Blob, To the Top! by MetRiko
Once upon a time, there was a lush cave where cute little blobs lived happily. But one day the cave started flooding all of a sudden. Will you help the blobs escape to safety?
Use your mouse to play. Hover over blobs, hold Left Click and drag to charge a shot and release Left Click to launch them. Hold Right Click to attract blobs to your mouse. Use the scroll wheel (or W/S or the arrow keys) to scroll the level.
If you're stuck, you can restart the level with R.
If you're up for the challenge, try to rescue as many golden blobs as you can! They're special. Or something.
Head on over to itch.io (link below) to play the game - it unfortunately cannot run in the Ludum Dare website due to requiring SharedArrayBuffer support.
Brought to you by:
MetRiko - game design, programming, graphics
Monczak - programming, sound design, level design
See below for changelogs.
Changelog - version 1.2 (October 16th 2024) * Added a subtle max power indicator for blob launches * Blobs are now properly synchronized with the camera regardless of the frame rate * Blobs will no longer get stuck in one-way platforms and will fly through them correctly from below * Blobs now bounce off bouncy walls properly and in a more predictable manner * Fixed a bug where the Restart button could overlap the Next Level button * Eye shaking is now frame rate-independent * Various improvements to performance * Very subtle difficulty adjustments for level 4, making it easier for more players to get through the first levels of the game
Changelog - version 1.1 (October 10th 2024) * Tweaked launch controls - they now feel faster and more responsive * Fixed camera positioning for different resolutions * Fixed attract having different forces on different hardware - it's now also a bit stronger overall * Tweaked golden blob counter in summary screen - now won't show golden blobs if the level doesn't have any * Difficulty adjusted for levels 3 and 9
:warning: If the web version is lagging, try a native one! :warning:
Visuals in this game rely heavily on custom shaders so it may not perform well in the browser, especially on weaker hardware. You can find native builds below - be sure to pick version 1.2!
| itch.io | https://metriko.itch.io/ld-56 |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/56/blob-to-the-top |
Ratings
| Overall | 200th | 3.927⭐ | 57🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 271th | 3.713⭐ | 56🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 189th | 3.759⭐ | 56🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 67th | 4.324⭐ | 56🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 299th | 4.046⭐ | 56🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 58th | 4.132⭐ | 55🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 305th | 3.481⭐ | 54🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 167th | 4.009⭐ | 55🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 17🗳️ | 20🗨️ |
Either way, we really appreciate your feedback <3
I noticed that you had a newer version with some changes. It felt so much more smoother, even if it seemed like the timer was reduced by a lot! I was finally able to finish the game.
I liked the cute sounds the little blobs made when you shoot them up in the air. :smile:
Felt world of goo vibe, cool game, really polished, great work!
I played it till the end - the last levels where particularly evil with the weight buttons that require 8 or 10 creatures instead of just 3 or 4.
I don't really know what to rate - you have to tell me what your intention was. Because this is a near perfect rage game that stresses the player out in every way it can - and on the same hand it would be a horrible puzzle game, if that was the intention.
I think there is a certain discrepancy between graphics/audio and gameplay. It doesn't look like the typical rage game, it looks and sounds like a cute puzzle game. And then it hits you with the water and horrible death screams. xD
We originally meant to create a Jump King clone, but with manipulating multiple creatures instead of a single character. The idea was to make one very tall level, but that turned out to be way too unforgiving, so we settled on a couple levels instead. We noticed, though, that the game resembled a casual game more than we'd have liked, so we wanted to ramp up the difficulty. In the end we got something that's in between a rage game and an arcade platformer with higher difficulty. And yes, the game wasn't meant to be easy from the get-go!
About the blob launch charge time and rising water - the main idea was to force players to decide if they need to sacrifice time for more power and precision. We wanted players to choose whether they should wait for full power or use smaller, less precise hops and have them adjust to the situation. And the contrast between cute, charming visuals and audio, and intense gameplay was intentional - we thought that would make things more interesting.
Easy to pick up, but difficult to master. Very challenging with a nice replayability. I do love the sound they make when you throw them away :smirk_cat: Congratz on the game!
I really enjoy it, well done, mates!
Perhaps a small criticism would be that I felt the input of the drag motion was too slow, which quickly became stressful with the time pressure.
Still, a great entry. Well done!
Unfortunately, it seems I cannot pass a given level due to a bug (playing web version; may not be the level itself):
Not sure how I got into this state but Restart button is visible at all times on top of next and interestingly clicking it doesn't work, also cannot click Next and only 'R' key works which just resets the level :P
**Quick tip**: add an `N` button to just go to the next level to save this trouble and let keen players see other levels / trust me, they'd appreciate!
Apart from that, if I had to nitpick 1-2 things, recharge could have been awesome faster (probably) but it also makes sense the way it is. Finally, the magnet thing miiiight have been easier to use if it was stronger. GJ : )))
**EDIT** oh wait, I clicked the Restart button and now it disappeared? I am continuing to play :D
Absolutely one of my favorites I've played so far! :slight_smile:
Great job putting a bunch of polish in all the right places with the blobby shaders, eyeballs following the mouse, goopy SFX, and more!
I think with a little tweaking to the control scheme, it could make for a great mobile game too!
Great job all around! :thumbsup:
also, GODOT is alway a win :blue_heart:
I was going to say that only thing I wish it was there was a way to see your scores across the levels and to be able to replay them (for example, to try getting the missed golden blobs, or even just to beat the previous times), but seeing in the comments that the original goal was to have one single tall level it kinda makes sense to not have that.
You've created a great tribute to WoG that stands out by itself. Congrats, this was an amazing entry!.
I do wish the charge up was a tad faster. (my fps wasn't great on my old PC either, so maybe that was a factor?)... But this had such a nice 'toy' factor. So many amazing details too... and the level transitions were really nice. :ok_hand: The amount of levels and polish you were able to cram in. Wow. This is such a top entry.
I see you really liked our little blobby game haha
Like you noticed.. charging is slow, but it is "by design". We wanted players to manage time and make them decide if they prefer to go with full power and lose some precious time or try smaller jumps instead. Time is a resource here ^^
When it comes to lags.. visuals in this game relies heavily on the GPU shaders so it sometimes doesn’t perform well in the browser. In such case it's worth to try a native build instead. We added warning just in case if more people will have the same issue. Thank you for letting us know about it ^^
@MetRiko @Monczak do you know where is the performance bottleneck of the web version? Is it graphics? physics?
EDIT: OK, I think I found part of the answer in previous messages, the performance issue seems to be related to shaders, is it the blobs? the water? something else ?
It could be a really fun web game without this issue.
The real problem with the performance is the blob shader. There is a lot of data that is constantly send from CPU to GPU to keep track of each blobs data like position, velocity, looking direction, state, radius etc.
To simplify an explanation.. we are sending in total about 9 arrays of data to this shader (that's a lot). Godot doesn't support structs for uniforms in the shaders so we have to do it that way.
That said I know it's still possible to improve performance a lot.. for example we could calculate visual effects like looking direction inside the shader directly (just by using mouse position) which could already help a little bit. But even if we will improve performance there is still too much data to make it work well on the low-end hardware inside the browser.
That said after optimizations which we already did in previous patches I'm not getting any lags in the browser version either. So there is that too.
Congratulations on the game.
I love this.
Love the ambience here :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUW3QxSqPh4
~XpMonster
As a goofy idea for stream integration, you could grab a name from chat for writing above each blob so viewers can cheer themselves on.
I found it rather challenging to play especially in the later levels. but it's still fun and I felt compelled to keep on trying. I eventually got to a level that proved to be a bit too difficult for me lol. the controls and the physics feel very nice tho I wish the pull was just a bit stronger
good entry, I enjoyed it!
https://youtu.be/7Yi2kg4OiTU
- The presentation is TOP NOTCH. Music, graphics, UI, everything is slick and super well done, congrats for that.
- The "awakening" mechanic is fun and cool :)
- However the gameplay is an exercise in frustration - there doesn't feel like there's much in my control as a player, playing the game feels like I'm waddling through molasses - and I think that can be attributed entirely to one thing - the mechanic of holding the click to slowly increase the strength of a shot. This makes the game a race to haul as many blobs out of the hole as possible, while not really having any control over the finesse of the throws. If the throw strength were more immediately finessed with click and drag, distance = strength, it wouldn't be a matter of "I can't click and hold fast enough because the strength builds so slow". It would be a matter of working out good angles and good shots. Obviously if you swapped it out directly like I described it would make the game too easy right now, but retweaking the level to allow for shots to be more interesting would be a plus too.
- I'm sure there are more mechanics in later levels but I really just didn't enjoy the "haul imprecise things with slow and jerky controls" mechanic. But the game really feels good other than that aspect. Good job!
Definitely one of my favorites, with a nice balance of fun and challenging gameplay (especially with the little golden blobs).
Add to that the super satisfying sounds and blobbly visuals, and it all comes together as a winning combination. :thumbsup:
I hope y'all have plans to expand on this in the future. :slight_smile: Unlike the little blobs, this game's got legs! :laughing: