Riftong

by leondryaso

Overall★★★★★★★★★★3.67

Fun★★★★★★★★★★3.55

Innovation★★★★★★★★★★3.00

Theme★★★★★★★★★★2.95

Graphics★★★★★★★★★★4.23

Audio★★★★★★★★★★3.80

Humor★★★★★★★★★★2.09

Mood★★★★★★★★★★3.47

Coolness★★★★★★★★★★94%

Riftong is an unique combination of Pong, GLSL shaders and poorly written Java code. It offers a next-level experience aiming at your skills, reflexes and strategies.

Actually, it's a fun little game (quite heavily, for my liking, based on our previous game) where you control a shield around a center point - rift - which is being attacked by enemies. Each absorbed enemy gives you points. You can use them to buy and upgrade your towers (so it's a tower defense as well!), which can slow down the enemies and absorb them as well.

Controls: Up/down keys in the menu. Mouse for shield rotation, right mouse button to buy a tower, left mouse button on top of a tower to open its UI, then left click to buy an upgrade or right click to close the UI.

We didn't really come up with anything totally original or enjoyable for a lot of time, but it's been another nice experience writing this. (If you have more time, check our previous game as well, you can find certain similarities, but the gameplay is quite different ^^)

Requires Java 8 and a graphics card supporting OpenGL 3.1+. The build has been tested on Windows, it should run on Linux, it won't work on Mac (sorry, we've got no means to make our engine work on Macs). Based on GabeNgine (https://bitbucket.org/datt/gabengine).

UPDATE:
We've posted a post-jam version. Changes:
-- better tower UI
-- fixed health bug (!)
-- rift not healing between rounds
-- towers gain some health on levelup
-- more particles
-- items in menu can be selected using mouse
-- numbers polishing (damage, points per bullet...)
-- towers can't be placed in defined range around the rift
-- saved volume is loaded properly
-- other bugs fixed (maybe added)
== better game

Menu music: https://www.freesound.org/people/zagi2/sounds/339124/

Comments31

Casevse13 Dec 2016, 11:25

Very good game. The graphics and effects are awesome, also the music. And it is very addictive. Good work!

matthewpalaje13 Dec 2016, 11:28

Awesome graphics, music and gameplay!

Great job :)

AXaViaN13 Dec 2016, 11:44

It is really an awesome game!

Coauctor13 Dec 2016, 19:22

Reached level 8! :)

Also, maybe found a bug (two pop-ups with level stats on double rmb click): http://i.imgur.com/984WYtb.jpg

All game assets reinforce game mechanics which is great.

Treborginho13 Dec 2016, 22:03

Great grahic style. Best game out of the Chech Republic I played today :-)

Geckoo133713 Dec 2016, 22:07

Interesting casual game with an unusual gameplay. Mood is great and I like the aesthetic. I had fun playing it. Well done ++

Nonakesh13 Dec 2016, 22:08

Overall a nice and good looking game, I just wish you would have allowed window resizing, right now it's just tiny on my 4k screen!

breno13 Dec 2016, 22:10

Needless to say the effects and music are very good. But for some reason the red particles from the enemy's death bothered me a little. Maybe I related this color to violence, although the game is very relaxing.

Almax2713 Dec 2016, 22:13

Fun concept, well polished and balanced.

quiv13 Dec 2016, 22:38

The graphics and music work very well together! I think the towers might be a bit strong, as I had a protective, impenetrable barrier most of the game, but it was overall very fun :P

QuinnandWin13 Dec 2016, 22:43

Really enjoyable game with some really nice looking mechanics.

TheMightyTeam13 Dec 2016, 23:17

ooops:

java.lang.NoSuchMethodException: org.lwjgl.system.SharedLibraryLoader.load(java.lang.String)

I have installed lwjgl (Debian testing)

CIDeV14 Dec 2016, 01:07

nice graphics and music! good job!!!

TheScragglyMan14 Dec 2016, 10:17

i had a lot of fun with this game, took me a while to figure out how to build blockades though (serves me right for not paying attention) loved the music too, so chill

nick.bota14 Dec 2016, 12:06

Amazing graphics and music, addictive gameplay = a very fun game! One thing that I noticed is that the game got easier and easier with every level I passed and at level 10 my health wouldn't go down at all even if I allowed every incoming enemy to hit it remained 100%

leondryasoauthor14 Dec 2016, 14:18

@nick.bota Yeah, it's sadly a bug that causes the health regen to increase instead of decreasing on higher levels, we will probably fix this since it's a bit of a game breaking bug.

piller.yann14 Dec 2016, 17:02

The game is too hard. XD

The graphics and the game feel are awesome! The vintage effect is just Wooow

VILAM14 Dec 2016, 20:02

Very good graphics! But it seems we can't die ... Morever, if you can hide the mouse cursor, it would be perfect!

Neowedge14 Dec 2016, 20:51

It is a very funny game, with awesome effects and audio. Good job!

wowods15 Dec 2016, 12:53

I like the graphic and effect, simple yet interesting one....

jsmars16 Dec 2016, 09:17

How do I run this game? I tried running "java filename.jar" but I get:
Error: Could not find or load main class ld37-all-1.0-SNAPSHOT.jar

Ayxs16 Dec 2016, 18:54

cool little game, could not find the theme anywhere, graphics look awesome but music and sound are a bit boring. overall good effort could use some powerups or something to make gameplay more interesting (windows ludum dare game, not post jam so it could be any of the commented thing have already been changed.)

imphenzia16 Dec 2016, 19:01

I like the retro raster graphic effect =) The audio was also nice and I found the sound effects especially gratifying. Game-play wise I was a bit frustrated that I was left in situations where I had no choice but to take hits (simultaneous incoming balls from 180 degree split) but then again the health was generous so I guess that was part of the game. I got menus up and even though I had enough points neither LMB or RMB made anything happen. Nice work!

Tyranosaw17 Dec 2016, 11:50

I love the whole game especially the graphics and music

bigoss7317 Dec 2016, 12:01

I have no idea how did you manage to make such awesome graphics in such a short time, I love them!

Justin Mullin17 Dec 2016, 13:57

This is a very pretty game. I love all the shader and particle effects, and the Geometry Wars vibe. Nicely done.

mvieira17 Dec 2016, 14:32

Loved the Music...and It has great effects! Nice Work.

leondryasoauthor17 Dec 2016, 22:03

Thank you all for your feedback :)

@jsmars In terminal, "java -jar (filename)" should do it (although on Windows it's usually possible to open jars using doubleclick on the file only)

@Ayxs well... if you think about the edges of the grid as of walls... it could be a room ^__^ There are upgrades for the towers, but yeah, it's not ideal

@imphenzia You have to have the cursor over the tower if you want to purchase the upgrade, it's kinda confusing (and fixed in the post-jam), we know :/

@bigoss73 it's just geometry and a bit of mathematics ^^

@Justin Mullin any Geometry Wars resemblance is purely coincidental O:-)

Berbecarul17 Dec 2016, 22:34

Nice game, with cool sound and visual effects. You might want to add more enemy variety.

jsmars18 Dec 2016, 00:08

Got it working thanks! Very impressive shaders and suprisingly addicting gameplay :)

Ryusui21 Dec 2016, 04:51

This is a positively BEAUTIFUL game. With maybe a few more tweaks (e.g. additional gameplay depth) this could be something you could put on Steam Greenlight.