Depths shooter by JamesGames1000
No music Sorry
Side scroller shooter
To play Download zip file and play Main.
Controls
WASD to move click to shoot
Different things that can be found around the map
Health, ammo and gun upgrades can be found around the map the gun upgrades change gun Damage. Grey walls can be found around the map break them to find valuables
Objectives
Find the exit to each level and defeat the boss there are 3 levels
This is My first LD
Ratings
| Overall | 848th | 2.655⭐ | 57🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 797th | 2.645⭐ | 57🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 870th | 2.074⭐ | 56🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 849th | 2.236⭐ | 57🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 764th | 2.591⭐ | 57🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 849th | 2.426⭐ | 56🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 65🗳️ | 104🗨️ |
Wasn't a fan of the player being forced to run through the enemies when they're out of ammo, could've had a simple melee attack or make the player have a weaker gun like a pistol with infinite ammo for them to not have to brute force through the enemies until they load into the next level.
Speaking of which i didnt really understand these "weapon upgrades", i picked up what looked like a different weapon but i still had the same one with no notable differences, tried checking my keyboard but couldnt find a way to switch weapon so i assume it just maybe made my shotgun do more damage, it should be clear what they actually do because i really dont know at all.
Visuals are fairly decent, due to the time restrictions i can look past the nonexistant backgrounds because the sprites & animations on everything else we're fairly well made.
Aside from the things i wasnt a fan of, it was fairly alright, had a decent time going through it!
A bit frustrating how hard it is to jump above bullets to dodge, but I suck at platformers so this may be a me problem
Would have loved some sound effects, but I guess you didn't have time
Boss fight took me two tries, I could only jump on the platform from below the boss, not sure if that was intended
I had an error popup at some point but I closed it and it kept running
Here's the trace if you want:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "Main.py", line 437, in <module>
MainMenu()
File "Main.py", line 426, in MainMenu
PlayGame(1)
File "Main.py", line 228, in PlayGame
PlayGame(level)
File "Main.py", line 271, in PlayGame
pygame.display.flip()
pygame.error: video system not initialized
I played just the right number of times - boss kicked my tail just enough that I was eager to retry but the game did not overstay its welcome. The checkpoints were absolutely VITAL to support this feeling. It would be so easy to make that classic LD beginner mistake of not having checkpoints and sending the player all the way back to the start, but you were smart designers and avoided that.
There were definitely a bunch of minor splinters, which is totally to be expected the first few games. I'll give you some notes on them, but I hope this feels constructive, believe me I don't leave detailed notes unless I see potential. That said, if you don't want critique, please just skip this!!
### Colliders
Colliders have a HUGE impact on the feel of any game like this. I can feel that something is off with yours. This should not be a collision, but it is:
This janky over-collision really dominated the boss fight, unfortunately. I learned my way around it, but it was a splinter.
We could talk for hours about colliders, but I'll just say this: simple colliders will get the basic job done, but if you want to shoot for a smooth pleasant game feel you need to be super-critical of them. For example, typically there would be multiple different colliders: colliders for interacting with the pickups, colliders for interacting with the terrain, colliders for physically interacting with the enemy, colliders for getting shot. And so on.
But a good starting point is this: rectangles have sharp corners, and the corner-to-corner is where it feels bad. Especially on the top of the character, getting their jump stuffed because they clipped the corner of their hair. Experiment a rectangle at the feet with a circle at the head.
The key to colliders is to be as generous to the player as possible in every regard. Make the colliders downright unfair in their favor, and then tune the game difficulty around that generosity so that it's the GAME challenging the player, and not the controls/collisions.
### Juice
Obviously there's a scope limitation in a jam. But check this great video out, which starts with a really really simple shooter and then just adds more and more of the right kinds of juice to it. You can just steal as many of these ideas as possible next time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJdEqssNZ-U
The main piece of juice I missed from your game was some indication that I took a hit.
And that's it! I think you made a nice entry here and I played it all the way through to the end. And if you improved it a bit in those two areas I think it really could go up to even another level.
Look forward to seeing what you do next.
- there should be a way for the player to avoid enemy fire, so the outcome of the game depends more on player skill. Maybe a duck or a dodge button? Just make sure the player can't avoid ALL enemy fire, the player has to have nice timing to dodge it
- the bullets are hard to see, making them bigger and a more constrasting color like white would make them more nitid
- the ammo count is also hard to see, make the text white because it will constrast nicely with the brown background
- if you add hit effects like blood, or make the enemy blink when it gets hit, or make a death animation for the enemies, it will make the gameplay more satisfying. The player character should also react when getting hit
Btw, the sprites are really charming
That being said, at least the boss fight gave some nice closure to this game.
@antoine-bodin I'm planning on making the jumping more smooth and the collision better this weekend so look out for any post LD updates!!!
@bloodbane Yeah now that the game is submitted a lot of people are saying that I should add a gun with infinite ammo which I think I will add, so thanks for the suggestion :)
@pegasys I'll have to think of a motive for killing all the enemy's maybe, to complete the level you have to kill all the enemy's and maybe healing gives more HP back. What do you think?
@crozzy @justuspan I'm glad to hear you guys liked it :)
I didn't realise you click on the doors to open them at first.
Some feedback from being hit would have been useful.
The sound didn't work for me.
Do you follow DaFluffyPotato, he is a PyGame Wizard. You should give him a look
I recommend having a look at [sfxr](https://www.drpetter.se/project_sfxr.html), it is a great little utility for making simple sound effects for games like this.
Hehe at work I use Python so whenever I can I run to something else, how was the experience of developing this game in Python? (Doesn't look like a bad Idea :))
Keep it up!!!
I tend to go from engine to something more raw (depending on the theme being honest), if I want to do something 3D I go with Unity. If I want to do something else I've used things like Raylib, Haxe, even Java!
But yeah again, very nice and kudos un pulling all of this from scratch!
Something else that I might use very likely is pixijs (Usually I am not a huge fan of Js/Ts but here it is very nice as you can just embeed it and people can play directly).
Anyway, I've seen that you tried my game, thanks for playing it <3
I like the walking animation of the player character, it looks very smooth!
It's a bit sad that there's no music. I'll give you the same tip as I give to anybody else: never underestimate spending 30 minutes to create a simple music loop, it really adds something to the experience.
Nice entry!
The gravity felt a bit too high. I'd also recommend rebinding "shoot" to a keyboard key, if the mouse doesn't control the direction.