well. these could be exclusively bosses perhaps
- enemies that can fire through walls
- enemies with exotic movement patterns: quick staccato motion on a grid, bullet dodging, swarming and surrounding, etc.
- better balancing. every time you receive an upgrade, your bullets cost more. this, combined with stronger enemies not being significantly more valuable, causes your outlook to be pretty bleak around the 2-3 minute mark, as @willoxs pointed out
- making some mechanics more obvious: the big one is the evaporation bar. it indicates the rate at which your water meter goes down by itself. this really isnt obvious (thanks @janniz and @matt-e), which i have some ideas about improving, while also still maintaining a minimal use of text
i wont make any promises about continued development, because every time i do it seems to release a wretched curse that prevents me from doing so, but in case i do make sure to [follow me on itch.io!](https://ben-m.itch.io)
Theme - sorry but no.
I really enjoyed playing Terminal Hydrophilia!
One thing I might add to the game, would be a short tutorial.
Yes the game is really simple, but it took me a while to figure out that killing enemies actually gives you more time ^^
the world felt pretty sparse over all, and i felt like i needed to search for more enemies to kill. maybe that's what you're going for, with the idea of trying to survive, and not dry up, but i think it would be more fun to have more enemies.
i think the spikes ones were my favorite since they're not difficult to avoid the shots and give lots of points/health.
i saw a few power ups here and there, but i never felt like i needed them, or understood what they did. for this genre, i think that weapon modifications would be the most typical, or bombs (screen clear) or a shield.
as for innovation, this felt like a twin stick shooter (ala geometry wars) played mostly straight, with the addition of your constantly decreasing health. when i think about water drops trying to avoid evaporating, and fighting with other water drops, i would have expected some kind of mechanic with merging and growing, looking for smaller drops, avoiding ones bigger than you, and some kind of interaction with contact, instead of firing missiles. currently, it doesn't feel like a water droplet game, it feels like a geometry wars game with a water droplet skin.
good over all polish! i like the droplet font and colors, and subtle animation in the background.

Everything looks kind of the same so it wasn't obvious what to shoot at, what to collect and what to avoid. I think I haven't fully figured it out. It would be cool if you'd grow when collecting stuff. I have tried a few times but my avatar stayed the same all the time.