Tempus Machina

Overall★★★★★★★★★★3.43

Fun★★★★★★★★★★3.57

Innovation★★★★★★★★★★3.18

Theme★★★★★★★★★★2.86

Graphics★★★★★★★★★★3.50

Audio★★★★★★★★★★3.37

Coolness★★★★★★★★★★35%

I apologise for the lack of instructions in-game. Please be so kind as to read the set here, or on my itch.io page.

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You are Reginald Vortex, the time-travelling robot on a mission to stop the evil(?) plans of the Future Co's velociraptor cloning division. But, killing is really fun, so honestly just slaughter as many cyborg soldiers and velociraptors as you can. The more you kill, the more they spawn, making it more dangerous, and the use of positioning yourself using the time-travel becomes increasingly necessary.

At the push of a button, you are transported to the same area in the future/past. Use this power against your enemies to launch deadly ambushes, disappearing and reappearing in an eyeblink.

Instructions:

Arrow keys: Move and jump

Z: Short range plasma blade attack

X: Time travel (toggle between future and past)

Your health is denoted by your energy colour. Each hit changes the colour: Green, then amber, then red, then GAME OVER. Get as many kills as you can before this happens.

You will regenerate health automatically by avoiding damage.

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I'm also happy to announce that I have implemented Global Highscores! Anybody who, at the end of judging, is on the Top 10 list will be awarded our coveted Terminator trophy!

Please don't put inappropriate names on the highscore list.

_________________________________

Thanks for playing!

CREDITS:

-Pickens Inc (Taha): Development, programming

-SmartWilliam (Sam): Art

-Birdmammoth (Seth): Sound artist

-Lopodyr (Theo): Music

Genres: action

Comments28

Fiote/Phanx13 Dec 2016, 13:38

About your comment on my game: We have plans of turning this into a real game, so music/sound effects will surely be added. Thanks for the input!

Fiote/Phanx13 Dec 2016, 13:44

Also, such a coold game you got here! Loved the art and the fast gameplay ^^

Avon14 Dec 2016, 11:56

Fun game, love the artstyle. No story or mission did make the gameplay a bit repetitive though.

kd7uiy14 Dec 2016, 12:41

Nice game, the controls were a bit confusing, but I caught on pretty quickly. Well done!

Gamepopper14 Dec 2016, 13:51

I like the level switching, this was really fun.

Zgragselus14 Dec 2016, 14:40

Quite interesting gameplay. I like the art style - but I was missing some goal of the game. Keep up the good work.

AngrySquirrels14 Dec 2016, 14:51

HAHAHA I saw what you did xD

Cool fast paced gameplay but I didn't understand what i was supposed to do once i killed every one ?

Megalink14 Dec 2016, 15:30

I love the art and fast paced gameplay, also I noticed one of the blocks had a face on it? Anyways good job :)

BloodJohn14 Dec 2016, 15:35

little funny platformer. love graph and speed sound.

Birke14 Dec 2016, 16:16

I like the art and music. Interesting gameplay idea as well but you can spawn in the middle of an enemy which hurts you which feels unfair. The game would be better if you didn't take damage from touching enemies, especially since you move so fast and your attack is melee that you end up bumping into them a lot.

Zeriver14 Dec 2016, 17:10

Whoaw, nice action-survival game. I really like how two worlds (past/future) are different in gameplay. Raptors are jumpy and super fast while cyborgs are more predictable but have ranged weapon. Art and audio go together well and give game a nice atmosphere. Also game feels pretty polished, nice menu and no bugs. Pretty good job in overall.

Pickens Inc.author14 Dec 2016, 17:34

@Zeriver Thank you very much for your comment and praise! You nailed our intention right on the head. And thank you to everybody else for the remarks and praise. We are taking it all to heart.

Moski14 Dec 2016, 22:39

Hey there! Just checked this out! I can't vote myself because of a lack of team implementation, but I told my friend jorge to check this one out as well.

Anyhow, when I saw it had a robot fighting dinosaurs through time and space, I knew it'd be my kind of crazy. Very rough and a bit too overwhelming, but the concept is dope and the sprite works is fantastic. Loved the giant statue of the little robot in the future!

Here's hoping to see more from you again!

ahmedmohi15 Dec 2016, 07:29

fun game i really liked it and enjoyed switching between dimensions , i don't if there's a main target to reach but still i enjoyed it :D

Dia6lo15 Dec 2016, 10:37

I liked an smash feeling. Audio is very good too.

Velociraptor's speed is insane a bit ;0 (Yes, they killed me)

I think, you can add to game an bonus-global-big-bombs as in oldschool game to increase game's badass.

Vadim Ivshin15 Dec 2016, 12:53

Hey, I also want to make a game with dinosaurs about time travelling (but switching will be between time of dinosaurs and Stone Age)! Anyway, great game with beautiful graphics and neat sounds. I love this Reginald character and his weapon.

bigbuggames15 Dec 2016, 15:02

Really nice mechanics! I loved the ability to switch between future and past. I would improve the controls I think the gameplay would be much more intuitive if you map the space bar as the jump. Overall, really nice game. Keep up the good work!

Weeping Rupee15 Dec 2016, 17:31

So... I liked it. Yours was the first game I played because I saw it while submitting my own for review (smart plug, I felt very obliged)

Anyway, the concept was in line with the theme, the gameplay was fun (although I always prefer WASD to arrows for movement personally)

However, I never really felt overwhelmed. I wish you had gone in more of a SuperCrateBox direction and slowly ramped up the number of enemies in both the future and past rooms. Although I honestly expected to see alot of time travel/parallel universe concepts this Ludum Dare I didn't consider the idea of a horde mode where you could choose to allow enemies to amass in one room and then maybe be forced to go back there at some point. That was the the idea this game was pointing to in my opinion: keep two states of this room free of enemies.

Ramp up the difficulty a little faster and I think you're onto something here.

jsmars15 Dec 2016, 17:46

Nice work! I like that there is a global highscore, I usually have that as well :) Try having some acceleration in the movement for a more fluid feeling :)

JorgeGameDev16 Dec 2016, 01:20

Hey! I just checked out your game after the Moski (who commented above) suggested and I've found it really charming and fun! I love how ridiculous it was that at one moment I was slaying velociraptors and, in a few seconds afterwards, I was slaying cyborg soldiers. :P

I have to say that I really loved the mechanic of switching between times in order to easily reach areas and enemies of the other time. As I started getting more into the game, I started using that mechanic more frequently and quicker.

The gameplay was really fun! Although as others have said, it got a bit repetitive midway through, especially when you found good places where to rest for a moment. But goddamit, Global Highscores get me everytime! So much I ended up going all of the way to make sure I got the top spot at the leaderboard - including beating your artist. ;)

I feel some stuff could be improved on. One of the issues right now is the repetitiveness, but I think with a difficulty curve (such as enemies spawning faster or more health as time progresses) the problem would be partially solved. Art and Music were also a bit rough, but with more time I think it could end up being a really nice and even fun-inducing game!

Thanks for the time and I wish you the best of luck in case you decide continuing improving the game!

DevForPizza16 Dec 2016, 12:31

A little bug I can put my pseudo many time in one game, Now I am the 3rd and the 4th in the global highscore sorry, However the game is really cool, maybe too easy

Pickens Inc.author16 Dec 2016, 13:17

JorgeGameDev thank you very much for your indepth feedback AND for booting the artist out of 1st! Hahah.

And @DevForPizza I discovered this recently, sadly I can't fix it because LD rules, but I'll definitely keep it in mind for my post-LD version, thank you. For now, I will simply delete one of your entries.

nassi16 Dec 2016, 14:09

As the other comments have already mentioned: ramp up the difficulty a bit faster and maybe add some more variety, perhaps in the form of having to balance the state of the different rooms etc. and you're golden!

Smooth animation, good music and sfx and the core gameplay is pretty fun and fast. Leaderboards are always a big plus for me, but this time I gave up after getting 9200 points on my second try as the slow beginning of the game felt like too much of a chore to play through again.

Swordbrella16 Dec 2016, 19:26

Nice game, but as others commented, it gets really repetitive after some play time. And also, regenerating health made the game too easy due to time traveling. You can find places to rest on both times and then go on slaughtering enemies. The gameplay is really fluid, responsive controls and nice animation. Overall, good job :D

Yami no tenshi16 Dec 2016, 21:47

Switching between 2 rooms is a great idea, would have love to see more possibilities in room switching :)

The game is a bit repetitive though.

BlueTheLemon17 Dec 2016, 15:37

You level design is lacking but otherwise, this was really fun !

Love the pacing !

BoneDaddy19 Dec 2016, 22:30

The switching mechanic reminds me of an old Matt Thorson/Dex game, Dim (http://www.mattmakesgames.com/, second from the bottom). There's was more puzzley while this is more actiony. Actually thinking about it, this reminds me of the first DuneWorld game we made (and is very bad, don't play it).

Good graphics, the concept of switching has a lot to be explored still and it's good to see more games do it. I think this game lacks a bit of a gameplay loop, didn't really find myself engaged enough (this is a very hard thing to figure out for an action game like this).