Feather Fighter

by ellian
co-authored: @fatbard
Overall★★★★★★★★★★3.67
Fun★★★★★★★★★★3.63
Innovation★★★★★★★★★★3.10
Theme★★★★★★★★★★3.59
Graphics★★★★★★★★★★4.53
Audio★★★★★★★★★★4.15
Humor★★★★★★★★★★3.23
Mood★★★★★★★★★★3.48


Protect your floating island from extremely aggressive birds...!

Grab you gun, and get shooting!

Move with [Arrow keys]

Jump with [Space]

Shoot with [X]

LINKS


- Play at: http://thisisellian.com/FEATHER/
- Download at: http://thisisellian.com/FEATHER/Feather_Fighter_1.0.exe
- Sources at: http://thisisellian.com/FEATHER/LD38.gmx.zip

-------

​Made in 72 for Ludum Dare 38 - A Small World

By Ellian

Music by Fat Bard

Additional art by Chris W Early

Comments25

cottontshirtz25 Apr 2017, 02:22
I really dig the art and sound, and I also like how the game is more about protecting the island than just avoiding the enemies.
RobotSoulsGames
RobotSoulsGames25 Apr 2017, 03:26
Huh. The graphics are really good, but I find it kinda hard to play.

The blocks in the background are really confusing. They look just like solid blocks. You should've probably made them lower saturation, and lighter, so it's obvious they'r not solid.

Also, the shotgun is way worse than the normal gun. I don't know if this was intentional, like a poison mushroom or something.

The last note is that it's pretty hard to get back up if you fall onto a lower platform. I got pretty stuck.

The game ran rather slow for me, and I played the online version, so maybe I should check out the download version . . .
Jupiter_Hadley
Jupiter_Hadley10 May 2017, 13:00
Beautiful graphics, fun game! I included it in my Ludum Dare 38 compilation video series, if you’d like to take a look :)

UncleChris
UncleChris10 May 2017, 15:35
I enjoyed it and felt the same as RobotSoulGames. Background blocks were confusing, and getting stuck. It was fun, and I enjoyed it, but didn't play long due to difficulty getting out of holes at times.

Uncle Chris
pyokoanarogue
pyokoanarogue12 May 2017, 13:37
quite enjoyable and very easy on eyes and ears. capital work! loved what you did with the sprites stretching

(in the context of the jam, its quite recursive of you. Who needs all that schmancy fancy animation when you've got no time).
randomhuman
randomhuman12 May 2017, 20:40
I really dig the art, music and sound, but I found it kind of hard to play. I think the main problem for me was not being able to move while aiming up - and I was almost always aiming up! So I was just constantly stopping and repositioning. And if you end up on one of the lower platforms you basically just have to wait until the enemies fly over you. It's a good concept though, and fun overall!
Daisy14 May 2017, 13:28
This is really cute and super polished! Love the art and sound, it has a lot of personality. I like that the priority is on protecting the land moreso than killing off the birds.

The birds feel really really beefy, 6 kills was my best score!! I would have appreciated a double jump to help me get back up to the upper levels, since it pretty much feels like game over once you fall down a few blocks.

Though that all said I kept going back to try and improve at it so there's a certain addictive quality there! Great job. :D
silkworm_sweatshop
silkworm_sweatshop14 May 2017, 13:33
Really polished stuff and pretty fun! Graphics look good but as people have said it's hard to tell the background blocks from the solid ones. Was a bit frustrated at first before I realized I could aim up :P. Also, shotgun needs a buff, I'd personally make it more of a spread gun probably.

@randomhuman: Hmm, moving while aiming up worked fine for me.
th-alien14 May 2017, 14:48
cute, polished and funny entry! i just had lil' problems on the edge of the tiles (couldn't move nor fall, just jump) but beyond that i found a really nice entry! graphics are so well made and the idea works really well with the theme! :D nice job!
Spinaljack
Spinaljack15 May 2017, 11:14
I really like the art and audio and the little birds. I felt like the different weapon upgrades actually made the game harder though. The shotgun should do more damage and the machine gun should shoot faster than the regular pistol. All the animations and polish were great but I got stuck on the cubes a lot. Overall solid entry.
mar3k
mar3k15 May 2017, 22:41
When I first opened it my first words were "this looks so cool" and it surly does even in the game - I love those graphics and animations, so well done.

The idea is quite simple but cool and fun and finished, it's a bit hard to kill the birds, mainly because of the controls, so maybe if there was shooting with mouse it would be better, but then it maybe would be too easy.

Great job overall!
bainerd15 May 2017, 23:06
I like the weapon upgrades, that really makes it much more fun!
Stevie Bushman15 May 2017, 23:12
Great game, smooth controls! I got stuck on a block though, took a while before I was 'rescued' by an egg. This could be great with shorter levels, more enemies, and a progression system! Reminds me of a refreshed super crate box.
davision
davision15 May 2017, 23:16
Cool! But this birds are kinda bullet spongy, would have prefered more birds and then one hit killing them. I like the destruction part a lot but it doesn't matter much for gameplay in my case since I die relatively quickly. Maybe more splash damage destruction and then you can somehow turn eggs into new ground with shooting them would be more interesting.
Superbusyrobot16 May 2017, 04:21
Good stuff here, and the controls are fairly nice. It does make you spend a lot of time always pointing up, which can make it hard to move sometimes, but otherwise they're not too loose or anything and it helps a lot for avoiding deaths.

If you do happen to fall down to the lower levels, though, it's very hard to recover from that and difficult to jump up and hit low-flying birds horizonally too, and I feel like improving the player's jump height a little bit probably wouldn't be game-breaking.
Kolkav
Kolkav16 May 2017, 15:31
I very much enjoyed the music and sounds in the game. Visually birds look cute, it's cool that you have different weapons in the game. On the other side, I had difficulties differentiate where was the background and fell through the level sometimes(hey, it might have been my fault, but if you could make the difference between background and foreground more visible I would greatly appreciate that))
kamikaziuk
kamikaziuk16 May 2017, 18:44
Fun little game :). The art is very nice for the timeframe.
gredgie16 May 2017, 19:23
Overall, it's a very nice, polished game. What lets it down are the physics and platform layout in my opinion, it was all too easy to fall off if a jump across a gap didn't work out too well. I dare say that's something you'd tighten up if you had more time. It also meant that generally, to shoot birds I had to shoot upwards rather than strategic jumps and horizontal shots. Nevertheless it was a lovely game!
Juju Adams16 May 2017, 20:13
I am all about the squash-and-stretch animation tricks! Music is fabulous.
MaikelOrtega
MaikelOrtega17 May 2017, 10:01
Amazing work Ellian! Challenging and very fun concept, and really polished to top! I'm incredibly bad at this game though :D

Also I love the pidgeon desing, they're perfect! Congrats!!
Pecc0r17 May 2017, 13:13
The game is really beautiful - all the graphics were on point. I found the controls to be a little confusing and got stuck between blocks a few times. Nevertheless, it was fun and cute!
bloodyaugust
bloodyaugust19 May 2017, 01:56
Tight art and sound design, but the basic platformer gameplay just kind of felt... lacking, maybe slow. It also felt like the best strategy was to spam jump/shoot. Overall though, impressive entry!
Chaseplays
Chaseplays19 May 2017, 04:45
What I Liked:

* The graphics were really good, and were paired really well with great SFX.

* I appreciated the little recoil effect from shooting. It added a nice little touch to the game.

* The music was really good, but sadly the title screen music was better than the in-game music, haha.

* The enemies were well designed.

* The increase in difficulty was fast, but fitting. It also added more variation to the enemies.

* I liked the world defense idea that you made. With the terrain constantly changing, it made the game never feel old.

Minor Nitpicks:

* I almost wrote an entire comment not knowing that you could shoot up. You really could have made it more obvious.

* Maybe you could have made a way to regenerate the terrain. Ladders could be cool too. This isn't really a nitpick, just a suggestion in case you made a post-compo version.

Great job and thanks!

EDIT: Also, the x + space combination was a bit weird. Maybe next time have an option for WASD and some other key...

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