Vespias: Battle for the pentacle

by xwilarg

Overall★★★★★★★★★★2.83

Fun★★★★★★★★★★2.58

Innovation★★★★★★★★★★2.96

Theme★★★★★★★★★★2.79

Audio★★★★★★★★★★2.00

Mood★★★★★★★★★★2.22

Coolness★★★★★★★★★★51%

Heya,
Welcome in Vespias: Battle for the pentacle.

The goal of the game is to choose your faction between 4, each of them have their own specificities. You have to help your team to stay in the pentacle in the middle of the game for 3 minutes, and prevent the ennemies team to do the same.

We made all of assets and the musics, but we don't want to be judge on the assets, because of are not really great.

This project was made by Epitech's students.

If you want to read more informations about this game, or simply speak with us, you can visit this website: https://vespiasblog.wordpress.com/

We are a group in 4 students, this is our first Ludum Dare and we are only in our first informatic school year, so please don't be too harsh :3.

Credits:
UI: Renaud 'Nhyarlathotep' Meletand Robin 'Robix1206' Milas
Programmation: Christian 'Zirk' Chaux and Robin 'Robix1206' Milas
Music: Paul 'Salamort' Gaston
Sprites: Robin 'Robix1206' Milas
Scenario & Game Design: Paul 'Salamort' Gaston and Christian 'Zirk' Chaux

Special thanks to Amira and Shuu for the translations(that we finally didn't use :3 Sorry)
To Crusaderflame for his advices.
To the others people who managed the Ludum Dare in Epitech for their help and their advice.
And finally thanks to Raverclaw (our Epitech's house)

Comments19

dobnarr13 Dec 2016, 06:03

This was neat. A little hard to figure out, and with an American keyboard the key layout is really weird. But I fought a whole battle as the green guys and won. I noticed that some enemies were a lot more susceptible to my arrows than others, but I didn't know which was which. If I'd understood the weaknesses and attacks better, I might have been able to get more of the complexity. Clean-looking graphics, fun music (although only in menus), no sound effects that I could hear otherwise. Fun game, nice work.

fafastudio13 Dec 2016, 06:19

Took me a while to understand mechanics, but overall, it was pretty neat ! :)

qzqxq13 Dec 2016, 06:21

I'm having trouble running this on linux because I don't have the required dependencies and it seems annoying to install all of them. If you could provide a list of packages to install that would be nice (or make a statically linked binary, maybe?).

Xwilargauthor13 Dec 2016, 06:25

Thanks for you comments :).
You can change the commands in before launching the game (in the place where you set if you play in windowed mode or not and where you decide the size of the window.)
We didn't really give advices about the enemies, we thought it would be better if the player figure it out by himself.
About the music, well, we didn't really have the time to make our own effect so that's why there are only musics in the menus.
About Linux, we compiled on it but we didn't try it. We will see that tomorrow.

qzqxq13 Dec 2016, 08:02

Alright, I switched to Windows and tried this out.

I feel like you put a lot of effort into making a really complex combat system and lots of game mechanics, but not much effort into trying to show the player how it works. So, while I was playing, I vaguely knew what I had to do, but I honestly had no clue what was going on other than that I was shooting at enemies and trying to stay on the center. That was still reasonably fun by itself, though a little repetitive.

I think if you want the player to figure out what the different kinds of enemies do, you need to have more visual feedback (stuff like health bars above units, maybe have units flash red or something if they're damaged, etc.) and/or sound effects. And I know that there isn't much time in a game jam, but I could have really benefited from some kind of interactive tutorial.

Overall, this is a cool idea, good job!

Paradoxa4213 Dec 2016, 10:03

Maby if you add some tutorial it would be nice to understand the mecanics but it's an original game, I like It

LDP13 Dec 2016, 18:38

Pretty cool, with some online it could be more fun

Uliana Galich14 Dec 2016, 15:23

Interesting idea
I think some tutorial and made it in a online game it would be perfect

Xwilargauthor14 Dec 2016, 22:59

Thanks again for your comments :).
I tried to launch it on Linux, and indeed, it's working on me, but only because I have Unity installed. I'll try to see which libraries are required.
We didn't have the time to implement a tutorial feature, but we'll try to work more in this part for the next time :).

Pajama-Llama14 Dec 2016, 23:16

Cool game! Though the room concept wasn't very pronounced, and the AZERTY controls were cumbersome :)

Though I'm still not sure how I attacked but going for the squishies sure worked. I actually liked the assets, very functional but still stylish. More visual feedback on attacks could add a lot here! Awesome that you're doing this as students and your school supported you.

sacredseedstudio15 Dec 2016, 00:25

Interesting concept! There was a deep complexity surrounding your mechanics, but very little visual/auditory feedback. A tutorial will be essential for future versions. Very impressive for a first year project!

BoneDaddy16 Dec 2016, 23:04

Hmm the control scheme was pretty confusing to me. Is there any reason you went with that scheme vs WASD? I'm not sure I fully understood what I was ever doing.

Good job for you first jam!

Xwilargauthor17 Dec 2016, 19:24

Hi again :).
Well, thanks again for your comments.
Lot of people complain about the controls, but Unity include a launcher, and you can change the inputs in it: https://i.gyazo.com/1cf5c2c71adb71857e8cf126229316ef.png

The reason that it's not WASD is that we are in a AZERTY keyboard.

kakarotsan22 Dec 2016, 01:10

After I figured out that the arrow keys can move as well as the awful AZERTY scheme things got a lot better.

Is it just me or does white seem way overpowered?

Tezra22 Dec 2016, 04:49

The game is much more playable using the Arrow Keys. Didn't understand how leveling work or what's that yellow/purple effect in the middle is but the main mechanic of trying to hold off others while helping your teammates to gather in the center is fun.

MrErdalUral23 Dec 2016, 10:24

I just spammed the enemy spawners from far away while the enemy soldiers were distracted fighting for the center and I won. You should always try to avoid these kind of dominant strategies especially in a game like this.
I did not understand what the level and the money was for.
The color choices for the game and the floatiness of the characters makes this game look like air hockey rather than a battle game. White spawner is almost impossible to see.
Ignoring all that this game might have great potential for multiplayer. I'm thinking a 4 sided MOBA!
Thank you for the game! Keep it up!

Xwilargauthor23 Dec 2016, 13:27

Hi~,
Thanks again for your comments, we are making note of them :p.

To answer at what people said:
kakarotsan --> Depending of your strategie, I guess, but because they only have healers, ice mages and paladins, they don't have a lot of power.
Tezra --> the yellow thing is gold and the purple thing is XP. We sadly didn't have the time to implement upgrades so gold is totally useless. But even if the game always display that you're level 1, you can in fact earn levels, this will increase a random stat of your character.
MrErdalUral --> Indeed, we maybe shouldn't have do a destroyable spawner, furthermore, AI don't necesary attack you if you attack their spawner... About the Gold/XP, please read what I wrote above. For the last point, the ice mage can repulse you and you'll continue sliding until you're totally recover. We though that this mechanic was fun, so we didn't remove it, but indeed, maybe it do "air hockey" too much :3.

edve9828 Dec 2016, 19:01

There's no audio on Linux :/

jlcarruda3 Jan 2017, 01:47

Liked the idea of the gameplay. This version serves as a good prototype of a full polished game.

My considerations: The game has potential to be a nice coop/versus, if polished a little bit. It lacks a bit of visual and sound feedback (had that problem in my entry too), as well as a little tutorial. (I didn't know what to do at the beggining).

Overrall, its a good entry. Just needs a little more work on it :)