I thought this was rather fun to play, I played several levels just having fun with the swarm mechanic. I liked the design of the little ball-guys as well.
On the other hand, I never really figured out what was going on besides the swarm/unswarm mechanic. The mutations were supposed to be negative, but I never saw any meanigful effect.
I think that the evolution theme contributed little to the game. By itself, the rolling-lots-of-balls-at-once mechanic is a really interesting one, and one that I'd be happy to play in a more abstract puzzle game.
Is it just me or do the robots look something like golfballs from Hell?
The theme definitely wasn't used very well here; there was no obvious effect the evolution played on the robots. I just kind of roll them around and grab stuff regardless.
Also, one of the bots got stuck in the world on the purple valley level, so I had to quit :C
@jwin: the mutations are subtle but you can feel them, there's 4 different behaviors a ball can get: avoids other balls, avoids purple thingies, jumps randomly, moves randomly.
@dallthemanl: thanks for playing - the swarming is inspired by... "Swarm" on PS3.
@Desi Quintans: I am planning to develop this game further. Probably even implement from scratch. And the puzzler would be the genre.
Th3dz: Thanks for playing! I wanted the game to feel weird :)
@agersant: I know about the camera. It's kind of tricky to develop camera that will follow dozens of objects and will frame them in a reasonable way.
@cappelnord: I think 3D is fine for this. It's the level design that I messed up.
@Dakota: LOL at the testicle :) You're kinda right, it's similar.
@panzermancer: Golfballs from hell - yep :D. The original plan for the game was a bit more complicated.
@ElScootro: It's tricky to get it right. At least for me.
@josefnpat: I can't wait for Unity 4, too! Sorry about you not being able to play, next time, for sure :)
This is a really interesting concept. The controls and camera takes some time to get used to. I like the idea of controling a swarm. I couldn't figure out what the mutations were.
Pretty fun trying to control the swarm, it's harder than you'd think! Just that alone is worth playing this. The camera wound up an issue later as more of the bots got separated, was hard to see what was going on. And the delay before picking things up from the ground was a little grating.
@Dark Acre Jack: Thanks, I used MaPZone from Allegorithmic to create them.
@davidllanos22: Thanks - the graphics are just what I could do as a programmer, so that means a lot to me.
@Jacic: It was supposed to get harder and harder to control, but I think I may have overdone it.
@tcstyle: The mutations are subtle. You notice them when you actually observe a single bot for a while. They actually affect how hard is it to control the swarm. Tricky to get the camera to frame everything that counts.
@Eniko: Yes, the delay was a bit too challenging, and it is definitely missing feedback. I made the green stuffs quicker to pick up. Camera... Yep, I know...
@BumpkinRich: Haha, angry mob noises? That wub wub is teleport ;)
@yettatore: I'm just learning Unity and had no experience with sound at all. I just made it play. Sure, I could probably spend a couple of minutes on balancing it.
Pretty entertaining game! The swarm mechanic is interesting, although it felt quite awkward trying to move around the levels - especially once they got bigger/more complex. It did, however, lead to the camera problems that others have mentioned.
Not sure how you'd fix the camera without changing the gameplay significantly. Still, that's a puzzle for you to work on ;)
I ended up stopping because some of my bots got stuck on canyon walls, and I couldn't finish the level (the first one with lava) :(
Well I played it a couple of times and have beaten it once but man this game made me rage.
It need an onscreen mapview badly to see where are the bots scattered, where are the waste and is the exit open allready. When they are scattered you can see the level but you can't see the wast or if the bot near it is capable of eating it. One big problem is even with 'Q' pressed they are hovering in the air. You just can't get the wast with them. And even if the bot can eat and its on the wast it struggles to get it. It may need a bigger hitbox or something. On the non-boxy levels they can stuck up on the hills. Swarm mechanic is good and if you did this for the first time than you did really well in 48 hours but why it tends to send them into the air?
Sorry, maybe I don't understand something but in this case you need some ingame hints on the first 2 - probably intented to be tutorial - levels.
This reminded me of many hours as a kid playing with a beautiful, large wooden labyrinth, except this time the balls went all wonky when I got them to go where I wanted! Nice game.
Original game! Some points I found: getting the last bots to the finish can be a drag when you have a lot all over the place. Maybe if can end an level by keystroke (leave some behind)? And when zoomed out, things were not very clear.
On the other hand, I never really figured out what was going on besides the swarm/unswarm mechanic. The mutations were supposed to be negative, but I never saw any meanigful effect.