Dreadzone by DzejPi
You were called for a cleanup of tiny creatures in the castle walls. Are you up to the task?
How to play
Walk into arena and survive! Collect health bonuses and more guns in order to defend against more and more aggressive tiny creatures!
Web version is available. I spent a non-significant amount of Sunday trying to find every possible way how to optimise the game for web and sacrificed a very big chunk of plans, but no matter what I tried, I didn't get rid of the issue where after around 3 or 4 minutes of playing in areana, all 3D objects visually disappear before Compo, so, Compo web version contains this issue (not local builds, though).
On Monday, with a clear head, I took a look at the project and made some massive optimalisation, which made the web version work properly. If you can forgive post-compo performance fix, which didn't touch gameplay one bit, feel free to play it here:
- https://dzejpi.itch.io/dreadzone
If you feel strongly Compo, then play here:
- https://dzejpi.itch.io/dreadzone-strict-compo
Either way, you can also download local builds - those worked fine the whole time.
Controls
- WSAD: Move like in all 3D first person games.
- Left click: Interaction with items.
- Middle mouse button scroll: circle between weapons.
- 1-5: Switching between weapons.
- Escape: Toggle pause menu. Focus on HTML5 on Itchio is not perfect, so if you’re playing HTML5 version, press Esc twice and click on the Continue button with your mouse to focus it back properly.
- Shift (hold): Sprint.
- Space: Jump.
Tools used
- Game engine: Godot 4.3.
- Aseprite
- Blender
- Ableton Live 11 Standard
- Audacity
Commentary
This is the first time I used Godot 4+ for the game jam, I always used 3.X before due to well working web exporters. This project went amazing all the way to the first web export, which I did way too late. Would there be no web issues, this game would be much bigger - I had 4 different arenas with dynamic doors and gameplay, and planned an endless mode at the end.
The web export was supposed to be a formality, like in all of my previous Godot exports. No such luck here. Once I exported this to web, then I ran into the first issue - I couldn't see any textures on objects in the main menu, I saw only white. This got thankfully resolved by the different compression method.
I thought this would resolve my trouble, but once I started the new game, I didn't see any objects in game, only skybox and 2D elements. I figured out that this is due to too many nodes.
In the end, I removed 3 out of 4 arenas, which made the objects appears. However, all objects disappeared after like 2 minutes of playing again. So, I implemented the enemy limit so that spawners do not spawn over the certain number creatures in total, I optimised ground and walls massively, which got the gameplay to like 3-4 minutes, but then I hit the wall.
I am kinda disappointed, because this could have been much bigger and better game. Would there be no problems with web platform, this could have been my best entry, I would say.
That said, despite everything, I think this game is still pretty fun. I am always web-first, but in this case, I learned my lesson and after this experience, I will be more mindful of optimisation on web.
| Link | https://github.com/dzejpi/dreadzone-ld |
| HTML5 (Performance fix) | https://dzejpi.itch.io/dreadzone |
| Link | https://dzejpi.itch.io/dreadzone |
| Linux (Untested) | https://dzejpi.itch.io/dreadzone |
| HTML5 (Strict Compo) | https://dzejpi.itch.io/dreadzone-strict-compo |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/56/dreadzone |
Ratings
| Overall | 67th | 3.882⭐ | 36🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 42th | 3.956⭐ | 36🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 265th | 2.824⭐ | 36🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 147th | 3.676⭐ | 36🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 105th | 3.794⭐ | 36🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 49th | 3.838⭐ | 36🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 97th | 3.662⭐ | 36🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 45🗳️ | 44🗨️ |
Overall smoother animations and a bit better lighting would make the game just that bit better!
@rezistor thankfully resolved now. :laughing:
@mmph great points, especially with lighting - yours is on point and much more atmospherical. I have to learn to work with lights better. :smile:
Rated your games back!
Good work brother! This is sick!
The only thing I wasn't sure on was the tilting on A/D, felt a bit weird, but it's only a minor thing :)
@stormburpee phew, glad you didn't mind and had a great experience!
@ladybenko glad you liked the music, I spent only a relatively little time with it, but thankfully melody didn't take long, and instruments were just some basic Sylenth presets.
@adjo glad you liked my frogs, it's true that you cannot really examine them closely, haha. Will keep the tilting in mind, most of my friends liked it, but I can see both sides. Good candidate for toggling on/off in settings if I decide to continue forward with this game!
Played and rated all of your games back. :)
@dooskington glad you liked the music. Good point with shotgun being slightly slow, I could have thought about it. I focued way too much on spread. Tilt could have been smaller, good point. Thank you very much for gerat feedback! Rated your game back!
@ngryyyyy glad you liked the music and had fun playing! I see you don't have any game, but if you do, please tag me and I will play it.
@mmm1008fm reloading would indeed be nice, but I was worried about it taking way too much time, plus it requires splitting models into more pieces. But were this not a jam game, I would definitely consider it. Maybe in the future? Also I see that you're fixing the game, so, I will check it and rate it when ready. :)
Sound is fine, even looped, it not becomes noisy!
I tried to jump over the wall via jumping on enemies, but failed(
Felt impossible after getting the minigun, no idea how someone has 29K.
Simple but fun game. There is (mostly) a natural progression to the weapons that keeps up well enough to the enemies for the most part. I do wish there was a reason to go back to the previous guns with some mechanical advantages though, it felt odd to be able to but have no reason to.
The visuals look great, very atmospheric. The camera sway with the strafe was a bit difficult to get used to but felt natural after a couple minutes. The enemies were appropriately scary (though maybe a bit too scary when a spider got stuck on my head).
Good work!
@custodi very original, that would probably save you, because I didn't implement dying if you get out of arena... but I kept it in my mind, I just forgot! Rated your game back. :)
@bad-fetus true, I tried some balancing with different damage dealt and of course different speed, but it's true that last two guns are OP compared to the previous ones. I got spider stuck on my head few times, but didn't have enough time to resolve it. Seems that it happens if you stand close to spawner and it just spawns on your head. That can ruin the day. And I see I already rated your game. :)
@aplovestudio glad you liked that, makes my heart happy.
@brain-siege-gameworks true, shotgun is definitely an underdog here.
Rated your games back!
Glad you liked the game, @kirass, rated yours back. :)
Glad to play an FPS submission with a web export!
Played & rated your game back. :)
@artallester glad you liked the movement! And I see I already rated your game. :)
Another dirty trick I did was to just use one material for everything; if you don't care about lightning and different model properties, you can do it like me and put everything in one 256x256 texture and use it for everything.
Or, it is always possible to use flat 3D sprites for the 2.5D look, but it's tricky to pull it of so that it looks really good.
Played & rated your game back, loved it!
But you're right — I indeed exported every object as its separate file (in `creatures_obj`, `guns_obj` and `world_obj` folders). When I work on my personal private projects, I keep the Blend file somewhere else as it can get big, and even turning the camera is considered a change, so, it can get very git unfriendly. But it's fine for a jam.
However, I think that you can actually configure Godot to be able to import Blend files directly into it and it can load all objects in it. And this also means that changes in Blend file are autorefreshed in Godot, but I actually haven't tried that out yet and it sounds kinda unsafe for me. But maybe it could make sense in some cases.
Two thoughts:
- There doesn't seem to be much point to _not_ sprinting, so maybe the player should just be always sprinting without needing to press shift
- Bug speed doesn't appear to reset when you get a game over. Trying to pick off minigun-level bugs with the starter pistol is quite the extra challenge.
Good catch with the creature speed, it is indeed not reset properly after the game over, oops! But their speed should readjust properly after one minute of playing, so, I guess if you survive the first frantic minute, then it should go back to normal. Ah those global variables, they always cause some trouble, yet I don't stop using them.
Played & rated your game back. :)
Great game, amazing weapon variation for a compo game. The automated weapons (machine gun and minigun) only seem to shoot while there is a new input event which is a bit weird, but just wiggling the mouse a bit mostly works. Movement and everything feels great and, like everyone said, the music is very fitting, got me pumped :-)
I've played Natura and Pulse of the Etheral and, as you said, it's probably your best entry yet. It's just simply fun! I'm glad you focused on plain gameplay. My best entry (a year ago) I did exactly that. I'm sorry you had troubles with exporting the web version. I've never experienced gamebreaking exporting problems with godot yet, but I know how it is sometimes. If you say that it could be even better, I am definitely looking forward to your next jam!
The director was really good! Enemies and drops spawned right when I needed them to spawn. There is only one slightly unbalanced downtime (two distinct moments around before the minigun spawn). Making the enemies stupid fast to assure the end of the game was a great idea to. I also need to mention how the first automatic weapon felt like a godsend ^^
I feel it kinda needs an option to change mouse sensitivity, but otherwise the controlls were on point. I love the music that you make! Aaaand I think that's all I've got to say right now xD
Export problems definitely taught me a valuable lesson, because I never had export issues with Godot before, but I will still stick with 4.3. Just for the next time, I will keep in mind to use proper compression for textures, and make sure there are not hundreds of nodes in the scene, haha! Mouse sensitivity is definitely a must have in a full feature game, if it ever comes to that, so, I am definitely taking notes. Thank you again, played and rated your game back!
@whatiswhat thank you for playing! Glad you liked graphics and music, really keeps me motivated to work on this further! :heart: Rated your game back!