Beware of the Screen Scrollers! They will scroll your "one screen game" background image away, and destroy those precious pixels forever. Also, this image is your only ground, so you'd better protect it if you don't want to be "scrolled away" too!
Use the arrow keys (or WASD) to move, and click on the "Screen Scrollers" to shoot them with your laser. Each kill will earn you points, so aim for the high score!
(my personal record is 1292 points)
IMPORTANT TIP: when you are "frozen", you are still able to shoot down enemies, it only prevent you from moving the character.
NB: Fullscreen mode doesn't work when the game is played on Ludum Dare's website, but it does work on the "Web (Flash)" link provided here
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About the game
Even if it wasn't easy, I've tried to use the compo theme as a gameplay mechanic instead of a technical limitation only. My idea is that an "entire game on one screen" means a game with no scrolling. So the game cast you as a sprite inside a bitmap, and you are trying to prevent your enemies to scroll your single screen away.
It plays like a top-down arena shooter (with a railgun as your sole weapon), except that the enemies stay at the border of the screen, and each enemy tends to scroll the screen towards itself. The more (or the bigger) the enemies, the faster the scrolling in their direction. When your background image unfortunately goes outside of the screen, the part that was scrolled away is lost forever. So be careful not to overshoot one side of the screen if you don't want the background image to be scrolled away on the other side ;)!
Game created with Flash CS3, without any particular coding framework (quick'n dirty, yeah! ;)). Graphics drawn directly in Flash IDE or in Photoshop for the pixel arts pieces. Sounds created with AS3sfxr.
Very fun and innovative, but if you get stunned by one of those blasts, it's pretty much game over since you can't dodge any of the other ones also shooting. Either have it stop shooting for a bit, or have it outright destroy the player. Otherwise, good job.
Many thanks to all of your for your comment and feedback!
One tip regarding the game: when you are "frozen", you are still able to shoot down enemies, it only prevent you from moving the character. So @AgentParsec, the real challenge actually begins when you are stunned: you'll have to click faster than before to defend your screen background ;) (I'll update the description with this tip)
Very original take on the theme, cool and innovative! However it cannot be played correctly on a trackpad, had to play on my desktop to rate it correctly. Simple and fun, good job!
Ohh, very cool! This is one of the best concepts based on the theme that I've played. It has a good gameplay and it's kind of addictive haha. I've enjoyed it and my best is 1016, so far. Also, it's funny to see that we worked with almost the same tools: Flash to draw and code (quick'n dirty!) and as3sfxr to sounds. This time I didn't use Photoshop because of time (I'm kind of slow doing pixelart and I used only vectors). :D
Nice use of the theme! We actually thought about doing something similar but with split-screen and multiplayer...and somehow ended up doing something completely different.
Really neat concept! I Included it in part 3 of my Ludum Dare 31 compilation video series, if you would like to check it out :) http://youtu.be/81u-vDEfxwU
My fav entry from there, exploiting nicely the theme and i like that. + cool gameplay + different ennemies coming in a good timing its a not so far from perfect LD game.
Really cool concept and fits the theme nicely, was really fun to play too. The only issue I had is that I had to click too many times and that's tiring, if i could just hold the mouse button or have some other way of shooting it would be great!
This was really unique and fun! I think it might be even more fun to have to shoot the enemies on the edge with bullets instead of clicks. Great job. My high score was 360.
Hi there. Nice idea, far too difficult I thought, managed to clear them until about 10 turned up at once, couple of Greenies then bazam... Like the sounds.
@mrexcessive: In fact, a good strategy to make a high score isn't to shoot them all, you should try to maintain some kind of balance between the number/power of scrollers on each edge when you shoot them down, so your screen doesn't get "eaten" right away :)
This is a really neat idea. The take on the theme is impressive. It literally is the screen being the main object in the game. I felt that the controls were very slow, having to be right on top of the guys to shoot and needing to move your mouse all the way to the other side to shoot that group, while 10 more guys just landed.
Just an idea, maybe have a direction control for the lasers, off of the x,y of the mouse compared to x,y of dude. The dude would then shoot in that direction when you click (or press space). This would give the player the ability to quickly change attack directions without needing to move the mouse much. It would also be cool in post-comp to have special multi-hits that activate every 5 seconds or ever 10 kills or something.
Really innovative game. It has more depth to it than seems at first glance. It's just strange, that you move with the screen, when you are frozen, but don't move with the screen otherwise. This makes it even beneficial to get frozen, because then you don't have to worry about moving around.
One of the best uses of the theme I've seen so far. Had quite a bit of fun playing this one, really challenging. My highest score was 172 so nowhere near your top score.
This is a really cool idea. Having a system where enemies can actually be helpful in certain situations is really neat and results in some interesting strategic decisions. This was fun!
Brilliant concept. It's very cool how you tied "enemies" and victory/defeat conditions: enemies' role is to disturb you, sure, but on the other hand, you have to use them to keep the screen centered and that implies not killing them... "Using" instead of "killing" enemies is a pretty clever concept, especially well implemented here. 5/5 innovation. Regarding gameplay I would maybe suggest to switch from "click" to "rollover" function to kill enemies, I think that might be smoother and more intuitive to play. Plus, the core-gameplay is more about managing screen position than actually aiming and shooting. And even if it gets to simple my way, you might still add a few obstacles to force players moving inside the screen... Anyway! Just some thoughts cause I liked your game. You just got a bunch of stars!
I really liked this. There were a lot of creative enemies to fight with that often changed the dynamics of the game. Is it possible to be killed by all those blue shots, by the way? I can't seem to survive them.
Pretty interesting, there really wasn't much to it, but it was a nice idea, I haven't seen it done before. Neat interpretation of the theme. Possible improvements include music, some different mechanics other than "scrolling faster" and perhaps some change in pacing. Also, perhaps a goal like "survive for 10 seconds and you unlock a new level with some new mechanics" "survive for a minute in this one and you unlock another", etc.
i got 233. Very cool, I think the ramp up is a bit fast but I liked the mechanics. I was thinking if I could get an even amount of things pushing the screen to cancel each other out, but it got too hectic for me to manage haha. very cool idea!
Very innovative and fun game. Nice graphics, pretty polished, lovely sound. You actually implemented the theme in a good way, unlike many other games. Good work!
This idea is so cool. It feels like one of those ideas that should have been a popular arcade game in the 80s but somehow no-one thought of it. Nice use of the theme as well. Not a fan of the graphics unfortunately, but the concept more than makes up for it.
Comments69
But very funny and innovating !
One tip regarding the game: when you are "frozen", you are still able to shoot down enemies, it only prevent you from moving the character. So @AgentParsec, the real challenge actually begins when you are stunned: you'll have to click faster than before to defend your screen background ;)
(I'll update the description with this tip)
Also, it's funny to see that we worked with almost the same tools: Flash to draw and code (quick'n dirty!) and as3sfxr to sounds. This time I didn't use Photoshop because of time (I'm kind of slow doing pixelart and I used only vectors).
:D
It's really enjoyable to try to maintain a balance by keeping some enemies alive.
To answer the question you gave on my game, I composed the music in LMMS along with the Nintendo VST plugin. :)
theme: six stars! :D
Probably a good thing that freezing doesn't prevent you from shooting, otherwise this would be even harder than it already is.
@mrexcessive: In fact, a good strategy to make a high score isn't to shoot them all, you should try to maintain some kind of balance between the number/power of scrollers on each edge when you shoot them down, so your screen doesn't get "eaten" right away :)
Overall, I like it :)
PD: By the way, my game already have a jump button since the beginning. It's the "X" button xD
Just an idea, maybe have a direction control for the lasers, off of the x,y of the mouse compared to x,y of dude. The dude would then shoot in that direction when you click (or press space). This would give the player the ability to quickly change attack directions without needing to move the mouse much. It would also be cool in post-comp to have special multi-hits that activate every 5 seconds or ever 10 kills or something.
Plays really nice.
My best was 1370
Possible improvements include music, some different mechanics other than "scrolling faster" and perhaps some change in pacing. Also, perhaps a goal like "survive for 10 seconds and you unlock a new level with some new mechanics" "survive for a minute in this one and you unlock another", etc.
You actually implemented the theme in a good way, unlike many other games.
Good work!