Unlimited MACE by Yoss III

[raw]
made by Yoss III for Ludum Dare 54 (JAM)

I started trying to make a game about a person on a bicycle dodging cars, but the back wheel of the bike kept spinning wildly, and so now it's a game about killing cars WITH YOUR MACE.

Unlimited MACE is a horde survival game about managing space. The enemies fire a ton of projectiles, so you have to be smart about attacking and retreating. Luckily, you can press the spacebar a spin-parry that lets you convert projectiles into health. But the parry takes a second to recharge, and you can only use it while moving.

Controls:

Movement - Arrow keys or WASD

Spin - Space

Screen Shot 2023-10-02 at 11.31.14 AM.pngmace_demo.gif

Ratings

Overall 1004th 3⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Fun 819th 3.114⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 901th 2.909⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Theme 1105th 2.425⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 971th 2.523⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Audio 602th 2.955⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Humor 421th 3.205⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Mood 989th 2.786⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Given 30🗳️ 27🗨️

Feedback

Taeghen
02. Oct 2023 · 21:53 UTC
The controls are hard, the rotation how the character is too fast (But I like the bike curve !)
vivid-hallucination
08. Oct 2023 · 20:55 UTC
This is very difficult to play, but swinging that flail around is wild. Good job!
Ayxs
08. Oct 2023 · 21:01 UTC
The controls are hard, I kinda get what you are going for but some more explanation could have been provided. I am not really a fan of how the spin attack will always turn you around, this makes it really unintuitive at the start and difficult to figure it out. I eventually got to around 3000 points in 4 or 5 tries before I really understood the controls.

But still, great work for a Compo game!
RubyDaPrincess
08. Oct 2023 · 21:46 UTC
Not too easy to manage the controls but love all the audio, still fun too play. With a bit of refinement could spend a few hours playing.
1257th or nothing
08. Oct 2023 · 22:08 UTC
LOL. Very satisfying and consitent: graphics art, theme, gameplay.
But the controls are hard to handle, and I just tried a few games.
jacobingalls
08. Oct 2023 · 22:11 UTC
Fun game! The feeling of the mace lining up and plowing through a hundred cars is great. Music is touch in your mace for my maces. I would love to know the deep lore reason why a person on their racing bike is getting attached by hoards of cars, and defending themselves with a elephant sized mace.
A1stakesauce
08. Oct 2023 · 23:52 UTC
Some balancing may be in order. but good start. Also feels like my health is going down without getting hit. Great physics cool concept.
Paulsams
09. Oct 2023 · 16:19 UTC
Well... It was fun and it was a mess, but the main problem is that somehow controlling enemy bullets is unrealistic. Perhaps I would restore HP with a good game, ala for combos and the like.
Hakro
10. Oct 2023 · 18:50 UTC
It was fun, but a bit hard to grasp what's going on at some point. I didn't know what to do exactly to maximize my shots, and at some point, I just was to far of the enemies, all lost by myself.

Other than that, nice little entry. GG.
LDJam user 265360
12. Oct 2023 · 16:19 UTC
thanks all for the comments so far!

@taeghen @vivid-hallucination @ayxs @rubydaprincess @1257th-or-nothing @hakro : seems like the controls are a common theme! Yeah, the current controls are a mix of not having enough time / testing so much over such a short period of time that something weird started to seem normal. a more polished version of this would probably have different vehicles to account for different people's preferences. A couple elements are intentionally a mess, but a lot of that is unintentional, as a compromise to finish on time.

@paulsams @a1stakesauce : yeah, a combo meter and better health balancing were on the list but cut for time. The goal was originally to have like a billion projectiles that were impossible to fully avoid but lots of ways to restore health. my imperfect solution for the jam was to make it so that you can't restore that much health and it's more about rationing how slowly you lose it.

@jacobingalls : The deep lore is that riding a bicycle makes me hate cars, and so this game asks "what if someone on a bicycle REALLY REALLY hated cars?"
someone
15. Oct 2023 · 10:35 UTC
Fun idea. The turn controls are way too fast though.
I found myself mostly ignoring the powerups as navigating precisely was impossible.
I barely noticed that there were bullets. The game is so chaotic and fast they just disappear into the noise.
I liked that swinging turns you around as it makes bouncing between clusters of cars easier.
Could have done with some sounds effects.
deadjolly
15. Oct 2023 · 15:07 UTC
Well that was an experience! As others have said, I also barely noticed the projectiles, as I was too busy spinning to win. Controls felt way too touchy, essentially doing an about-face every time I tried to turn left or right. Some sort of sound effect for damaging cars would have been nice, but could have been overbearing. The music definitely help set the tone!
LDJam user 265360
16. Oct 2023 · 04:57 UTC
thanks for playing, @someone and @deadjolly ! the sound effects are all musical (tom drum for hitting car, horn for level up, etc.), but it sounds like either they get buried in the mix or there's an issue with sound in the web build
pkenney
17. Oct 2023 · 05:35 UTC
I dig the frantic pace! It's too much going on with too little feedback and too-tiny bullets and too-fast turning for me to care about specific surgical details and instead I just leap into the fray and enjoy the wild ride. The combination of absurdly fast turns and the swinging mace and the overwhelming horde of enemies really integrated nicely. And the music captured that flowy state of play very well. Add to that the quick retry and the fact that the game did not waste time grinding back up to difficulty, and it was easy to play "one more time."

I don't think I ever got very good, but I enjoyed my time.
Satyre
17. Oct 2023 · 19:26 UTC
Very action filled game, very interesting idea and also the mechanics are good. Despite the fast pacing and the control of the flail, I like the concept very well. The only thing that was too hard for me is the fast movement and approaching of enemies. Maybe the spawning rate should be a bit lower, so in the beginning you can level up and based on that, the spawning rate will raise up, because you have time to get used to the controlls and the game difficulty. It would feel more like my own fault when I fail in the end :D
kirsybuu
19. Oct 2023 · 02:12 UTC
Fun hectic game, once you get a feel for the controls. It seemed like the spin was pretty overpowered compared to trying to manually swing the mace using physics, could be fun to balance things so that is a more viable strategy.