LudumData

Katamari Survivors by zexurge

[raw]
made by zexurge for Ludum Dare 58 (JAM)

Katamari Survivor || ⚠️recommened to play itch.io ver with link below! 🎮itch.io

Screenshot 2025-10-06 181050.png Screenshot 2025-10-06 181059.png Screenshot 2025-10-06 193244.png Theme of LD 58 is Collector, rather than making another Granny/Slender collect pages clone, I thought about what existing games about collecting stuff are great, and obviously the best game about collecting stuff is Katamari Damacy. Megabonk is also getting really popular recently, so thought about implementing a Katamari + Vampire Survivors clone. All code written within 3 days.

Notes

  • Did a hacky way to render the preview of collected collectibles using overlay camera offset below the world, but seems to work nice enough
  • Meshes composed on multiple child objects are a pain to manage e.g. can't simply get a bounds/size data from just 1 source
  • Movement/input with Rigidbody? Remember to use rb.AddForce, ideally with a separate 'input velocity' var
  • First time using PrimeTween, super easy to get up and running, surprisingly nice that it comes with useUnscaledTime option 🙏
  • Using reference footage from Katamari Reroll, noticed that the katamari doesn't really use the entire stickied object's collider, and instead probably just extruded some verts of the original katamari shape, so attempted to replicate the logic

Known bugs

  • Sometimes when choosing Size upgrade with collectibles nearby, katamari will grow infinitely and break the game...
  • Pausing and unpausing will unfreeze the game, even if Upgrades/Win menu is shown

Credits

Models

  • All handmade by me in Blender for this/previous projects

Freesounds

  • Soft Little Cartoon/Anime/videogame Steps (Tony Tony Chopper style).wav - Pablodb
  • Anime WOW effect

Free Stock Music

  • Adventures in Mana - Schematist

Not-so-free

  • Cheers to you! Part 1/2!
itch.io https://zexurge.itch.io/katamari-survivors
Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/58/katamari-survivors

Ratings

Overall 249th 3.693⭐ 46🧑‍⚖️
Fun 73th 3.955⭐ 46🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 279th 3.432⭐ 46🧑‍⚖️
Theme 47th 4.307⭐ 46🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 460th 3.523⭐ 46🧑‍⚖️
Audio 273th 3.475⭐ 42🧑‍⚖️
Humor 125th 3.75⭐ 46🧑‍⚖️
Mood 209th 3.833⭐ 44🧑‍⚖️
Given 45🗳️ 65🗨️

Feedback

egor.ae_game
Oct 06th · 15:21 UTC
Such a simple and engaging game! I loved it! You could add a lot of different content and create interesting locations, for example:

A playground (where you could stick different toys, pebbles).

A garage (bolts, nuts, keys, spare parts) and so on.

I loved the idea with the pipe that you can ride through to go down the mountain. It would be awesome to add more interactive objects to the environment
Ueighti
Oct 06th · 15:57 UTC
I liked the concept of merging the two games, which I also happen to like personally.
Good Job!
DmitriyCI
Oct 06th · 17:16 UTC
It's a very good and quite fun game because of the music and sounds. The concept is also good!
Braulio_JG
Oct 06th · 17:44 UTC
Perfect and creative fit for the theme! Also, taking in consideration the problems that a game with this type of gameplay could produce, I was able to complete it without noticeable bugs. Congratulations!
Anderson Job Loeffler
Oct 06th · 22:38 UTC
Super fun to play!! Really engaging and a nice take on the "collector" theme. Awesome job overall! Would totally play more of this.

(I loved the little purple dude, haha)

![2025-10-06_19-37.png](///raw/79c/f5/z/6e303.png)
MorePixels
Oct 07th · 02:39 UTC
Fun and engaging game, but definitely had a few issues where the gameplay broke with the Katamari ball. But overall, very fun! Would've loved a bigger level!
TomPendergrass
Oct 07th · 02:53 UTC
Great mood here with the sounds and music. The cheering at the end added to the sense of accomplishment!
breadstick
Oct 07th · 05:35 UTC
fun mood, and a great callback to one of my favorite childhood games!
poboy
Oct 07th · 05:40 UTC
God what a good idea. Would love to see this as a full game. Great audio :)
bearcage
Oct 07th · 07:17 UTC
That was a fun mashup!
Kit Gorn
Oct 07th · 11:22 UTC
![Безымянный.png](///raw/afb/04/z/6e903.png)

Wow, this is seriously cool. It's fun to play. It really lifted my spirits! The mechanics are unique, I'll have to remember them. At the end, I was thrown somewhere outside the map.
SirRed
Oct 07th · 14:12 UTC
Reminds me of Donut County. My ball ended up being a lot towards 1 side being bigger so it made it a bit hard to get around at the end. I guess that is my fault I should have been a better collector. I could have easily spend more than the 3 minutes it took to beat if the map was bigger and you could start adding the houses and pipes to your collection
manabreak
Oct 07th · 15:38 UTC
When the theme was announced, I immediately thought of Katamari Damacy - nice to see someone do just that :smile: Great job!
Ian - Marius Postica
Oct 07th · 15:45 UTC
A very enjoyable game, i really liked to play in it, the idea of striking objects is awesome )
CosmogonicFrog
Oct 07th · 15:57 UTC
![Screenshot from 2025-10-07 16-50-03.png](///raw/cda/95/z/6ea96.png)

Ayy, very fun! I'm glad someone did a Katamari-like game and the mix-up is a cool idea. I got the infinity bug on my first attempt but I did another run without taking the size upgrade and managed to complete it so I'm glad the size upgrade wasn't necessary to get everything on the map. I was also pleasantly surprised about how well the collision and physics worked for 3 days of work.

Nice job!
5H08
Oct 07th · 17:19 UTC
really like the vibes of the game, though it gets a bit inconvenient to roll after picking up the shacks. good take on the collector theme! i got a bug where i started to get nonstop upgrades after one but still a fun experience
Pengu123
Oct 07th · 20:16 UTC
Very short but sweet experience. Me love a good katamari game and it reproduced some of the thrill :)

I'll say the ball physics is still extremely buggy and before grabbing the trophy I glitched out of the map haha
A bigger map would've been awesome!
VPro
Oct 07th · 20:42 UTC
I like a game that states its inspirations and perfectly nails them! I had as much fun playing your game as playing Katamari Damacy back in the days. The audio design (music ans SFX) are really done and gives a nice zany atmosphere
ugly_robot
Oct 07th · 21:44 UTC
Wow! What an impressive entry - the choice-based scaling actually works really well for katamari, as you 'have to 'scale alongside your hoard size, putting some more agency into the already really engaging loop of sizing up to tackle obstacles you've yearned for since the start.
Everything felt smooth and polished! Great work!
web-gnar
Oct 07th · 23:01 UTC
amazing idea. great to showcase it here for a jam. the music is a little too crazy i wish it was a little mellower. and thanks for making it play in browser! excellent job
Hank Ather
Oct 07th · 23:04 UTC
Katamari + survivors was such great idea. Well done!
Dining Philosopher
Oct 07th · 23:48 UTC
Funny and very thematic - I never played Katamari Damacy and at first thought this was just a kind of sandbox, but I was pleasantly surprised when I could actually win the game (in 3:30), in particular with the announcer xD My main problem was that the mouse control was a bit finnicky and nausea-inducing for me.

Great job!
Bobap
Oct 08th · 04:21 UTC
For sure Katamari and Donut County were part of my initial brainstorm. Love that the menu was exactly what I wanted from the menu and nothing more. I definitely got the infinite size glitch when I played. Only gripe was the camera didnt zoom out far enough toward the end. I basically couldn't see anything aside from the collection that was me and it was very difficult to navigate.
Ayu
Oct 08th · 06:06 UTC
Wow at first I was like 'this should be easy'. Then I found out that I have to do some strategy to stick more stuff while maintaining power. Great work
Jordan Neff
Oct 08th · 18:08 UTC
Love me some katamari! Great use of the theme, and I think the roguelike upgrade selection was a fun spin on it, just wish there was more variation in the upgrade selection. But I understand that's a lot of extra work for a game jam, especially as a solo dev.

Anyway, had a lot of fun with this one! Took me 5 mins to reach the trophy because I was too focused on collecting everything to even notice it at first 😅
danicoredj
Oct 08th · 19:22 UTC
its cool an fun
GuardianMAD
Oct 09th · 16:05 UTC
i dont know how i finish it in 2:47 but wao! (i really like it) Nice sfx, controllers become weird when only one side of my ball got everything stuck but i just keep jumping to the next item
HexStart
Oct 09th · 16:44 UTC
Katamari definitely works well with the theme, and I liked rolling it around. I feel like the level had too much of little items, although it was clever to lay them out in paths leading to different parts of the scene, I appreciated that. In general, the small, self-contained level with the trophy to climb to at the top - pretty good setup for a jam game. I'm not sure about the upgrades though, they didn't seem to make that big of a difference for me (I mostly noticed jump getting higher), yet they popped up so often as to be a bit distracting.
Aune
Oct 11th · 09:25 UTC
Really nice mix of genre!

I'm curious if you thougth about other kind of upgrade?

Well crafted fun entry!

![Capture d’écran 2025-10-11 112626.png](///raw/6ab/82/z/6f3f4.png)
CaptainDreamcast
Oct 11th · 12:49 UTC
Lol, the success is yours speech! My best run came in at 3:50:

![success is yours.PNG](///raw/a71/9/z/6f41b.png)

My strategy was focusing on size over the other powerups, once I could collect the blue fence, it all came together. Genius take on the theme! Of course Katamari Damacy is the ultimate collection game, so a spin on that with some cool new elements mixed in is the perfect match for the theme. Amazing pick there. Also amazing how well you captured the feel of it, it was super smooth and felt super natural to collect all the items and grow bigger. Awesome game, great job, had a lot of fun rolling around in it!
NBumgardner
Oct 22nd · 03:15 UTC
What an addicting game, it had me trying it again and again. I think in the short term randomizing the power-ups is good because it feels like there are more choices, but for repeated plays I would rather they always appear in the same order so I do not accidentally pick the wrong power up when there are only 3 total to choose from. The reset does not reset the timer like I expected, it becomes 0 for a second before jumping back up to the original time plus 1. Overall great execution on a twist on a fun game mechanic.