Ludum Dare #39compo

Surge - LD39

by icylava

Overall★★★★★★★★★★3.68

Fun★★★★★★★★★★3.36

Innovation★★★★★★★★★★3.32

Theme★★★★★★★★★★3.59

Graphics★★★★★★★★★★3.46

Audio★★★★★★★★★★2.81

Humor★★★★★★★★★★2.38

Mood★★★★★★★★★★3.41

Description

Use your energy fist thing to beat up power sucking skulls.

Instructions

* ARROW KEYS to move
* Z to use your fist
* R to restart from last checkpoint
* HINT: try hitting the rockets (well, white circles)

#### Tools used
* Framework: Love2d
* Text editing: Atom
* Graphics: Krita and ShoeBox
* Audio: FL studio 12, LabChirp and Audacity
* Map editing: Tiled

#### Mac OSX and Linux
* Download and install Love2d - https://love2d.org/
* Download the .love file (labelled 'Other (platform)')
* You should be able to launch the .love file with the love2d executable (however you normally do that on your platform :neutral_face: )

Genres: action

Tools: Audacity, FL Studio, Krita, LabChirp, LÖVE, ShoeBox

Comments16

Mik31 Aug 2017, 15:16

Simple but pleasant graphics, movement felt OK. The game had a nice feel to it. Would be nice if the camera scrolled with the players instead of only when he reached the edge of the room.

Adrien Dittrick1 Aug 2017, 16:43

Very cute-looking game :)

Gameplay

Gameplay is nice, the menus are all right. i'm just sad that I never got to beat this skull:

It is just place way too high, my uppercut can't do anything about it. I wanted to go to the end :)
Also homing missiles are scary as fck but that's normal.

Ambiance

I felt like going back to a retro platformer, the way the screen transitions between rooms gives a good metroidvania style. The graphics are simple and efficient, the sound effects are good.

IcyLavaauthor1 Aug 2017, 18:53

@mik3 thank you for playing and for the feedback :)

@adrien-dittrick well, that room was supposed to teach you something - you can hit the homing rockets and they will start seeking skulls! I was hoping eventually people would try it, but I guess it's not obvious that it would work. Anyway, thanks for playing!

Nnnnneeeedddd9 Aug 2017, 10:00

This game is very smooth :). The graphics are really nice. You manage to very effectively use simple shapes, couldn't get past the point two comment's above this one though, sorry!

Dragojt13 Aug 2017, 12:37

So enjoyable :)
Graphics are simple but working perfect, as the sounds.
Camera scroll fits perfectly.
It has a nice flow with the hardness so good job.

Nice!

tomdeal15 Aug 2017, 15:46

It took me a few seconds to get the concept, especially because you should not use the power in the first room. Maybe add an arrow here instead :-) Otherwise really nice concept and extremely challenging.

PixzleOne16 Aug 2017, 14:12

Wow cool concept! I really like this, it was very fun once I got into it. I think it felt a little bit too punishing though, as the punching was hard to hit and dying after one missile hit you was a bit frustrating. The game could use more graphics and music, but since there are so many levels it's not that much of a problem. I couldn't get past the room with the big charging tower, it was to difficult.. :(

Well done!! :D

SleepyStudios19 Aug 2017, 12:13

Really slick and polished. Appreciated the subtle tutorial at the start. I really liked it was so infuriating at times when you thought your first would hit the "rocket" but would just miss and get you killed. Overall enjoyed it though.

Hadrien19 Aug 2017, 15:17

Nice "retro" ambiance, challenging game (…but sometimes a bit frustrating ;)). Concept is pretty innovative too. Bravo!

drprettypatty19 Aug 2017, 22:15

This game is smooth as butter. I really liked the old-school room scrolling and teaching though level design, in combination those concepts worked really well. I also got stuck on that skull with the block. I managed to kill it once, but I didn't realize that the missiles were homing. I think the room before threw me off, when I hit the missiles to try to kill the launcher they seemed to go in the general direction I hit them, so I figured I had to somehow precisely aim them.

Overall, I thought it was well designed and the graphics were very pleasing. Nice work!

lythom20 Aug 2017, 17:15

What I liked

__ + __ Level design teaching gameplay
__ + __ Easy to play / Hard to master
__ + __ Mood

What imo could be improved

__ - __ Art direction : visuals and sound does the job but could be improved into a consisten atmosphere
__ - __ Punch that throw you forward (into missiles). I find the punch job pretty cool, but I hated the fact it throws you forward because most of the time I had to go backward while hitting

Overall

Great realisation, neat gameplay, fun, balanced, you got a lot of good points here ! I enjoyed my time playing, Thanks for the game =)

gagapete20 Aug 2017, 17:40

I tried to play it on Linux with love 0.10.2 but it doesn't work. It reports:
```
Error: table index is NaN

stack traceback:
lib/hump/gamestate.lua:89: in function
[C]: in function 'rawset'
lib/hc/spatialhash.lua:47: in function 'cell'
lib/hc/spatialhash.lua:137: in function 'update'
lib/hc/init.lua:68: in function 'move'
class/object.lua:42: in function 'updatePhysics'
state/game.lua:279: in function 'update'
[string "boot.lua"]:464: in function
[C]: in function 'xpcall'
```

The gameplay in the gif is appealing.

IcyLavaauthor20 Aug 2017, 19:53

@gagapete That's odd, the physics shouldn't be OS dependent... welp, I have no clue how to fix that, if anyone else has this issue, tell me.

@lythom Thank you for playing and for the detailed feedback, I really appreciate it :)

And thank you to everyone else as well ;D

pst72320 Aug 2017, 21:11

MacOS here, I get the same crash @gagapete does. I managed to play the game on Windows though. The game got brutally hard almost immediately and I got frustrated countless times trying to hit the ball but getting a ball to the face instead (kind of like when I tried to playing volleyball in high school). However, I got sucked in and managed to finish the game. Overall it was an enjoyable experience, but could use a bit smoother difficulty curve. One more thing - since you're just a square, you can't tell which way you're facing and thus which way you're punching.

yuigoto21 Aug 2017, 08:31

I really enjoyed this game, tbh! Its looks are simple, but do pass the message, its progression feeling too is quite good and the controls work pretty well also! The sound really does help with the game's mood, but I miss a bit more sounds in the mix there! ;)

Overall, great work with Löve and Great Job with your game! Congrats and Good Luck!

mamoniem21 Aug 2017, 16:00

Enjoyed playing this game. It has a good potential by the what. What i loved so far:
- The minimalism, reminded me with Thomas Was Alone.
- The FX when i hit Z, super polished
- The nice learning curve, with no single line or tutorials
- No UI! which makes the experience richer in my opinion at most of the cases.
- The level design served a lot the game and the learning curve of it.

-m

Other games by @icylava

★4.39

co-authored

★3.69

★3.37