Ludum Dare #37compo
Bat Cave
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Note, I updated the Windows download and it is now working... my apologies to the first few that had problems.
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Shoot and avoid the bats. Shoot the drips coming from the stalactites so they do not build up stalagmites on the ground. You can jump over smaller stalagmites, and shoot the bomb power-up to remove them. Shoot the bullet power-up for 10 seconds of extra fire power.
Note, I updated the Windows download and it is now working... my apologies to the first few that had problems.
=====================
Shoot and avoid the bats. Shoot the drips coming from the stalactites so they do not build up stalagmites on the ground. You can jump over smaller stalagmites, and shoot the bomb power-up to remove them. Shoot the bullet power-up for 10 seconds of extra fire power.



Comments41
nice job.
Good job! :)
A couple quirks I noticed: the powerups didn't seem to run out for me, so I collected multiples which made me a gatling gun of carnage! Also, the CTRL/ALT button scheme occasionally caused my screen to rotate when I hit an arrow key with them.
Other than that, the game concept was simple but well executed. Nice job!
Anyway, I like that drops from the ceiling makes more stalagmites. That's pretty neat. I would also like the player to be able to withstand more than one hit. Good work!
SFX was okay-ish, and I actually liked your graphics.
Great job!
My main gripes with the game were:
- Death SFX for the bats was quite sharp
- Sometimes there would be two bats on top of each other
- The stalactite drops were hard to hit
- Died a few times due to unknown reasons (I didn't see anything hitting me)
- The bombs are too powerful and made me not care for the stalactites
- Jumping was a bit awkward (linear movement)
- Bats were indeed too fast to reliably hit
- On a 1280x1024 monitor in fullscreen I spawned outside the visible area
Also noticed a bug: After picking up the bullet power-up I could just keep the control key pressed and keep rapid firing even after ten seconds (or maybe they were long seconds, I died shortly after discovering this glitch, but I think I survived for more than ten seconds with it).
~Random-storykeeper
But it didn't prevent me to play, the game was working pretty well and controls were good :)
The webgl works well in Firefox (no issue with the 'alt' key).
Being able to only shoot bullets one by one (and the lack of autofire mode) is frustating.
Just a note, on a 2560x1080 (ultrawide) monitor, the boundaries of the level are visible, so I advise you to either restrict aspect ratios in the future to only 16:9 for example, or fill the level in. :)
The sound effects were a bit too loud compared to the background music in my opinion.
And yeah, you should give the player an earlier heads up concerning the stalactites.
But with some polish, this could be really neat game.
Anyway, I played the web build. Though the description says the bullet powerup should last 10 seconds, it seemed to last forever! I felt this was kind of necessary anyway though, as at some point, it becomes humanly impossible to shoot enough bullets to get rid of all the new bats coming in, haha. I found that 2-3 stacks of heroin made a nearly impenetrable wall of bullets. More than that though, and I'd be shooting a lot of blanks.
The flat vector graphics look cool, and the textured walls look cool! But together, they feel kind of mismatched. I think going for a full vector style would be my personal preference--and easier to do too! The stalactite drips were also kind of hard to see against the dark background, and I tended to miss them a lot. Maybe the drips could be brightened up so they stand out better.
At some point, jumping felt too risky due to the sheer number of bats swooping down, so I mainly ended up camping in a corner, holding the Ctrl button until I died, haha. I think I tended to hold out until about 24K points at best.
I liked something about the bat animations, and the constant background sound brought me back to those old arcade days. And mowing down all those bats sure was satisfying! Nice compo entry! :)
Your last game I played was retro rebound and this one is definitely a tighter package, where I jump right into the action and I figure it out as I go. Nice work. Slight parallax on the bg was a nice touch btw.