LudumData

Lepidopterology Extreme by mahalis

[raw]
made by mahalis for Ludum Dare 58 (COMPO)

Butterflies are your life.

You have always dreamed of seeing the rarest one.

Help nature along.

This is my 18th compo entry but only my second one made with Godot. I think it’s fun! Would love to have gotten some better art in, like grass and proper terrain… but such are the limits of 48 hours.

Other software I used: - Houdini (modeling the butterfly and setting up the vertex data for the flap animation) - Cinema 4D (modeling everything else, rigging the player) - Apple Notes and Voice Memos (planning / task tracking, sound-effect recording) - GarageBand (playing the chords for various UI sounds) - Audacity (chopping up the aforementioned sound-effect recordings)

One compatibility note: I have not verified at all that gamepads work. Please let me know if they don’t and I can try to figure out why.

Thanks for checking out my game!

Link https://mahalis.itch.io/lepidopterology-extreme
Link https://codeberg.org/mahalis/LD58
Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/58/lepidopterology-extreme

Ratings

Overall 172th 3.025⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Fun 169th 2.9⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 170th 2.8⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Theme 30th 4.05⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 126th 3.3⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Audio 155th 2.55⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Humor 145th 2.316⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Mood 153th 2.975⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Given 16🗳️ 15🗨️

Feedback

bereg
Oct 05th · 23:17 UTC
Don’t you just hate it when butterflies fly away over the fence?
I wonder how many colors there are in total? I made it through four stages, but then I accidentally broke the jar and lost my precious treasure. Such a great game! And hey, using Houdini is an instant bonus point!
Maytch
Oct 05th · 23:52 UTC
The flying animation of the butterflies is very endearing!

I felt like my net swipes didn't always land when perhaps they should, and I'd prefer it if the butterflies that flew over the walls came back quicker, but eventually I got better at matching butterflies together and won the game!
Thoastbot
Oct 05th · 23:53 UTC
I DID IT! Its shiny! I like it! It was really addicting, couldn't stop, well done!
mdotedot
Oct 08th · 19:13 UTC
Ah Another game about butterflies! Similar minds :D Game is nice. Unfortunately the catching of the butterflies does not feel empowering. Maybe a larger hitbox or something like that and an animation or indication together with some sound or effect would help! But congratulation on the publishing!
fabY
Oct 10th · 13:05 UTC
I'm so damn whyyy. I spent minutes testing the controls and being confortable with the fact that you could catch back your broken jar if you just follow the throw trajectory. So I felt confident. And then I played the game and lost my level 4 butterfly like a noob. I tried to catch it back 5times and then it vanished through the fence. Fun addictive game congrats !
OddballDave
Oct 10th · 13:10 UTC
Art and sounds were good. Nice simple gameplay loop. Everything worked as it should. Not much more I can say other than I had fun. Good stuff :8ball:
PatUwU
Oct 10th · 13:38 UTC
At the start i couldn't understand what to do but after i discover the merging ability i was unstoppable. Interesting idea but it need's more music to keep the mood
José Bonilla
Oct 10th · 14:00 UTC
Nice game, lovely animations. I don't like it when the butterflies leave, but I guess that's expected :D GJ submitting for compo
vidarn
Oct 10th · 20:35 UTC
Fun and addictive game! It was heartbreaking to see your hard work fly away some times, but that added to the tension!

Nice to see another Houdini user! That butterfly looked amazing. If you don't mind me asking, how did you find the experience of using Houdini together with Godot? I've been wanting to try that combo as well. Is GLTF the best way to exchange data?
pres2300
Oct 10th · 23:21 UTC
Nice job with the animations and sound effects! I enjoyed collecting butterflies. Like others have said, the butterflies flying over the wall made things difficult at times. Otherwise, nice job!
🎤 mahalis
Oct 11th · 18:44 UTC
Thanks for all the comments, everyone! Really appreciate y’all taking the time to play it.

@vidarn, it worked out pretty well but I wasn’t doing anything fancy asset-wise—the butterfly model is just a single unrigged mesh with a bunch of data packed into the channels of the vertex colors. If you’re curious and have a commercial version of Houdini, the .hiplc is in the source-code repository in the “assets” folder :slight_smile:
vidarn
Oct 11th · 19:09 UTC
@mahalis Awesome, that's great! I will have a look at the hip-file for sure! So you did the flapping animation in the vertex shader? That's super cool! I have even more respect for your beautiful butterflies now :smile:
Stef_Studio_7
Oct 14th · 00:51 UTC
nice art and animations, kinda zen catching the butterflies!
drikdrok
Oct 14th · 02:36 UTC
Nice little game! Fits the theme perfectly, wish the butterflies wouldn't fly past the fence though :(
bentglasstube
Oct 16th · 21:01 UTC
This was great! I really enjoyed the mechanics of having to stack up your inventory, and the limit of 3 jars felt perfect. I do wish you wouldn't replace your good butterflies if you accidentally catch one when you're full, but that's a minor complaint. The sound effects complemented the game well and the visuals of the butterflies were excellent. My only disappointment was that I couldn't combine the cyan butterflies, so I just caught three of them instead: ![Screenshot 2025-10-16 135825.png](///raw/939/z/6f6f9.png)
Fantazio36
Oct 17th · 10:58 UTC
I liked the game. It took me some time to understand that you had to throw a butterflie on another one to have a rarer one, but after that I enjoyed playing!
It’s still frustrating that the butterflies leave the field but apart from that, it’s a good game.
D3kryption
Oct 17th · 21:00 UTC
Really charming and oddly relaxing game! The butterfly animations and merging mechanic are super satisfying once you figure it out. Took me a bit to understand the goal, but after that it was addictive. Losing butterflies over the fence hurts—but in a good “one more try” way. Great use of Houdini!
tanis
Oct 18th · 09:31 UTC
It took me a bit to figure out you could combine the butterflies by throwing the jars :smile:
Nicely done, it's really cute.
You could probably improve the catching mechanic as it feels that sometime even though you are aiming correctly you won't catch the butterfly