You play as a cell, trapped in its host. It is time for revenge. It is time to clog the host's Heart. But, first you must avoid getting caught on the way. Don't clog the arteries.
Avoid bacteria and red blood cells on your way to the Heart. If you collide with them, they become absorbed and you grow, and you get closer to getting stuck to early. You can emit some of your mass though, preventing them from reaching you.
Controls - Space to navigate up/down - Control button to emit mass to shrink and slow down enemies
Game design: Jakob Willforss & Daniel Alm Grundström Coding: Jakob Willforss & Daniel Alm Grundström Sound: Jakob Willforss Art & Level design: Daniel Alm Grundström
Made by LinkPact Games (www.LinkPact.com) for Ludum Dare 34.
Weapons of choice: - Coding in TypeScript, in IntelliJ - Coding libraries: PIXI.js, howler.js, our work-in-progress TypeScript-game-library - Music in FL Studio 12 (electric guitar, EVM bassline VST and drum samples) - Sound effects in BFXR - Pixel art in GIMP - Level design in Tiled
Great job! Ithe last level took a little too long since the white blood cells were simply unavoidable when you got too big. But otherwise very solid idea.
Really tricky controls to get the hang of even if they were simple. I liked the game though. Fun and all. The heart section kind of needs tuning though as when you grow bigger it is actually impossible to avoid the white blood cells most of the time. Music really great.
Thanks for the comments everyone! It is really appreciated.
We agree with your comments LastResortGames and local minimum about the size of the heart in the end - It could probably be balanced in a more interesting way. It would also be interesting to think about the controls, to decide if they are challenging in an interesting way or in an annoying way.
Honestly when I saw the thumbnail as "Don't clog the..." I thought this would be a toilet humor game. It's interesting though. Controls that invert direction every time is something I was originally going to try.
Took me a bit to understand the shooting mechanic, but that was a failure to read on my part. I liked how you combined shooting with recovery, and used a single button movement scheme. Very nice!
I can't say how, but I feel like the game's fail-state (getting too big) ought to be redesigned somehow; colliding and getting bigger made future collisions more likely, thus making it less and less easy to dodge, and making skillful play impossible; your run is as good as done once you're over 1/2 size, unless you're lucky with timing. Same goes for the finale; once you're too big to dodge, it becomes a waiting game, where you hope to be lucky enough to get no white blood cells for long enough to win. That said, it's a tough line to walk, between randomness that makes the game more exciting, and randomness that takes away meaningful choices (skillful play/dodging/etc) from players, or makes them wait on the game to flip a coin to let them lose or win.
I had a good time with this one, and thought it was a clever use of both themes, with a nice presentation! Thanks for putting this together.
The music gives the "special agent mission" feel to the game. The cell is infiltrating, using ability and strenght to kill the heart.
Just one thing I didn't like was the controls. Each space tap change directions. So, there's times you must go a little on the wrong way to go in the right. It's kinda confusing.
Comments22
We agree with your comments LastResortGames and local minimum about the size of the heart in the end - It could probably be balanced in a more interesting way. It would also be interesting to think about the controls, to decide if they are challenging in an interesting way or in an annoying way.
the controls are hard to use though :S
gj
I had fun good job!
I can't say how, but I feel like the game's fail-state (getting too big) ought to be redesigned somehow; colliding and getting bigger made future collisions more likely, thus making it less and less easy to dodge, and making skillful play impossible; your run is as good as done once you're over 1/2 size, unless you're lucky with timing. Same goes for the finale; once you're too big to dodge, it becomes a waiting game, where you hope to be lucky enough to get no white blood cells for long enough to win. That said, it's a tough line to walk, between randomness that makes the game more exciting, and randomness that takes away meaningful choices (skillful play/dodging/etc) from players, or makes them wait on the game to flip a coin to let them lose or win.
I had a good time with this one, and thought it was a clever use of both themes, with a nice presentation! Thanks for putting this together.
The cell is infiltrating, using ability and strenght to kill the heart.
Just one thing I didn't like was the controls. Each space tap change directions. So, there's times you must go a little on the wrong way to go in the right. It's kinda confusing.
Nice job overall =)