Suck! It! Up! by Hjalte

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

"Suck! It! Up!" is the intergalactic gameshow about sucking up animals and creating a hospitable environment on a new planet!

The show takes place over 8 episodes, during which you'll see more and more animals, as well as build more and more exotic synergies.

Finally, if you can keep up with the ever increasing scores, you just might become Xirnu's Next Top Planet!

alien_planet.png

Controls

  • Use beam: Space
  • Move spaceship: A/D or Arrow keys
  • Place animal: LMB
  • Rotate animal: RMB or R

Ratings

Overall 52th 4.12⭐ 48🧑‍⚖️
Fun 28th 4.141⭐ 48🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 59th 3.978⭐ 47🧑‍⚖️
Theme 125th 4.122⭐ 47🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 200th 4.098⭐ 48🧑‍⚖️
Audio 127th 3.856⭐ 47🧑‍⚖️
Humor 43th 4.122⭐ 47🧑‍⚖️
Mood 169th 3.92⭐ 46🧑‍⚖️
Given 50🗳️ 72🗨️

Feedback

Sweetiebelle
Oct 06th · 23:32 UTC
Overall pretty solid game.

I got blasted with sound upon opening so volume control would be nice.


The combination of a standard shape puzzle with the points multipliers of animal traits adds an extra dimension to placement of lifeforms.

Beaming lifeforms up is frustratingly slow at first, but gets more pleasant with beam upgrades.

I was somewhat confused how the animal traits worked at first, especially the rabbit. A quick animation of the rabbit doing its thing as a demo would be helpful.

I made it to 4 of 8 rounds, I struggled to math out the points a little lol.
Maytch
Oct 06th · 23:45 UTC
Interesting use of combos when choosing which animals to place where! Also great art, sfx, and good humor!
ljol3
Oct 07th · 04:04 UTC
Very fun gameplay loop, and i liked the two gameplay scenes affecting each other.

It's the classic addicting gameplay of get stuff to make money to better make stuff!
Iwant_Pizza
Oct 08th · 12:48 UTC
I like Tetris, like this game. Make object like grandmother in box
Pierre-Marie
Oct 08th · 12:54 UTC
Great job, it works really well!
Flying Butter Studio
Oct 08th · 16:21 UTC
Really solid entry for me! That was addictive! My only remark is that's difficult (maybe just for me) to understand the order og the actions. Maybe a reference score to beat would be a plus ? :thinking:
Anyway, i had a great time, the design and the game is plenty of humour, really like it! Very good work, congrats ! :smile:
MOBO_613
Oct 08th · 17:27 UTC
Great game with a really interesting art style.
johnnysix
Oct 08th · 21:34 UTC
haha, great job - love the style. It took a while to figure out the animal arrangement. Quite satisfying seeing the cascade of animals eating and being eaten. :smiley:

I was trying to avoid the fox eating stuff for the first few rounds :sweat_smile:
Psevdonim
Oct 08th · 23:54 UTC
A really good project — I enjoyed it a lot, awesome work!
The gameplay is quite enjoyable and keeps things interesting by constantly switching between the two main mechanics. I’ve always liked puzzle games, so that’s an extra point from me. The art is really funny, and the overall visuals are great!
To be honest, I didn’t dive too deeply into the numbers and combinations, so I’m not sure how well-balanced they are, but I managed to beat it on my first try — the iguana-chameleon is just too overpowered!))
![photo_2025-10-09_04-51-40.jpg](///raw/069/56/z/6f075.jpg)
Bobap
Oct 09th · 08:46 UTC
Really enjoyed this one. You knocked it out of the park. I got a very large amount of critters by the end and it became a little difficult to select the tile I wanted. Would have been nice to be able to rearrange the tiles outside of the planet. Aside from that, excellent job. I cleared with a full prey build and might go for round 2 with a different strat. You may have fumbled on the title a bit since I think Xirnu's Next Top Planet might be more enticing.
![suck_it_up.png](///raw/457/9/z/6f0e0.png)
🎤 Hjalte
Oct 09th · 11:27 UTC
@psevdonim thank you for the feedback! Really appreciate it :). Also awesome to see a gecko build. We pretty much realized right after submitting, that they might be a bit overpowered haha.
🎤 Hjalte
Oct 09th · 11:30 UTC
@bobap Thank you for the feedback! That's so good to hear, that you're interested in trying a different strat. That was our goal for this jam to get that kind of feedback :D.
Also I see you're birdmaxxin', that's my favorite strat as well! And you might be right about the title hmm...
Imos
Oct 09th · 13:43 UTC
It's so funny! Watching things being sucked up is so relaxed. Every part seems to be well organized!
azahara
Oct 09th · 14:02 UTC
Wow, nice game! I really liked the mechanic for abducting animals. I was a bit confused by the puzzle at first, but after a few tries it became really fun. Also, I love the sounds, great work!
Rol
Oct 09th · 14:03 UTC
Very adorable game! Really like how you combine the idea of collecting and strategy to make the player think about what and how to collect and it makes the collecting much more fun. It might be helpful if theres is a guide to show how animal eat things work (like what area what area they’re able to reach to eat)
dendi_life
Oct 09th · 14:05 UTC
thats very good game, i really like all of these: gameplay, art, sound - its all good
Eugenik
Oct 09th · 16:15 UTC
What a fun idea! Feels very polished. GZ!.
jscommander
Oct 10th · 08:12 UTC
Hi there! I really enjoyed playing your game. It looks incredibly well-made.

What impressed me most is how polished everything feels. The art style is absolutely gorgeous.

The animal suction mechanic is fantastic! I love experimenting with different combinations - the fact that you never know the final outcome forces you to think strategically and use multipliers wisely.
ConCaerus
Oct 10th · 21:06 UTC
Very fun game! I could easily see this being turned into a full game!
Pete Valeo
Oct 11th · 06:09 UTC
I cannot believe how much time I just spent playing this game. The premise is not immediately clear, but once you figure it out, it moves deeply into "just one more try" territory, both between levels and after getting a game-over. Great graphics, really well-done, non-invasive music and audio (which, given how simple the mechanics are, is pretty important. I got lost on a few things that weren't obvious (e.g. took me a couple of playthroughs to realize there was a countdown clock, and even though they're RIGHT THERE, I somehow missed the little descriptions for how the different animals/items figured into the scoring, which made it a little confusing how to proceed at first.
All those minor gripes aside, this game has probably gotten more time from me than any jam game in recent memory - very well done!
Amanon
Oct 11th · 08:36 UTC
This game is really fun — excellent in every aspect! It’s such an enjoyable experience, and it reminds me of the time when I used to be fascinated by UFO stories.
zircon123
Oct 11th · 11:14 UTC
Really cool, don't think I've seen a puzzle like this before
Pimeko
Oct 11th · 16:27 UTC
Absolutely loved the mood, and the combination of sucking up items and putting them on a grid was an interesting mechanic :)
nassshie
Oct 11th · 20:36 UTC
I cannot believe you made those sounds yourselves! that is so hilarious!!! must be on the 1 place
torcado
Oct 12th · 03:22 UTC
this is so good! there's so many directions to grow with this idea, you landed on something really good for a game jam. The game itself is great, i love the two-sided gameplay; one with more mechanical requirements and one purely strategic. There's definitely room for balancing improvements but nothing that makes the game unfun by any means. the art is great and the audio fits very well. really solid game!
CodeRaurus
Oct 12th · 16:10 UTC
Fun game! Loved the show setting and points for having some voice lines.

The gameplay is interesting and it has nice amount of complexity to it. Reminds me of Backpack Battles for sure.
However, I was little confused what the order of execution is in the grid. I assumed left-to-right, top-to-bottom but then my foxes on the right side went first.


Good work!
Surfa
Oct 12th · 17:46 UTC
Really liked the intro and the music/voices.

Graphics were good and consistent and the overall gameplay was good. As with other commentators I was not quite sure of the order of operations when scoring which made it a little more difficult. Overall great job :thumbsup:
milq
Oct 13th · 16:05 UTC
I’ve finished the game, and I can honestly say I loved it! Collecting animals, plants, and other items was so much fun, especially organizing them all. I’m not sure if it was possible to rotate things because I was so focused on arranging the animals that I didn’t notice. For me, it’s an incredibly enjoyable and well-rounded game in every way. My sincerest congratulations. Excellent entry, great game!
Ciphereo
Oct 14th · 05:21 UTC
The effect is simply amazing. I love these animals. Every time one of them appears, it surprises me! I enjoy collecting them. This strategy gameplay is extremely interesting.
🎤 Hjalte
Oct 15th · 09:06 UTC
@milq Thank you so much for saying that! That's exactly the kind of reaction, we were hoping for :)
And btw, you can rotate the animals with 'RMB' or 'R'.
milq
Oct 15th · 09:57 UTC
@hjalte Wow, I didn’t know that! Thanks for pointing it out! Very good game!
wdebowicz
Oct 15th · 20:16 UTC
Really interesting and fun to play. It remind me of boards games with similar mechanisms.
ophiene
Oct 22nd · 01:01 UTC
Amazing work! It’s super interesting and has a vert unique way to paraphrase the theme, good job! And welcome to give our game a try! :)
Mamboman
Oct 24th · 20:29 UTC
very nice entry! I love the art, the sounds and the music. It's also very fun to play! thanks for sharing!