Reaper by ImmanentDeath

[raw]
made by ImmanentDeath for Ludum Dare 52 (JAM)

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D E L E T E - A L L - C R E E P E R S

Reaper was made for Ludum Dare 52 and its theme, "Harvest." It's a brutal, fast-paced hack 'n' slash about the reaper eliminating creepers and claiming souls and power-ups from them.

Play on Itch.io | Play on Newgrounds | Broken 1.0

How to Play

  • WASD/Arrow keys = Move/Select
  • Space/Up/W = Jump
  • Enter/K = Attack
  • Esc/P = Pause
  • Back = Unpause

Press "L" on the title screen to toggle scan lines.

Power-ups - Movement speed up - Attack speed up (hold to attack) - Damage up (kill every creeper in one hit) - Kill all creepers on-screen - Invincibility - Extra life

Known bugs

  • Creepers still rarely get stuck in corners
  • Creepers and power-ups can appear over the player health bar and score display
  • The Y position of digits in scores and high scores is sometimes slightly off

Changelog

v1.1 - Added easy mode - The player’s attack speed is slightly reduced, and the amount of time their attack lasts slightly increased - Creepers spawn naturally (not by replication) every 1.5 seconds instead of every 1 second - Creepers have 50% less base speed and a 50% slower replication rate - The maximum number of creepers in the scene before they stop replicating is reduced from 20 to 15 - Replaced “Press any key to start” text on the title screen with difficulty selection - Scan lines are now toggled on the title screen by pressing “L” instead of “S” - Added high scores for each difficulty mode that are saved at the end of a game - The player’s score at the end of a game is now displayed under “Game Over” - The current difficulty mode’s high score is now displayed on the pause menu - Added icons for extra lives that appear under the health bar when the player obtains them and disappear when used - Fixed a bug where creepers would deal knockback to the player in the wrong direction - Fixed a bug where creepers would always jump if they approach a wall, so the player could stand next to one and avoid all damage; now creepers won’t jump if the player is close enough - Fixed a bug where creepers could still replicate themselves after they’re defeated but before they disappear, also making it possible for the replicated creeper to get stuck in tiles

I said before that high scores were secretly saved as of v1.0.2, but it turns out that was a lie because there was a logic error that prevented this. Whoops. Sorry about that.

v1.0.2 - Scan lines can now be toggled by pressing “S” on the title screen - Score digits now have scan lines if scan lines are on - Fixed a bug where creepers wouldn't replicate themselves - Reduced the total number of creepers there can be for another one to spawn naturally (not by replicating) from 20 to 10 - Creepers no longer have a random chance to decide to jump - Fixed a bug where creepers would struggle to jump over tiles if they hit the tile sideways first - Fixed a bug where creepers would sometimes get stuck in corners - Fixed a bug where creepers would sometimes face the wrong way - Fixed a bug where creepers wouldn’t be killed by the power-up that kills all creepers that are on-screen if they had already just been damaged by the player - Fixed a bug where getting a power-up while that same power-up is already active doesn’t reset the time before it runs out - Fixed a bug where score wouldn’t be given and no sound effect would play if the player got a soul while at full health

v1.0.1 - Fixed a bug where score wasn’t reset after a game over - Fixed a bug where the player could still take damage during their invincibility frames after taking damage, and while having the invincibility power-up - Creepers now also take knockback from the power-up that kills all creepers on-screen, so anything they drop is less likely to get stuck in the floor

Devlog

A job that is debatably well done - January 12, 2023

How did I do this - January 9, 2023

Screenshots

ReaperScreenshots.gif

Ratings

Overall 369th 3.545⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Fun 354th 3.452⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 751th 2.548⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Theme 694th 3.095⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 144th 4.205⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Audio 134th 3.773⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Humor 567th 2.469⭐ 18🧑‍⚖️
Mood 251th 3.69⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Given 30🗳️ 6🗨️

Feedback

feor
09. Jan 2023 · 20:32 UTC
You weren't joking when you said the game was brutal! Those creepers are so damn fast. It's all about finding a good chokepoint to kill them before they can get in behind you. It feels good to play though and I like the music and the visuals, it's a nice game to look at. I wish the powers dropped a bit more often because I only managed to get one. ![Wpwz4pP.png](///raw/f38/a3/z/55744.png) Also the score didn't reset for me, but not a huge deal.
grizeldi
10. Jan 2023 · 19:56 UTC
Incredibly hard, I got overrun by creepers almost immediately. Something about the scythe swing timings was just off for me.
🎤 ImmanentDeath
11. Jan 2023 · 00:46 UTC
The scythe swings a fraction of a second after you press the button, so you have to attack slightly early to account for winding up before you swing.
squashi
12. Jan 2023 · 18:37 UTC
The games visuals got me excited, it looks great. But the gameplay didn't deliver it.

With the games current state enemies just clump and walk towards you, eventually you don't have any platforms to jump to and you go back and forth to press attack. Not so fun to play.

Could be super fun if it was like fruit ninja, enemies jump at you from all directions and you dodge with dash, move around platforms, slash them like if they were fruits :)
Klaus Peter
14. Jan 2023 · 22:34 UTC
There is this one platform further to the right where creepers will mostly attack from the left. That was the only spot where I could stand still xD I also thought that it would have been nicer if there were more ways to dodge creepers because otherwise it feels like you can hardly defend yourself properly. But the graphics and music were pretty nice :)
![bad.gif](///raw/ae4/61/z/56748.gif)
brainles etertainment
15. Jan 2023 · 15:07 UTC
"Easy" is not easy at all as for me :)
Avi
17. Jan 2023 · 09:08 UTC
Ooft I got rekt hahaha overall a pretty cool game tho! Really nice visuals :) I wonder if you could get a AI bot to play it

Ps love the devlogs :)
Nikotini
20. Jan 2023 · 07:45 UTC
I really love your game. The graphics look so polished which I think is really impressive considering the limited time. I also like the sound design a lot. It is nothing very special but it works well because the sound effects worked with the music.
All in all: A well polished game with pretty graphics and arcade gameplay. I like it! :D
Carei
26. Jan 2023 · 20:44 UTC
Very fun and polished game, feels like those old arcade games in a few ways. Firstly, the artstyle and sound effects fit very well together. And secondly, the jam version is brutally hard :)). I can definetly relate to that, since I also end up sometimes with games nobody else can play due to lack of playtesting. If you want to continue working on it, it would be nice to have more types of enemies, or a guide to what each power up does.
Amolker
26. Jan 2023 · 21:47 UTC
The art style and music is really great, I can easily see this game on retro arcade machines. The gameplay (especially in easy mode :D) seems solid. Maybe we would like to see a dash ability or something like that, because creepers can corner you and it can be difficult to get out of such a situation.
Overall a great game! Well done!
🎤 ImmanentDeath
26. Jan 2023 · 21:47 UTC
I'll put a list in the description of what each power-up does. I think some of them are pretty intuitive, but I was wondering if a couple of them weren't immediately clear.
Ekoon
26. Jan 2023 · 23:39 UTC
Gosh this game piss off with atmosphere ! I love challenges, it gave me Vampire Survivor vibe.
lenaschimmel
27. Jan 2023 · 17:22 UTC
I enjoy the smooth, fast-paced gameplay, and the graphics really fit well together.

For me, hard mode was much too hard, but at the same time very motivating to try again and again... easy mode on the other hand, was a bit too easy, and felt less fun in a way.

It's a pity that I could not distinguish the different powerups - now that I see them on the screenshots, I see that they look differently, but during all that high speed action they mostly looked the same, and only after something like 30 power ups I got one that looked so different that I noticed it.
procrasteroid
27. Jan 2023 · 19:09 UTC
Love love love the art and music, right up my street! Like others I found the game very hard but appreciated that you added an easier version for those of us that lacked the skills 😁
Mark Winter
27. Jan 2023 · 19:50 UTC
Very well executed 2d HacknSlash.
profan
27. Jan 2023 · 19:52 UTC
This is a really well put together game stylistically, sound, music, art, but gameplay wise it falls a little bit in that either feels incredibly difficult or incredibly easy (if you stand in a particular place in the game, the AI bugs out a bit and you get only a few of them attacking you at once instead of the absolute swarm you get otherwise)

This place for me:
![firefox_N3U2yn9XbG.png](///raw/321/2/z/56dab.png)

It became a little more doable once you'd stayed in one place for a while and the powerups had dropped and you could recuperate a bit, but I didn't actually realise when I was playing that there were powerups that did anything except restore health, so having that be a little clearer as @lenaschimmel already mentioned :)

Nice work!