Now that some days have passed since submission, and we have received considerable feedback, i feel the time is right for a post.

So firstly a bit about us :

This was our first LD, and we pretty much entered it unprepared, using a framework we had never looked at, in a language we we’re barely familiar with, and to top it off we we’re only available for maybe half of the 72Hrs.

With this in mind we had 1 simple objective, make something vaguely gamelike that’s playable, and submit it.

On that basis we we’re pretty pleased with our outcome, we even found time to add a few things beyond our initial design, such as the plane that drops dummies(pacifiers for US folks) and bombs, and arrives at intervals depending on other game elements. A particle emitter for blood effects. And subtle parallax background scrolling.

In fact scrolling, in any form was a stretch goal for us, we would have been happy with a single screen level, indeed that’s how it was for much of the time we spent on it, cameras we’re added very late.

Feedback :

So overall feedback has been mostly positive.

People seem to like our choices of sounds effects, the retro feel, and the high but not impossible difficulty.

However some have been confused by some gameplay elements(i’ll clarify these shortly), and a few small glitches such as  overlapping background music.

The Game :

So the aim of the game is simple, get to the door at the end of the level. trying to eat as many babies as possible along the way.

You are a baby eating monstrous orc. And as such you get bonus point for mutilating them(big bonus @ 100%).

Obviously it’s not that simple, because it features robot police droids, that insta-kill you on contact. And yes, no lives, no second chances, that’s game over

The droids ordinarily patrol, but they have a sight range in front of them.

And this is where maybe some things will be clarified for some players :

The must be more or less(don’t want to give too much detail 😉 ) on their height level, and within a certain distance, in front of them. Then they leave patrol mode & enter pursuit mode. So how do you escape once they are pursuing you ask? we’ll there’s a few options : You can get far enough away, that they lose sight of you(note. this is further than the initial spotting range), Lure them to their deaths, or use those fables pacifiers/dummies!

The aforementioned reset aggro on ALL enemies when collected. However, if you are still within the sight-cone of any, they will immediately spot you again, and resume pursuit – so you need to get smart about when you collect them.

One other thing some people have been confused about is that sometimes they turn around ‘suddenly’ when you are behind them. This is a deliberate mechanic, and there are sound cues, but clearly it’s still not clear. It happens when you first make contact with a baby, this baby may be happily asleep or otherwise unaware, in which case all is good. The other option, is the baby realizes you are a monster, and cries out. This alerts all on-screen droids.

One other thing that can drop from the plane, is bombs, they kill everything in blast radius, everything! That includes, police droids, babies, other drops, and YOU(game over) so yea by all means lure things there to get rid of them, but don’t get hit

What’s next :

Well as it happens, we now plan to take this game further, and include more levels, and procedural generation of platforms, obviously address any issues people have spotted. And add a couple more enemy types. So watch this space!

For those who haven’t come across it yet, here’s the link, and a few screenshots.

Thank you for reading!

Nipper Nosher entry link