Hello! This is my second Ludum Dare entry. For my first I made a Twine game so wanted to create a more traditional game this time. I did all design, development and artwork as per compo rules.
The Tree is an action game where you play as a warrior who must fight three guardians. By defeating one, you gain their power which can be used to better battle the others. The order in which you choose to take on the guardians will affect the difficulty and strategies you can use.
The Tree's theme of connected worlds is based on the idea of the world tree which connects different realms. In the game, you travel to the areas of the three guardians via rainbow bridge.
My aims for the game were:
+ Fun combat and abilities + Unique bosses + Pretty pixel art
Things I didn't manage:
- No sound: I was working right up to the deadline and had no time for sound effects or music - No menus: The game has no start menu screen or win screen - everything just takes place in game - Full scope: Originally, I had planned five bosses instead of three with a possible final boss fight at the root of the world tree which would have required all gained abilities to defeat - One of the areas has unpolished art as time was running out and it had to be hurried and made a lot quicker than the others - The ghost dash ability allows you to teleport into non-walkable parts of the map, although it checks to make sure you aren't going to move outside of the map bounds
How I developed:
* Programming: Uses the HaxeFlixel framework, made in FlashDevelop, runs in Flash * Art: Drawn in Manga Studio 5 using a Wacom Cintiq * Buds: Made alongside my brother, "Pinion" (who made his own compo entry, "Starlight Cowboy") and his wife and my partner, "Team Sloth Fox" (who made a jam entry, "Heart Earth")
Controls:
The game is controlled with the arrow keys for movement and the A, S, Z and X keys (these keys are shown beside their matching ability on the HUD).
Thanks for reading and playing! I can also be found at calciumtrice.tumblr.com and @calciumtrice on twitter.
This is great! I really enjoyed the boss fights. They must have taken a lot of work to make them so unique. I was totally jonesing for a final battle w/ all my abilities!
I really enjoyed the art, mechanic and gameplay. As greysphere said, I wanted a final battle as well! I couldn't figure out how to use the stomp ability though. I tried pressing "s" but nothing happened Anyway, cool game.
Full scope -> who needs 5 bosses? But a final boss would have empowered the player by feeling that he won the game. As you didn't had the time, maybe you could have made one of current bosses the final boss. (only two normal ones and one final one), just because it feels better.
I kind of missed the theme :( (yes there were worlds, and they were 'connected', but ... that was not emphasised by the game, so you felt that 'connected worlds' was not the real concept behind the game.) Maybe that could have been adressed by 'teleporting' to another world? Don't know.
Very nice! love your pixel art. Just a pitty there was no real ending (as far as I could see), but I think this has scope to keep working on it. I would definitely pick up the full version ;)
WesleyJohnson, the ability you get from the earth boss is actually a healing power. It'll only do anything if you're not already on full health which you would have been as you receive a full heal up on beating a boss.
Nice game! Wish there was a final battle with all of the abilities, and I really missed music and sound, but each boss had their own strategy and each ability was unique :)
I got a lot of use out of one skill in particular, and I liked the way each boss had a different attack pattern. The skill I got at the end was the most fun though! Also, great graphics.
Really good art for the short timeframe½ I kept running into a bug where my character would be stuck walking into a certain direction. At first I though that was because of loss of focus, but the game seems to be built to handle that (with the large play icon appearing when focus is lost).
As mentioned by others, sound can usually be handled fairly quickly. Look into sfxr and its multitude of offspring for sound effects, absolute-music, fakemusicgenerator, autotracker etc. for music.
Absolutely terrific. I'd love to play a longer version (not something I've said after most of the games I've tried). Let me know if you ever make a continuation: @sdothaney on twitter. The difficulty was almost too high at first, but after I beat down the magma beast I was able to use his power to take down the others. Great job!
Loved the visual style. Found the initial boss fight to be a little boring since it was so easy to dodge his attacks, but it was a great game for 48 hours. Absolutely love the art.
Wow, we kinda had the same idea for our games :) You've done a really nice job with it. I would love to see you develop it further. Add sound and perhaps some music to it.
I really liked all the power-ups I received fighting the bosses, though it would have been cool to at least have the ability to go back in and stomp on all the bosses again with my new found powers.
Well done to set yourself goals. I think you did a great job at fulfilling your goals! The gameplay was good. If you're looking to improve game feel my advice would be to improve and elaborate on player animations. Same goes for bosses, who could e.g. have another attack.
But still, impressive for 48hours and even more so because you were able to finish all your personal goals! I'm curious what you'll come up with in the future :)
Unique gameplay and a heck of a lot to cram in 48h, I enjoyed this engrossing little title. I thought the artwork was excellent, particularly the fire boss who was properly nasty. I would have loved sound - your other effects e.g. screen shake were spot on but some simple sounds would have added loads
Comments37
No menu -> who needs a menu
Full scope -> who needs 5 bosses? But a final boss would have empowered the player by feeling that he won the game. As you didn't had the time, maybe you could have made one of current bosses the final boss. (only two normal ones and one final one), just because it feels better.
I kind of missed the theme :( (yes there were worlds, and they were 'connected', but ... that was not emphasised by the game, so you felt that 'connected worlds' was not the real concept behind the game.)
Maybe that could have been adressed by 'teleporting' to another world? Don't know.
As mentioned by others, sound can usually be handled fairly quickly. Look into sfxr and its multitude of offspring for sound effects, absolute-music, fakemusicgenerator, autotracker etc. for music.
Same goes for bosses, who could e.g. have another attack.
But still, impressive for 48hours and even more so because you were able to finish all your personal goals!
I'm curious what you'll come up with in the future :)
http://calciumtrice.tumblr.com/post/95493081248/freelance-archeology
Real nice adventure!