Critical Core by Benjamin Halko
The core has been overloaded with Deadly Doom™! Collect points to keep it from destroying everything!
| Epic Gameplay | More Epic Gameplay |
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This was my 4th time participating in Ludum Dare.
Controls
- Use the arrow keys, wasd, or a controller to move
- Press Escape / Backspace to return to the menu
- Press tab to disable bloom, useful if it is running slow
- Desktop users can press F4 / F11 to toggle fullscreen
Tools Used
- Game Engine: GameMaker
- Music: Acid
- Sound FX: Bfxr
- Leaderboard: Firebase
- Logo: Photoshop
Special Thanks
- My Dad - for once again making the music
Side note
- Fun fact, this was made 1 day before my first day of college. It'll be fun to look back on this game and see how far I've grown as a game dev.
Changelog
- (10/03) Tweaked balancing
- (10/05) Fixed collision
- (10/10) Fixed score system
- (10/11) Reverted score system
Ratings
| Overall | 95th | 4.128⭐ | 84🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 68th | 4.14⭐ | 84🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 203th | 3.835⭐ | 84🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 65th | 4.415⭐ | 84🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 419th | 3.86⭐ | 84🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 14th | 4.36⭐ | 84🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 172th | 4.019⭐ | 81🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 30🗳️ | 0🗨️ |
The music never felt repetitive and always had me on edge, the stage dynamically changing size got me to think about how to get the most points in the fastest time possible. The visuals are a treat even if they are pretty simple shapes you use them well and make them go far. Being a reverse bullet hell in a tight space is something I never even thought I wanted.
I have an issue with the early game difficulty, for the first 5-7 rounds you are able to just stay still and wait and you will get enough score *and* you wont die. I'm not too sure how to fix this without breaking the late game but I want to point it out.
I also found round 12 to make the game much harder due to the shrinking of the stage being so much more excessive. It starts to make the rounds less about dodging and more about planning and luck. This difficulty jump while making the game much more intense feels very sudden as all thre previous rounds lacked this time issue. Again I don't know how to fix this as all my ideas would make it worse but I would just like you to be aware.
The hiscore showing as the global highscore feels misleading and I thought something was bugged until I saw the final score screen. Yes there is text saying pb but I feel as if naming the pb as hiscore and hiscore as leaderboard. Thats a nitpick though (they all are really) so you didnt really make a mistake.
Overall very fun and extremely good job!
2nd in the world rankings so far.
Congratulations!


I wonder how you implemented global highscores, is it on private database or a is there a public service for that use? I think there is one I've seen but don't remember the name of it. EDIT: ok yeah I guess you use firebase, thats always an option to a some point.
I kinda wish this was longer :smile: EDIT2: ok it is longer if you just get further :laughing:
i know the leaderboard has been reset but let's still enjoy this small victory hehe
i saw a streamer play your game and i wanted to try it myself. what a good idea:i loved playing it! the game has a lot of juice and feels really polished. the tones of the balls you absorb work really well with the music (which is very good btw, congrats to your dad) and both audio and art (simple but cool, you don't need more visual information in this kind of game) are very pleasant.
great job!
I'm rather shocked by how well the balance is, it is not boring either when it's easy or hard. Awesome work!
The music is really good and the gameplay too!
One small criticism is that at some point it felt like I just had to stay still for a while and just eventually win the level.
https://youtu.be/xESOR3h6Pek
Yeah this thing rips
the game pretty addictive and fun too.
great job!
It has a great risk and reward payoff and great simplistic graphics! :)
The music and sound effects are also amazing.
But what really nails it, is the tight game loop. You play game after game and then you realize that hours passed.
Here's the prove that I played this far too long, but I enjoyed every minute of it:

Here are some tips.
1) Some levels feel harder than others. I think the main reason is, that those levels only spawn 2 orbs in the center at once, while others do more. Level 7 for example. In this level you need to play a lot more aggressive to be able to finish it before the play area gets to small. Other levels, where more orbs spawn, are more forgiving.
2) Use a controller. It's a lot easier to make micro adjustments on it. There's a general flaw though: you can't easily control velocity in an analogue way. It's either full velocity or none. I think the skill ceiling would increase even more if finegrained velocity control was possible.
3) You can't have more than 3 lifes and regain a life each level. Because of that, you can cheese some points in the earlier levels by killing yourself 2 times right before the level finishes. It's not much, but sometimes every point counts.
4) I think it's possible to reach level 12 and beat my highscore. But you need to be VERY lucky and have a lot of patience. Good luck!
https://youtu.be/OMFzVKOU-1I?si=BGTvE67UVQbH5tqe&t=12055

**EDIT**
I finally got to 20th! Exactly at 20 too!! xD

Here's the VOD on YouTube to watch the gameplay, just skip to your chapter on the video!
https://youtu.be/-eCnQ8GAhN8
The music is great and the fact it's integrated with the game is awesome. Super fun entry, might play some more and try and get that top ten position I wanted so bad.
I do have a few nitpicks mostly around the core balancing factors of the game. I felt like with both the ball and the core growing, as well as the food balls, and the shuriken thrown into the mix, it was a little bit overwhelming to try and manage those factors outside of the frantic moment-to-moment repositioning. I did come up with a few strategies to survive longer and got to round 8 in my playthrough, but I would have enjoyed my time a bit more if it felt like there were incentives to play with particular strategies to manage the chaos a bit better. Often times, games like this include a dodge mechanic with i-frames, or some other resource the player can use to mitigate the times when the RNG is being unkind.
Outside of that concern, I really enjoyed the attention to detail with things like particle systems and the pulsing elements, as well as the high score system of course. You scoped the game really well for the jam as well, which is always worth commending.
Great job!
This game gives me major Miniclip vibes. I could totally see myself playing this in middle school to waste time in class. :smile: It's also ridiculously polished and well-executed. Awesome job!
The fact you gain score even when you lose a life at the end of a lvl, is a bit unfair (and a strategy to win more point), if u fix this don't forget to add a bit more score to balance it (something like 11000 point instead of 10000).
I understood the shape very late, i know i'm slow (it's for diagonal)
Sometimes, circles teleports when they hit a wall not where they were.
Again, good job for this jam
Don't know if related to my username, but my leaderboard position is reset every run lol (even with worse score).
Again, sorry about that.
Loved the game. tricky yet fun. Sucks when you grow into a wall lol. Solid entry!

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1946756082?t=0h39m25s
Also as you saw in the score chaser discord. I'm going for that WR :)
The faster movement along diagonals is a interesting design choice that strangely works very well with shape of the arena. Had a lot of fun trying to get into top 10!
