UPDATE: Our game does not seem to work on Safari. We don't know why, it appears Apple hates us. We're sorry. ----------------------------------------------------------- Made in 72hrs by a Team of 3, Adam D, Adam S and James C. All Gameplay, Art, Sound & Music made by us during the Ludum Dare weekend
THE SHORT VERSION:
Hello! This is our LD27 Jam Entry, "Poppy vs. the Night". We toyed with the idea of calling it 'Snooze', but I guess we were a bit worried that sounded boring. Anyway the game is playable in a browser, click the link to give it a try, all instructions should be displayed in game. Thanks for giving it a go!
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THE LONG VERSION Hello Again! This is our LD27 Jam Entry, "Poppy vs. the Night". Adam D: Programming, Design, Art Support Adam S: Music, Sound, Writing, Programming Support James C: Lead Artist, Design
Our game is a fairly traditional top-down shooter, with a few building elements and stages limited to 10 seconds (for reasons that will become apparent during the amazing written story). It's based around a kid, Poppy, and her dreams. You basically fight a nightmare creature from a poster on her bedroom wall, plus a load of random stuff. There is also some mini tower defence in there too. Below are some hints & tips on how to play the game.
EVEN LONGER VERSIONS Friends, Romans, Countrymen, Game-Jammers. Here is a mostly complete instruction manual: ~Controls: Basically WASD to move, Mouse to aim and Left Mouse button to fire ~Basics: Shoot the enemies, avoid getting hit by the enemies ~Overall Goal: You will Keep Encountering a Boss. Shoot him and wear down his health. His health is consistent through out each playthrough so you have to kill him bit-by-bit. Pickups: There are some balloons with weapon pickups on. Get them, as they are pretty cool and will help you destroy stuff. Most weapons just fire like you'd expect, except the rockets, which home in on the mouse cursor. ~Building: There will be a regular build phase; this is laughably simple, and involves you being able to place either a barrier with left mouse, or a turret with right mouse. These will help you defend against the enemies in the next stage. Towards the end of the build phase, you can stand on a tiny powerup, you will collect it when the next attack phase starts. ~More Building: The small shadow creatures will destroy your barriers and turrets. There is nothing you can do about this, bad luck. ~Boss: Just keep shooting this guy, and avoid his bullets. ~Winning: When you kill the boss, you get a load of points. There is a high score table, so basically just try to get on it. ~Bugs: If you find any, please ignore them. They are a feature. Thanks.
Stellar audio and art work. Really loved the setting and the idea of cycling stages. 10 seconds made it hard to gauge hat was going on, but that's not your fault! Loved it.
Thanks everyone, I'm glad you liked the audio as I'm pretty proud of it (did that all from scratch over this weekend) Thanks for mentioning the menu screen too, I know someone on our team who will be very happy to read that!
Wow. That was pretty intense. It took me a couple rounds to really figure out what I was doing, but once I got the hang of it, it was quite fun. Like others, I thought the music really stood out. Nicely done.
This is fantastic, the constant switching between gameplay styles livens things up no end. Not to mention that it looks and sounds amazing. A great entry.
Super hard core theme interpretation. It was hard but I liked the art. It would probably help if the transitions between phases were sliiiightly longer to allow for mental shift between the modes. Good job.
M
matthias_zarzecki27 Aug 2013, 08:21
Nice one!
Love the character-deign. OF COURSE she has her own death-robot :)
Neat game. The art is really well done. It felt really frantic to me, but I think that was the point. I had a bug where my character just keept moving downward no matter what direction I pressed.
I felt the game is lacking feedback when you hit things/are hit. Particle, a louder sfx or flickering would have helped... Also, the hitbox was too big (or the lack of response made me mistake it).
@GFM - I agree about the feedback, I made sure there were particles and a sound effect, but with everything else happening it's hard to notice. It's one thing that I wish we'd had time to do, we kept trying screen shake but it wasn't really working.
@Wertle - Yes I think that's fair about the transitions, I think it's just that when you play your own game so much over a weekend then you know what to expect
@Starspell - Really sorry about the lag, think it is probably a combination of the looped collision checking and the many particle effectss. Low powered or older processors may have a bit of trouble I guess.
@CosmicAdventureSquad - That is weird browser bug that happens if you click outside of the window whilst moving. It usually corrects itself within a few seconds. Still, sorry!
@robb - All the text says is that Michelangelo obtained that high score in April. I'll let you make of that what you will...
I love the art and the frenetic pacing. The ending made me laugh! I didn't realize the first time that my health carried between rounds, and I got careless! I'm glad that this game has a persistent goal, it gave me a greater reason to play the rounds well and keep pushing forward.
I like how every elements of the game are objects from Poppy's room. You made a real complete game, with different weapons and different game modes. Music are really nice, the one form the menu reminds me of Sebastien Shuller.
Very well done game. I love this tower defense stage, even if I have no clue what the turrents to. I like the mechanics and the graphics are awesome. Why is there no fullscreen option? :)
Was really fun to play and great that you incorporated three different game segments into one, also it was nice with the little tower defence gameplay to be among the other two as it gave you a little bit of a breather.
I liked it the multiple powerups and the shifting of modes kept it fast paced and fresh. Felt like a total boss firing missles and shotgunning at the same time haha. Nice work.
A very good game. Maybe one of the best game I've seen so far in term of graphics IMO. I really like the mix between a Tower Defense and a Shoot them up in the "they are coming" phase, I found the 10 seconds transition a bit rough, you are in plain action and everything suddenly stops. I have no idea how you could have improved that but it needs some sort of nice transition in term of gameplay.
Woah, I have to admit I have NO idea what was going on there - "ohh, shooting things! No wait, building something? No wait.. boss fight! Um... wut!" (Perhaps this was just trying to jam the "10 seconds" thing in there?) but damn, it was certainly a rollercoaster ride... Fantastic game design - excellent sounds and consistent aesthetic.
Really nice game, I didn't feel rushed or get confused with controls, the layout give you time, and explain it really well. The art and music is cute and suits the game well.
Excellent. The story-telling was concise but evocative, the visuals and sound matched the mood perfectly and the gameplay was varied and fun. Very enjoyable!
Nice art style and mood. Interesting gameplay ideas. Not sure if the 10s phases work all that well with this game, sometimes it felt like the time was up just when I started doing something cool.
Comments57
Thanks for mentioning the menu screen too, I know someone on our team who will be very happy to read that!
I really like aesthetic that you have going on
Love the character-deign. OF COURSE she has her own death-robot :)
Nice one.
- Strega
(this is a team account)
Great idea and theme interpretation, though! :D
@GFM - I agree about the feedback, I made sure there were particles and a sound effect, but with everything else happening it's hard to notice. It's one thing that I wish we'd had time to do, we kept trying screen shake but it wasn't really working.
@Wertle - Yes I think that's fair about the transitions, I think it's just that when you play your own game so much over a weekend then you know what to expect
@Starspell - Really sorry about the lag, think it is probably a combination of the looped collision checking and the many particle effectss. Low powered or older processors may have a bit of trouble I guess.
@CosmicAdventureSquad - That is weird browser bug that happens if you click outside of the window whilst moving. It usually corrects itself within a few seconds. Still, sorry!
@robb - All the text says is that Michelangelo obtained that high score in April. I'll let you make of that what you will...
I didn't realize the first time that my health carried between rounds, and I got careless! I'm glad that this game has a persistent goal, it gave me a greater reason to play the rounds well and keep pushing forward.
You made a real complete game, with different weapons and different game modes.
Music are really nice, the one form the menu reminds me of Sebastien Shuller.
Also gotta love those turtles!
I really like the mix between a Tower Defense and a Shoot them up in the "they are coming" phase,
I found the 10 seconds transition a bit rough, you are in plain action and everything suddenly stops. I have no idea how you could have improved that but it needs some sort of nice transition in term of gameplay.
I really like the boss design :)
The tower defense segment felt a little out of place in my opinion.
Great game!
Really nice game, I didn't feel rushed or get confused with controls, the layout give you time, and explain it really well. The art and music is cute and suits the game well.
Really good job! :)
But it should be a bit slower.