Brood by SecondDimension

[raw]
made by SecondDimension for LD33 (JAM)
Here is our Jam entry 'Brood' it's a sort of drag & drop arcade monster management game. You play a giant mother monster who must look after her brood, including keeping them well fed with tasty humans.

This was made by a team of 3, and all gameplay, art, sounds and music were created from scratch over the weekend, Thanks for playing!

NOTES:
Everything is controlled by the mouse, and is explained in game... but Pleeeeeeease read the instructions, or you might not have a clue what's going on! We really would be very grateful if you read them (the help screen took one of our artists hours).

AUDIO BUGS:
If anyone is having audio bugs then please could you let us know the browser and O/S you're using? We think these should all be fixed now so would be good to know if they aren't. Also try pressing 'M' to unmute! Thanks

Ratings

Coolness 100% 1
Overall(Jam) 3.95 68
Audio(Jam) 3.75 106
Fun(Jam) 3.54 189
Graphics(Jam) 4.62 27
Humor(Jam) 2.95 433
Innovation(Jam) 3.76 91
Mood(Jam) 3.64 167
Theme(Jam) 4.29 23

Feedback

馃帳 SecondDimension
24. Aug 2015 路 22:20 UTC
Apologies if anyone has tried to play Brood and there was no link to the game. Our internet connection has been terrible today and it went down just as we were had finished. The link is back up but unfortunately the sound files weren't uploaded with the game, so there is no sound. We will fix this as soon as possible.
馃帳 SecondDimension
24. Aug 2015 路 22:38 UTC
All sound and music should be working now.
mikethingsbetter
24. Aug 2015 路 23:13 UTC
Wow, phenomenal game for the time you had! This would make a great IOS or android game. Very addictive
9.ar7k
24. Aug 2015 路 23:15 UTC
well it's certainly beautiful. i tl;dr'd hard and barely knew what i was doing but that's on me haha. overall looks amazing.
Rocketship
24. Aug 2015 路 23:42 UTC
Very impressed with the polish on display here, even the tutorial screens look like they've had a lot of work put on them. Nice take on the theme, and as someone already said, would work very well on a mobile device. Impressive!
colludium
25. Aug 2015 路 00:05 UTC
Excellent job! Beautiful animations and a really good gameplay.
baykush_figtree
25. Aug 2015 路 02:10 UTC
Quite a fun monster mother simulator (i guess? haha) i love how you can save the falling eggs in case you take them out too late
mrcdk
25. Aug 2015 路 02:40 UTC
I enjoyed it, it's cute in a monster-ish way :D
hoqjed
25. Aug 2015 路 08:46 UTC
Really nice job overall. The game seems well rounded in all departments, gameplay, art, and sound. I glazed over the instructions enough to understand the basics, though it's fairly verbose (which is both good and bad) some people might like the extra hints, but others will skip it because they just want to start playing. Introducing the gameplay in a more natural manner would have been preferable (slower start and ramp up pace over time, hands on learning). On the other hand, the tutorials do look quite nice so that's a plus ;)

At the end your monster stops spawning eggs and so I essentially waited for the nuke to go off while I tossed humans around. From the end game message I assume I played the game correctly and "won". I just found that bit slightly confusing while playing because of the wait duration for the end to arrive.

Aside from those criticisms the game just works well. It feels challenging and once you understand it the game is paced fairly well in terms of the monster grow/feed/throw loop. Really nice job to everyone on the team, you guys should be proud!

Here were my end game stats
---------------------------
Overall score: 10158
Parenting Efficiency: 100
Monsters Saved: 31
Monsters Lost: 49
Eggs Lost/Eaten: 88
Humans Devoured: 34

- Dylan
Jani Nyk盲nen
25. Aug 2015 路 11:18 UTC
Wonderful game, I especially liked the graphical style!
Darius
25. Aug 2015 路 13:30 UTC
Very nices graphics ! I really like the audio part too !
My monsterkids ate sometimes each other... Weird... But fun !
adsilcott
26. Aug 2015 路 00:10 UTC
Excellent graphics, and a great concept! Nice progression of difficulty too.
cbstegeman
26. Aug 2015 路 00:50 UTC
Graphics and feel are great. Very well-rounded and complete game!
zatyka
26. Aug 2015 路 02:23 UTC
Wow. A really well thought out and designed game. Everything really came together nicely. Things seemed to get a little crazy for me all of a sudden, with spawn dropping constantly. I'm glad I made it to the end. My only real complain is the collision is a little wonky when feeding. Sometimes I would have food right on top of one of the monsters, and it wouldn't register.
Ninja Garage
26. Aug 2015 路 05:22 UTC
Your entry is very well designer. Congratulations!! I like the overall feeling of the piece!
stoarch
26. Aug 2015 路 07:50 UTC
Wow. So great game. Will be happy to see it on Kongregate/Steam soon. Upgrades to monsters can be helpful
Jupiter_Hadley
26. Aug 2015 路 14:02 UTC
Love the graphics. Great game! I included it in part 7 of my Ludum Dare 33 Compilation video series, if you would like to take a look :) youtu.be/Ly6pR3C_dVc
BoxedMeatRevolution
26. Aug 2015 路 18:12 UTC
Very nice looking and polished game. However I felt that gameplay didn't give the player enough satisfaction/gratification, like when your monsters are full grown and you send them out.
mahalis
27. Aug 2015 路 00:29 UTC
Fantastic. Great interpretation of the theme, clever gameplay, nice art style as well. The difficulty could use some tuning鈥擨 think more of my brood died from being eaten by their milling siblings than by anything I could have done something about (hunger, bomb-people [who were a nice touch, by the way], etc.)鈥攂ut overall this is a really, really well-done game.
Hippomancer
27. Aug 2015 路 17:14 UTC
Love the art. This one's definitely worth a play.
Dizzyman572
27. Aug 2015 路 17:16 UTC
Excellent game! You guys have done a fantastic job with the art style, the mechanics were very innovative while keeping the game extremely fun. Very nice work to you all. :)
Mase
27. Aug 2015 路 17:58 UTC
Got 7582... it's pretty hard, even with a tablet.
Sometimes the monsters seem reluctant to eat their food; I had more success when I dragged them over it.
The graphics are cute.
boardtobits
27. Aug 2015 路 20:15 UTC
Great take on the theme and gorgeous art to boot. I hit a point where I was producing no eggs for a good minute, which may just have something to do with how things are randomized? Otherwise, I had fun!
kmiitz
27. Aug 2015 路 20:19 UTC
Hi, bug report before I continue playing this really awesome entry:
Using firefox with Win 7 64bits, when I type my player name the music stops and never comes back, neither the sounds. It works well when I use "random name".
Now back to the game!
MagnesiumNinja
27. Aug 2015 路 20:22 UTC
Excellent sound and graphics! It was a little hard to get the monsters to eat sometimes, but I loved the frantic pace of the game.
xvw
27. Aug 2015 路 20:48 UTC
Great game. Maybe too difficult at the end (all my eggs were falling I wasn't quick enough to get them while feeding the monsters). Addictive, nice looking, easy to play. Congratz!

(I don't know why but I had no audio though the game :(, I'm not voting for audio then. I'll try again later, maybe it's a Firefox bug ? )
kmiitz
27. Aug 2015 路 20:48 UTC
Definitely the best entry I've seen so far in this jam, after rating 20+ games! Did you really started from scratch? Because the game is so complete in all its aspects: graphics, sound, gameplay, theme...and (almost, see my other post) bug-free!

From the comments, I find that people underestimate the work accomplished here, especially compared to the games I've seen, which mostly are in prototype stage. That makes me wants to change all my other ratings ^^ You are just not playing in the same category.

I especially like the way you respected the theme and found a cool concept to develop.
The tutorial is really useful and impeccably made.
Also, kudos for making an html 5 game! That removes all barriers from playing.

Some comments on the gameplay: it was not totally clear what I was supposed to fear during the game. How does the threat level evolve? Does it depend on my actions? Is there a fixed duration for the game?

Keep up the good work,
Cheers!
馃帳 SecondDimension
28. Aug 2015 路 12:26 UTC
Thank you everyone for the nice comments.

@kmiitz
It was hard work but we did do everything from scratch, glad you enjoyed the game.

@xvw
Sorry about the sound. I just tested it in Chrome and Firefox and the sound seems to work fine, so not sure what happened.
peterkirk
28. Aug 2015 路 12:41 UTC
I really like the designs of the monsters and the colour scheme you used.
I felt sad when I started to be attacked and the bomb people started to come. Then the nuke happened.
derr
28. Aug 2015 路 16:20 UTC
Wow! One of my favorite games so far! Audio and visuals work very well together. Super polished! 5/5
lemer
28. Aug 2015 路 17:55 UTC
Great graphics and gameplay there. Good work.
StabAlarash
28. Aug 2015 路 20:48 UTC
Wow that's awesome !!!
EwChap
29. Aug 2015 路 02:51 UTC
Overall great game. Very cool take on the theme.
freaknarf
29. Aug 2015 路 10:55 UTC
Very nice game ! I think it could be quite a killer on mobiles...
Very good visuals and work overall ! Intructions had to be read, because the game itself is quite hard and goes faster and faster... Really well polished stuff, good job !!
jofra
29. Aug 2015 路 11:38 UTC
Awesome game! the graphics are very well done one of the best i had seen so far. the gameplay is very well done. Such a solid game!
GJ!
01101101
29. Aug 2015 路 12:03 UTC
Really good game, beautiful art and nice mood (no audio though)
Gameplay is fun, quite original and well balanced.
Great job, one of the best for sure!
Krunoslav
29. Aug 2015 路 12:08 UTC
Nice graphics and dynamics, very professional!
andreiichim
29. Aug 2015 路 12:16 UTC
This is awesome. It's the most complete game I played so far.
Love everything about the game.
PS: If you ask me the humans were the monsters... poor mother...
Techblogogy
29. Aug 2015 路 12:18 UTC
Amazing game! It's really fun to play. Has quite a simple start and can get quite hard as it goes on! Although I somehow accidentally muted the audio.

Great Job!
OmarShehata
29. Aug 2015 路 13:09 UTC
Great game! I definitely love the graphics and atmosphere.

It was a little confusing at first. I think if there was an interactive tutorial it would definitely help!
RockhopperGames
29. Aug 2015 路 13:09 UTC
For some reason, the audio didn't play at all for me, but otherwise this game was excellent!
RoboNebula
29. Aug 2015 路 13:28 UTC
You know 'brood' means bread in dutch, right?
GFM
29. Aug 2015 路 13:38 UTC
Great game! Graphics and audio are amazing!

This would be great on a touch device! But with a mouse, it got tiring and repetitive... =/

Still, I really liked this game!
Great job!
馃帳 SecondDimension
29. Aug 2015 路 13:39 UTC
I did not know that! Sorry to all our Dutch players, you may be disappointed that this is blur a have about bread
oskardevelopment
29. Aug 2015 路 13:48 UTC
Awesome game! I loved the graphics (including the help screen and the cat in the credits)! Felt that a greater focus in the help screen describing when a egg is large enough to become a brood would make it easier to start winning! Awesome idea and nice take on the theme! Great game!
Ithildin
29. Aug 2015 路 14:10 UTC
Brilliant entry! Lots of quality work and attention to the detail put in here, you can tell.

Congratulations!
magenta
29. Aug 2015 路 16:02 UTC
Lovely graphics, the game ran a tad sluggish on my Chrome (Linux) so took a few tries to grab a monster to fling. Also, what does the emoticon with 3 eyes mean? This would play really nice on a touch device :}
ehtd
29. Aug 2015 路 19:46 UTC
Almost everything is great, but I did not felt it was fun. Somewhat engaging, yes, but thats all.
馃帳 SecondDimension
29. Aug 2015 路 21:33 UTC
Thanks everyone, sorry for my terrible spelling in the last comment - autocorrect strikes again
OnionBlaze
30. Aug 2015 路 08:45 UTC
Very great mechanic! It got really hard after a while. Love the art style. Had lots of fun! :D
aviktorov
30. Aug 2015 路 14:18 UTC
Great entry! So polished and solid. You guys should continue working on it and make it available on game portal.

P.S. Dat cat in credits made my evening. Thank you!
ArchonMode
30. Aug 2015 路 16:19 UTC
Really beautiful game. Although the gameplay became kinda dull 2 minutes into the game. Is it a highscore game, or there is a "Win" ending?
Mach60KAS
30. Aug 2015 路 16:21 UTC
I had quite a bit of fun, till the humans nuked me anyway. Great game!
fragileannihilator
31. Aug 2015 路 15:30 UTC
Great! Is this possible to beat this game? I reached 100% and nothing happened, the bar just continued decreasing as always.

And let the player figure out what happens in your game, nobody wants to read those text tutorials. I just skipped them and figured everything out myself.
Grahhhhh
31. Aug 2015 路 20:28 UTC
Wow, that was a great game, it was tough for me, but the gamestyle reminded me of something like diner dash, but since it's monsters, boys can play it in the open :D I liked this game and the graphics were great! Think of this next time you see a hole in the ground.
shawn42
01. Sep 2015 路 02:15 UTC
Really fun. It gets really frantic toward the end there... nice work.
cyrixd
01. Sep 2015 路 08:22 UTC
Pretty cool concept, very well executed and polished. Loved the art style, plus your use of the theme is great. The management cycle of grabbing new eggs, feeding young hatchlings and sending out fully grown monsters was tightly tuned, but I feel like there's a key threat missing that would tie it all together. Something to give more urgency or over-arching strategy. Still had a good time playing until my nest was nuked. Great work.
Hectigo
01. Sep 2015 路 11:07 UTC
It's not that great to start with a lot of tutorials to read, would be better if the game mechanics got introduced as you play. Of course with the limited time, it's good you could put in the effort to include some instructions.

The gameplay is okay, but could be improved in a few small ways. Most importantly, monsters being dragged in the air shouldn't be able to eat. It's especially annoying when throwing a fully grown monster out and food is wasted on them. Also, the monsters on the ground become quite tedious to micromanage, some mechanic to help with that would be good. Maybe at least the bigger ones could simply be made slower?

Very good graphics and audio.
WubAlliance
01. Sep 2015 路 15:30 UTC
Fun game! I really enjoyed the sound and graphics. The game was very well balanced, especially towards the end. My only gripe is the camera movement, which made things slightly more tricky to grab. Overall very, very polished entry, I can see this working very well on a mobile device or touch screen. Nice job!
VoodooWarlock
01. Sep 2015 路 15:30 UTC
Now we know from where comes all those monsters from video games, nice work man! Check out my let's play: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbvYeNAoVcE
SpringCabal
01. Sep 2015 路 15:33 UTC
I liked it a lot, although I feel my stuff was dying unexpectedly sometimes.
puppetmaster
01. Sep 2015 路 17:46 UTC
Th art of the graphics are unique and I like it very mutch. Cool game you have made, congrats!
Mykaelos
01. Sep 2015 路 18:54 UTC
Absolutely fantastic game! Excellent polish in all areas, and the game was super engaging (and pretty hard for me too)!
Schrodinger Games
01. Sep 2015 路 22:06 UTC
Excellent sim. Found myself playing for half an hour :)
Finn
02. Sep 2015 路 00:00 UTC
Excellent, truly brilliant.
LandoSystems
02. Sep 2015 路 01:30 UTC
Great music and excellent art style, absorbing gameplay, great take on the theme, very nice work!
Lukbebalduke
02. Sep 2015 路 02:17 UTC
Amazing art style, you did a great job. But I felt the gameplay was a little bit slow, maybe my browser is "lagging". Overall, cool entry!
valid4life
04. Sep 2015 路 23:45 UTC
The graphics were gorgeous! I loved the mood and look of it all
spotco
05. Sep 2015 路 01:35 UTC
Interesting concept, though there seemed to be no end goal (other than to survive). The tutorial was SUPER frontloaded, which is usually a good way to get people not to read something. The icons weren't particularly informative of what stuff meant (3 eyed sad face compared to two eyed sad face?) and some of the interactions lacked a lot of feedback (like feeding the monsters and throwing them out).

Also, sound didn't work for me. On OSX and firefox.
LastLeaf
05. Sep 2015 路 04:50 UTC
Nice game overall!
No sound for me when first loading, but when I reopen the page, the sound works. I am using firefox on linux.
walsh9
05. Sep 2015 路 05:31 UTC
What a cool idea! I had no sound in firefox on windows 7. Got it working in chrome though.
treeman
05. Sep 2015 路 08:29 UTC
I loved this game, simple but addicting.
HThomson
05. Sep 2015 路 11:33 UTC
The graphics are gorgeous and the level of polish on this thing is incredible, it feels like a fully released game not a jam entry! Gameplay got a little tedious but still, for 72hrs work this is truly amazing.
oakus
06. Sep 2015 路 07:59 UTC
Nice game, for me it was inovative. I was really enjoying the game and I really appreciate the graphic design.
Togimaro
06. Sep 2015 路 16:10 UTC
Just excellent! Amazing musics and graphics! Very good gemaplay idea, it's a fantastic works!
marudziik
07. Sep 2015 路 00:18 UTC
Really good entry. Feels very complete and polished. Pretty awesome music, but it really stands out in all categories.
bombjack
07. Sep 2015 路 10:37 UTC
very good entry :) the game is really fun and the art is pleasant.
NightShadow0
07. Sep 2015 路 20:56 UTC
I'm absolutely dreadful at this, there's so much going on, some difficulty settings would make me very happy. But damn, this is really impressive and surprisingly polished, you could easily pass this off as a commercial game. And that music is SO good. Brilliant job!
igoramendola
08. Sep 2015 路 05:56 UTC
wow!! this entry was nicely done ^^ The idea is pretty cool and well executed. Congrats to the team, good work :D
Xanjos
10. Sep 2015 路 13:48 UTC
This is a pretty well polished entry and great use of the theme. Gets really difficult in the later stages though.
broknecho
12. Sep 2015 路 17:29 UTC
Really neat concept. Got pretty hectic later on. Great Job!
inbetweengames
12. Sep 2015 路 20:33 UTC
That was really fun! A bit hard to play with the touch pad so I'll have to try again later with a proper mouse. My poor babies! 掳o_o掳
Stending
13. Sep 2015 路 10:38 UTC
Wonderful, like always! 5/5
chikun Dev Team
14. Sep 2015 路 10:35 UTC
Overall a release-quality game with polished execution; the graphics and animation of the monster is especially impressive. Some more BG music would have added a lot to the experience, but regardless an excellent effort. Would recommend!