Space cows from Taurus is a game about shifting* shapes. Specifically shifting blocky spiky space cow shapes into the habitat (for processing into space beef) on a strange alien world, while some tripods seem to have nothing better to do than try to stop you.
Instructions are found ingame.
Obligatory pathetic excuse: This wasn't actually the game mechanic I was originally going for. Hopefully the graphics evoke games like Virus/Zarch and Archipelagos on the Atari ST/Acorn computers back in the day I did originally want to make a kind of Archipelagos clone with the cows able to morph into obelisks but the whole mechanic of spreading a field of corruption failed to work with the way I create the terrain... (blah blah unity and deforming meshes at runtime blah) Also Virus style ship controls turned out to be almost impossible to play with... Funny that ;)
Sorry about the end-states :|
And yes I know it should be "reticulating"
* SHIFT (verb): to transfer from one place, position, person, etc., to another:
I'm so glad that this is obvious, plainly spelled out in the first paragraph, and that there will be no comments about the lack of a metamorphosing mechanic.
@CodeCast Nothing shifts into anything, because themes that lead to constrained mechanics are rubbish. As I said, there are shapes and you shift them from place to place. As I also said, the original mechanic had you actually turning the cows into things but the eventual game is how it is because after a certain point I had to get some gameplay in that I was going to get done in time. Comments/criticism about the things I *have* done would be really appreciated. Thanks for playing.
@Per guilty as charged - the missiles were a 47th hour addition after the land corruption mechanic failed to work out. They're very much the minimum viable product :)
Did not understand that those green thingies were the cows at first. The controls were a little bit too sensitive. However it was quite enjoyable to just fly around looking at the terrain that I will just assume is randomly generated?
@KodingNights I don't understand, do cows not look like that where you're from? Terrain was a big part of the original game-plan and ended up being something of a backdrop. The world is different every time you start and creating the meshes is what's really going on during the progress bar bit.
The ground looks really good! Nice color palette fitting in nicely with the game. And it was quite fun to play :) I also found the controls much to sensitive, and a tip is to make the camera follow more smoothly using the Vector3.Lerp function. Great work! :D
Would indeed have addressed the controls in the suggested ways, it's no exaggeration though to say that all the gameplay elements including controls went in, in the cheapest ways possible, in the last few hours. Thanks for the feedback
The game was a little difficult to control. I would tap a or d and spin completely around. Any time I descended at all, the red things would appear out of no where.
I think this was a little too big of a project for 48 hours. I hope you have a chance to fine tune it for a post-comp release. But great job getting this far in a short time.
@ceosol Sounds like the controls really were a lot more sensitive for most people than they are for me. I wonder why that is. The red balls are fired from the tripods up to a certain range, but they're fired through a curve so sometimes you won't see them until they land on you... It's lame, but for a mechanic that was thought of and executed in less than an hour I'm perversely proud of it. You're right about scope being an issue but actually it was the scope of the original design that ate up all my time. Thanks for playing!
Thanks for your comment on my game, i'm glad you liked my lines xD For your game, i dislike how there is no music, or atleast some sound when i pickup a cow/get hit, it makes the game feel more boring.
Graphically the game looks great. I have a minor complaint that I found the turn speed too fast making it quite hard to control, however that is a minor complaint on what is otherwise a very good game.
@cornand34 Yeah a agree, it's hard achieving mood with only graphics and gameplay. I spent about an hour playing my guitar on Saturday, got some nice weird ambient scary stuff down, and made a ton of sound effects with sxfr but in the end just didn't have time to do any sound code :(
I ate a lot of cows before I realized what I'm meant to do with them; also the lack of a radar system along with the turning speed of the UFO made playing very hard. I love the look of the landscape as well as how imposing the turrets are!
I like the color scheme and the terrain of the game. Moving was a bit difficult because of how fast you turn, but not terrible. And I love the green blob cows.
The game looks awesome. Love how the water is moving. One thing I had trouble to master was turning the spaceship. It just turned too fast. Overall good playing experience. +1
Loved the loading screen :P Saving all the cows would take forever so I didn't finish the game, but it was satisfying to play. Controls fell a little uncomfortable (mainly steering was too fast).
It looks like there was a lot of work put into level gen and aesthetics because it looked rely good. You turn way to fast. The turning works well on a controller but there is no support for the other buttons(I don't hold that against you, no one does controller support). Misspelled SpcaeCows. You can escape the level. All in all good game, i liked it!
@bentglasstube Thanks for playing and for the feedback. Controls are obviously hypersensitive for a lot of people, though for some reason they're ok for me... there's probably a bug somewhere. As for picking up multiple cows - it isn't explained very well but basically that would ruin the challenge, a new tripod spawns every time you return a cow - and two spawn every time you eat a cow.
I love the world, I also appreciate that you've made something a bit different which is really cool, its a bit like a 3d defender but with more beef, would be cool to see a version with some more action game mechanics. :)
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I really like the look of the game, although the particles and missiles need some work ;)
But best score in humor
Well polished and 5/5 just for the message during loading screen
the rotate speed is a too high for me
I think this was a little too big of a project for 48 hours. I hope you have a chance to fine tune it for a post-comp release. But great job getting this far in a short time.
For your game, i dislike how there is no music, or atleast some sound when i pickup a cow/get hit, it makes the game feel more boring.
I jest - shifting of a shape (in this case a green cubish shape of cow) is adequate for me.
Beautiful world and colour scheme, love the random generated world and humourous loading screen.
Agreed that the turning is very very sensitive, but other than that controls well.
Very nice work :)