LudumData

Torchero by Slowline

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

Intro

Survive the Hord in the Darkness by using torches to illuminate the surroundings.

Use the Axe to harvest Trees and to gain torches. Destroy the Skulls that are spawning the hord of enemies. Collect Expierience to develop your character. Find or unlock Items to make it easier!

Meele attacks dont have cooldowns, so dont try to destroy your keyboard or gamepad!

Sound Effects are mainly from Itch.IO Some of them are from https://www.zapsplat.com/ Music is all done by ourselfs by the mighty LampdaL

We'll try to fix some bugs we encountered after the Compo ends, we had to upload early. Have Fun and Thanks for Rating!

Keybinds

W = North

S = South

A = West

D = East

Space / X (Left) Button = Attack / Use

1 - 9 / Scroll Wheel / Dpad = Items in Inventory

Left Controller Stick = Movement

Updates

Original (05.04.2022)

  • initial release for Compo

Version 0.2 (05.04.2022)

  • Game Restart is now working
  • Game Balancing (More XP, Better and Stronger Weapons, More Damage)
  • Smaller Attack Range for Enemies
  • Small Performance Fixes (Many enemies still tank fps, trying to fix that in later updates)
  • Made Upgrade Text a bit more clearer
  • A "little bit less" screen shake

Version 0.3 (12.04.2022)

  • Performance Improvements by using Object Pooling for some GameObjects
  • Two new Items! (Bomb and Prisma)
  • Damage Indicator
  • Menu now works with Gamepad
  • Upgrades can now be selected with Gamepad and Keyboard (use Enter to Confirm)

Video

https://youtu.be/HZZofP9becE

Main Menu

MainMenu.png

Crystal Item

Crystal.png

Skull Enemy

Skull.png

Player Start

Start.png

Original https://coderline.de/downloads/Torchero.zip
Version 0.2 https://coderline.de/downloads/Torchero0.2.zip
Link https://slowline.itch.io/torchero
Version 0.3 https://coderline.de/downloads/Torchero0.3.zip
Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/50/torchero

Ratings

Overall 757th 3.486⭐ 38🧑‍⚖️
Fun 527th 3.528⭐ 38🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 1252th 2.597⭐ 38🧑‍⚖️
Theme 1065th 3.292⭐ 38🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 431th 3.972⭐ 38🧑‍⚖️
Audio 481th 3.486⭐ 38🧑‍⚖️
Humor 1028th 2.313⭐ 34🧑‍⚖️
Mood 762th 3.417⭐ 38🧑‍⚖️
Given 41🗳️ 52🗨️

Feedback

DerekBell
05. Apr 2022 · 14:47 UTC
Fun little game! Art is great and the combat is satisfying
Trashbag
05. Apr 2022 · 14:49 UTC
I like how swift the animations and hitboxes feel, really good. As cool as the lighting is, torches don't feel worth the effort to gather, and if you play the game for a minute or two it starts to lag as increasingly more enemies spawn.
Emaigualmc2_art
05. Apr 2022 · 14:55 UTC
Frantic and very fun game!!xD I liked the pixel art a lot. Nice job!
GreenPig
05. Apr 2022 · 14:55 UTC
Hi, I really like your game, it is fun and I really enjoyed playing it. I don't know if this is intended but the trees doesn't seem to drop anything and it felt weird because it really looks like this kind of builder survival game. Also the camera shake is a bit overwhelming for me and it makes me feel nautious. So you could include a slider for controlling that as well. Other than that cool game cool art and i really liked the music too.
Retrisma
05. Apr 2022 · 14:56 UTC
Fun little survival game, enemy design looks nice, and had a good time just walking around and checking things out. I wish that torches did something more, such as stopping enemies from spawning, and I think that the enemies had too much health on average, but the feeling of being surrounded fit the theme of "delay the inevitable" very well. Well done
Pegasus
05. Apr 2022 · 15:03 UTC
Art and sound is great. Breaking trees and placing torches seemed a little pointless and the most of the upgrade descriptions were meaningless to me (e.g. how much more damage is 0.75 more?). Overall I enjoyed it though, very cool.
Cievers
05. Apr 2022 · 15:04 UTC
Besides some possible balancing between the crystal and the number of enemies this felt really tense, and with a banging soundtrack to top it off!
Quinn_Patrick
05. Apr 2022 · 15:12 UTC
The graphics and sound in this are great. I had a lot of trouble enjoying it, though, because it's just SO hard. The enemies overwhelmed me with their numbers in a matter of seconds, each one takes numerous hits to kill, their attack range is massive, and they tend to group up so heavily that I couldn't even grab the crystals they dropped. It also wasn't at all clear to me what the torches were supposed to do, except make it slightly easier to see. I didn't notice them effecting enemy spawns at all. Also, with the incredibly long cooldown on the crystal attack, I would expect it to be hugely effective, but it didn't really seem to do more damage than the axe.

Anyway, that's everything I noticed. Again, the graphics, animations, and lighting are awesome, so good job. It just needs a balance pass.
🎤 Slowline
06. Apr 2022 · 16:18 UTC
Thanks for your Feedback, we're trying to fix some more performance problems and also released a small balancing update yesterday!
chusmimax
06. Apr 2022 · 17:36 UTC
Seems like I became too powerful for my own sake, as playing with controller I got into a button spamming frenzy where the only thing that could stop me was the fps drops when I started filling everything with gems,

I really ship the game, I was a bit sceptic at first but ended having lots of fun making my gamepad losing functionality of the X button.

A few things I think could be improved:
- Gamepad controls: Go completely into it. Main menu can't be navigated with pad, and I couldn't find a way to change weapons with pad either. Which is a shame, as I enjoyed the game way more as i started spamming on controller.
- Find what makes gems slow down the game, I sometimes have to risk it all in a risky maneuver as if I just leave to gain some time, gems will make me drop to 1fps, dire times.
- It might be my own wrongdoing, but I couldn't find a use for torches and similar. I mean, I already had a club, it seemed like smacking my enemies into the ground was more time efficient, a true Strength based build.

I hope these don't come as too harsh of critics, as I said before, I actually enjoyed the game.
Confidant17
07. Apr 2022 · 01:38 UTC
game is great, feels great, audio great, graphics great. only one bug,when i died the first time the game restartedbut the black loading screen woulnd change, and i could play like that. had to restart. great job.
Noiyy
07. Apr 2022 · 10:15 UTC
It was all fun until there were so many monsters, my pc couldn't handle it and almost froze :laughing: I mean, it's ok, that's why you destroy skulls, but there were also a lot of crystals and that helped it too :sweat_smile: Liked that chill music in background, good game :smile:
Aeonarch
07. Apr 2022 · 10:51 UTC
I love how coherent the graphics are, great pixel art, animations look nice! There doesn't seem to be much of correlation to the theme except the fact that you are just bound to give up as there is no ending hahah. Still I played this game for quite a while and actually became an invincible god laying waste to the entire map with my 15+ projectile crystal attack! Fun times
Giardi
07. Apr 2022 · 12:12 UTC
Fun and beautiful game. I loved to defeat so much enemies at the same time. It's just a shame the game starts laggy when there are so many enemies in the scene
Cambryx
07. Apr 2022 · 12:25 UTC
Really cool game!
I love how it looks and sounds. The pixelart graphics are really beautyful.
I feel like it could need some balancing (I played the web version maybe you added some balancing tweaks after that). Once i got the club I felt pretty much invincible and didn't see a reason to use anything else. Also I didn't really understand what the torches did.
Other than that really good job!
LDJam user 233659
08. Apr 2022 · 05:32 UTC
The visual polish does a lot for this! It's really satisfying to axe your way through a wall of enemies!
Dokan
08. Apr 2022 · 15:26 UTC
Pleasant, responsive combat. Visuals on a nice level. Cool game!
eggsscrambled
09. Apr 2022 · 00:45 UTC
cool game, some optimizations to the enemy's/green crystals would be welcome to compensate for lag.
LDJam user 234120
09. Apr 2022 · 02:35 UTC
It definitely got laggy, but given how much was going on you kept it under control nicely. Overall I did feel that I could just fight forever and never really be overwhelemed fully, so some ranged attacking enemies are probably needed if you expand this.

Mood was actually very nice, and with some time and expanded mechanics, you'd have something I think alot of people out there would enjoy. Action RPGs for the win!
BearDing8
10. Apr 2022 · 13:02 UTC
Nice little game! At some point it became a bit laggy but it was okay after a while.
I liked the music and the sound effects. The hit audio was very powerful.
Prütty
10. Apr 2022 · 20:46 UTC
Fun game. My keyboard suffered, but I have a pattern of hitting space FAST, so the enemies died almost instantly. Wandered around for 10 mins or so, then tried to stay in one place and spamming space. It worked so well, that my fingers started hurting. Maybe I would improve on the cooldowns on the magic items, so they don't feel so weak against a full-spam axe :)
RalfZ
10. Apr 2022 · 20:47 UTC
I really liked it! Gameplay was very smooth and responisve, really did great on that! Though a bit laggy, but who can blame you in a game jam :)
Jeangilbert
11. Apr 2022 · 22:03 UTC
I love it!!
The graphismes are amazing and the game funny.
The touch are dificult to fine but it is cool.
mar3k
12. Apr 2022 · 14:28 UTC
Lovely game, it was enjoyable, although I had to stop playing since after a while it got really laggy (maybe from all the enemies and drops), but it was fun till that point. One thing that I would've loved would be the option to select pickup with keyboard, since the game is fully on keyboard and I always had to move my hand to the mouse just to get a pickup and then quickly back to continue attacking. But overall very nice entry, well done.
ditam
13. Apr 2022 · 20:48 UTC
Very cool game, I wish it had a proper ending - but then it wouldn't fit the theme I guess.
I was so sure there would be an ending besides the carnage, that I kept trying for quite a while, but I couldn't find anything. (Besides the heavy FPS drops mentioned in the other comments, after a while I stopped getting any new gems, which might be a bug?)

I thought you would either have to kill all the skulls (they just seem to respawn anyway), or do something with the L-shaped tunnel to the west - I tried bombing it, shooting it with a crystal, axing it or lighting torches inside, nothing seemed to have any effect. That L shape was just a place to rest while the AI glitches out on the walls...

Otherwise this game had so much polish that I still think there's an easter egg or ending here that we're all missing :) Regardless, well done!

Is there any point to torches besides the aesthetic?
TheBlitz
14. Apr 2022 · 06:03 UTC
Cool game! Loved the different types of weapons and upgrades :) But i found it hard to switch between items... maybe you can add support for using mouse control as well>
MaruMari
14. Apr 2022 · 11:16 UTC
@mar3k Thanks for playing :D. The main idea were to reduce the player and torch lights while playing the game. But we had to discard this torch feature and implemented a life regeneration mechanic instead. So besides the regeneration there is no other point in using torches. Performance-wise we will try to release a new version that is less laggy :)

@theblitz Thanks for playing. Actually in the latest version there should be a way to switch between items with the keyboard (1-9) and the mousewheel.
Roka Josh
18. Apr 2022 · 19:42 UTC
Fun game, feeling a bit of Vampire Survivors inspiration in the gameplay and I like it a lot. Great job!