Tyki (LD48-26) -------------------- Theme: Minimalism Genre: Arcade Shmup Hook: Start with full loadout Goal: Survive and score high Conflict: Ships increase in difficulty/quantity the further along you go Progression: Pick up power-downs to increase score multipliers, but also reduce player arsenal Notes: Streamed entire creation process to http://twitch.tv/nekoyoubi
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Controls: Mouse to move ship. LMB to fire. RMB to fire Wave-motion Gun (reference joke). F11 to switch fullscreen. V to adjust volume.
Objective: Collide with power-ups (red) to gain abilities, but lose score modifiers; with power-downs (green) to lose the ability, but gain a modifier. In the spirit of minimalism, a "sniper"-modifier is also applied if you don't just shoot continuously.
Decreasing your loadout fully, you can maximize your score, but you'll need to be a good shot. ;)
I feel like a prick for saying it, but this game has no challenge, the art style isn't very appealing (though the nebula looks neat), the music is repetitive, and overall it just isn't fun.
Sorry, but I could just hold down trigger and swing my ship back and forth and I almost never saw a single enemy.
@ybearg, sorry to disappoint. The challenge was not meant to be overwhelming; not until later, that is. The challenge was always about the theme, trying to get the highest score with the least amount of "help". To that end, it's supposed to start off easy. Again, sorry to disappoint, and you shouldn't feel like a prick for saying it at all, I value all opinions. ;)
Very functional, I enjoyed the music. Although it did get a tad old after awhile. I think some better ai or different types of enemies would help this game really come to life.
RARoadkill, sadly, I completely agree. I had so much higher hopes for it, but alas, with only ~14 dev hours, I simply couldn't do enough. ;( I plan to continue work on it, though, now that the pressure's off. Thanks for your kind words.
foul, I'm sorry. I haven't an XP machine left here to test it to see what's going on. I may need to try not building it as a self-contained .exe. I will look into that. Sorry for any inconvenience.
@juaxix, I'm not really sure what you're saying, but yes, this was my first LD entry and sure, I can zip up the source, but I figured no one would be interested in a few scraps of GML. I'll get right on it. If you're trying to say that the idea was unoriginal, I agree. However, I wasn't going for groundbreaking. I wanted something that would be playable, represent the theme in an interesting way, and would ultimately be a genre of game that I had not previously attempted. I never thought it would be a contender, but in the spirit of the jam, I thought I should at least get those things accomplished in the few hours that I did.
@MinionStudios, that's what they're supposed to do! ;p You start with the full loadout, but no score modifiers. In the spirit of "minimalism," you want to pick up the power-downs to up your score, but reduce your arsenal. Around level 7~9 with just the single gun, it starts to get a bit more challenging, but the earlier you drop those weapons, the bigger score you get overall.
Powering down as a game mechanic is kinda neat! Btw you can teleport your ship around by moving the mouse outside of the game window and returning it back in different place, dunno if that was intended.
@kyyninen, thanks! Yeah, in the beginning, I had a "movement" system that was more like flying, but as you get into the harder levels, it actually became impossible to maneuver out of the line of the "straight-down" ships, and in the interest of mobile devices, I decided to just give the exact mouse-x to the ship instead.
That was a fun game - controls were responsible, and the idea of awarding a score modifier for debuffs is quite clever. Also I loved the font.
Here are some thoughts on how to make the game better:
* Since the game is a vertical scroller, you should make the screen be in a "portrait" shape, or make the scroll horizontal - any of these ideas would give you more play area real state.
* It would be really nice to have a high score table with pre-set high scores. I got 2000 points, and I have no idea if this is high or low.
* Add some explosion sprites for the player and the enemy!
* The player's sprite contrast a bit too much against the background - maybe soften the colors a little bit?
@Eternal_Rest, sorry about the CAB; I just thought that would be the easiest way for people. And I completely agree about balance. Difficulty, though, that all depends on how much score you want, I guess. Should be more balanced though, no doubt.
@caranha, thanks for taking the time to write all that out, and also, thank you for your kind words. Your suggestions are certainly good ones and will probably all come through in the Android version I plan to continue, but sadly, they were a bit too much to accomplish in the few hours I had (I was a way-late starter). On the resolution issue, I didn't know how elegantly I could 'portrait' a full-screen on a standard PC monitor (never tried that form of letter-boxing). The high score table would have been preferable to none, but I simply didn't have the time. As for explosions, oh don't I know it. Sorry about that; horrible oversight. Also, the player was meant to be "converted to a painted-up star-ship, but alas, no time. I think I could have done this a lot smoother if I had the full 48 (or 72) to work with. Perhaps I won't make such noobish mistakes next time.
S
SuperlevelSebastian8 May 2013, 15:00
Sadly I can't play it because it seems to doesn't be a Win 32-bit version. :( (Win XP, 32-bit laptop here)
@SuperlevelSebasian, all apologies. I've now uploaded and linked a .zip in addition to the self-contained .exe. This should resolve the Win32 error (hopefully).
Sorry, but I could just hold down trigger and swing my ship back and forth and I almost never saw a single enemy.