Ludum Dare #15compo

Tentacle

by owendeery

Overall★★★★★★★★★★3.00

Fun★★★★★★★★★★2.69

Innovation★★★★★★★★★★3.76

Theme★★★★★★★★★★3.17

Graphics★★★★★★★★★★3.45

Audio★★★★★★★★★★2.30

Humor★★★★★★★★★★2.33

Community★★★★★★★★★★2.10

Coolness★★★★★★★★★★27%

EDIT: Some have said that there is no sound. There is sound and music, if you don't have any let me know. Also some people are having problem with the game crashing on them, if this happens to you please let me know the details in your comment so I can try and figure it out.
The goal of 'TENTACLE' is to rid this cavern of all the ferocious bats before they destroy your robot tentacle apparatus.
Using the mouse, you must use your light to burn away any bats that may happen to be in the cavern, but be careful ... the bats are sneaky and will try to gnaw away at you tentacle, leaving you defenseless.
There are several caverns you will need to traverse to complete your goal. Each new cavern has a greater number of bats with even more aggression.
Coded in C++ using SDL, SDL_Mixer, SDL_Image and OpenGL.

Programs used:
Visual Studio 2008
Photoshop CS4
Adobe Audition
Reason 4
Timelapse - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orWXFnJpTtc

Tools: SDL

Comments17

AtkinsSJ

I liked how the tentacle worked, but as others have said, there's not much feedback, and it was hard to tell sometimes why some bats would burn near-instantly, but others refused to for ages.
Also, it crashed at some point in level 3. :(

ondrew

Nice physics, but the killing of bats seems a little unrelated to your actions. There should be a stronger feedback between death of bat and your shining on it.

zacaj

The light needs to go faster...

jazmeister

Yeah, not bad at all, but the motivation to continue should be more obvious. The thing at the middle, the blue thing, that could be doing something and you could show the bats obviously hindering it. Anything really.

smx

Not too difficult to reach the end. I didn't notice the bats having any influence on the tentacle.
Crashed 2 times under XP.

sf17k

I thought the level changing was me dying. Needs more screaming and burning. Awesome tube physics.

Almost

I feel no accomplishment at doing anything in this game, not sure why.

Endurion

Hmm, while it's a nice idea, something's missing.

I had sound (screeching) and no music. I suppose the number on top is the level? I stopped after playing level 4, as I didn't notice much difference in the difficulty.

There's nothing wrong per sé, it's hard to pinpoint why it just doesn't feel right.

mattdev

Really like the gameplay mechanic, and it looks very slick. Could use some music, and the "feedback" when you kill bats could be more obvious - perhaps a particle effect or a more chunky sound effect. Maybe that's the lack of "accomplishment" that the above poster is mentioning.

Otherwise, very much enjoyed it!

Entar

A little repetitive after a while, but it's good. Aiming is a little jerky, but not too bad. Good job.

noonat

Great gameplay concept. Loved the menu art and the bats gnawing at the tentacle.

TFernando

While I like the mechanic, it would have been nice to have a little more control over the orientation of the light. Pretty neat though.

Noyb

Crashed on level 4 for me, too. I like the idea, but I agree with the comments about lack of player feedback and motivation. Bats should have some indication (hitflash, sound effect, or otherwise) that they're being hurt, as should the player. It might be worth seeing how it plays as a non-scrolling game.

phren

Hmm, couldn't download, too many connections or something. :(

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badlydrawnrod

Nice gameplay idea, but could do with a score, or at least something to give a reason to continue. It eventually crashed on me.