Circle Tracer Cookie Defense by pkenney

Little does that guy know, he's about to be more like...

Game should be self-explanatory, just give it a shot.
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Notes on the development:
This one was weird. I spent a LOOOT of my time implementing a feature (the green enemies "breaking" your traceline) with a ton of finnicky interactions. But then, when the game loop came together and I saw it in context, I realized to my horror that this feature would need to be cut -- it just didn't play well and actually made the game feel terrible!
I scrambled looking for what was fun in the remaining parts. I stripped a SECOND expensive feature (cookies bounced away from your traceline) that was incentivizing a really boring strategy, and tried to make what was there enjoyable. But now I was down two major interactions.
When time got short I had to push aside the desire to dig further, and turn the corner for the home stretch of sound effects, score tracking, and scene transitions.
Never before has so much wound up on the cutting floor.
Also, I found that I have a new recurring problem: My toddler understands why I disappeared for most of two days, but he wants to see the result. And so what probably would have been killing became "eating cookies" so I don't get difficult questions from him.
If you push deep into a high score here, let me know how it goes. I took some of the safety limits off the difficulty scaling right at the end of the jam, so I'm actually not sure that it doesn't go completely bonkers on you if you can stay alive long enough.
| Link | https://savagehill.itch.io/circle-tracer |
| Link | http://savagehillgames.com/LD55/LD55-sourcecode.zip |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/55/circle-tracer-cookie-defense |
Ratings
| Overall | 87th | 3.81⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 38th | 4.025⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 72th | 3.81⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 248th | 3.262⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 137th | 3.667⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 183th | 3.132⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 88th | 3.421⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 234th | 3.079⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 19🗳️ | 23🗨️ |
I found the tutorial to be a bit misleading since you can still clear it after eating the round face, only later I realized I was supposed to keep them alive. Also it would be great to have a game over screen that shows your final score, I think I managed to get more than 20 points but it was pretty hectic and I couldn't keep my eyes on the counter.
I think that's when I had the most fun - when I was down to one cookie and the screen was absolutely filled with enemies and I could just go nuts in a blind panic.
Also - I feel the pain of having to make something toddler-friendly. No idea if mine would love this or be filled with existential dread at the idea of the cookies being eaten. Could go either way.
⭐ Easy to learn, difficult to master.
Possibly adding another move (maybe something that could guide the cookies) could make the end game more manageable.
Overall, great work!
Reminds me a lot of Pokémon Ranger, which actually does the breaking the traceline thing you wanted to do pretty well (even though to do that in your game it would require a button to press)! Make sure to check it out for a couple ideas.
It took me a while to understand I wasn't supposed to encircle the cookies but instead protect them...!