Ludum Dare #39compo

VUEL

by jezzamon

Overall★★★★★★★★★★4.56

Fun★★★★★★★★★★4.40

Innovation★★★★★★★★★★4.04

Theme★★★★★★★★★★4.44

Graphics★★★★★★★★★★4.38

Audio★★★★★★★★★★3.74

Humor★★★★★★★★★★3.86

Mood★★★★★★★★★★4.17

VUEL | a chess-like rogue-like

The robot uprising of 2178 was successful, and now the earth is rid of humans! Unfortunately, that's left a lot of old appliances useless. They spend their time salvaging for power in the scrapyards. Which is where you've ended up!

Each move drains some of your battery. Stomp on another machine to take it's power, but don't get stomped yourself.

The further you head out, the tougher the enemies are. You'll have to head out pretty far to see all of 8 them.

Oh, also you can upgrade your eyebrows.

Controls

- Click to move
- R to restart
- M to mute
- S to toggle screenshake

I'd love to see your highest score!

Update!

I've added a post-compo version with some tweaks - now your purchases are saved properly, and there's an extra cool shop keeper. Click here to play the post compo version!

Compo link below ⬇️

Tags: #roguelike

Genres: strategy

Comments27

sgt3v31 Jul 2017, 19:02

I can't view the game on itch.io page. Could be a flash issue but does not even ask for permission. Can you check that please?

ReboundGames31 Jul 2017, 22:37

This is really, really good. The best part is the little flavor text for each enemy. That and the eyebrows. Gonna spend way too long playing this. I do wish the music loop was a little longer, it's pretty groovy though. (Keyboard control would also be appreciated)

Jezzamonauthor1 Aug 2017, 01:24

You'll need to enable flash on some browsers. Not much I can do to control that, except that I may consider porting to Javascript/HTML5 (shouldn't be too hard with how I programmed this)

stevenjmiller1 Aug 2017, 05:44

This game is amazing! The enemy and character variety were really well done and I loved the descriptions for them. The only issue I had is that I had to re-buy characters every time I wanted to use them, though their descriptions said that they were already bought.

Edit: I forgot to mention it, but my best score was 67.

gwinnell1 Aug 2017, 11:00

Music is great - the two layers fit strangely together, and the filter on the death/upgrade screen is a lovely touch.

I really like the playable robot characters being different movement patterns too. Keeps it interesting. As others have already mentioned I was not able to re-use ones I'd already bought, which was frustrating. I also found the costs a bit high, but maybe that's the consequence of the bug.

Really great entry. Double points from me for including a toaster. :bread: :thumbsup:

Apace1 Aug 2017, 11:48

Really good game! A lot of fun, tactical gameplay. However sometimes I ran into spots where there was no enemy and no battery around, so I just ran out of power without being able to do something. Don't know if that was intentional, but it sure felt like the RNG was against me.
Anyway, great entry!

Jezzamonauthor1 Aug 2017, 19:30

Yeah, sorry about the buying stuff bug! I actually fixed that yesterday but didnt get around to updating the game link. I'll upload the fixed version now

EDIT: Oops bugfixes like that aren't allowed apparently. Oh well, the bug fix is in the post-compo version

AndideBob1 Aug 2017, 20:18

This is so awesome. I hope you will keep working on this. I would love to see some bossfights and actually designed levels. But the mechanics are already on point.

Phlip451 Aug 2017, 20:25

Super great! I like movement strategy games a lot. Only thing I don't like is the complete shortness of the battery as you don't get many outs if you start boxed in or completely empty. The worst is clearing a lot of the enemies and then not being able to get to anymore before death.

With that negative out of the way, the graphics were perfect, sound was well suited (even if the music loop was a bit short) and the actual gameplay and mood was amazing. Great job.

Nick Rafalski2 Aug 2017, 00:43

Wow I really got hooked on this. So much replayability from such a simple concept. Everything about it was great :)

Jezzamonauthor2 Aug 2017, 01:40

For those who scroll down into the comments: There's actually a drone enemy you can come across if you go far enough but I've never done that myself :O It's hard

cablay2 Aug 2017, 08:27

Really enjoyed this game! Visuals and mechanics were excellent and the writing was really entertaining.

If I had to pick something to critique, I'd say that the upgrades were nice for variety in movement/playstyle but I didn't find them more useful than the base one (though that may be the intent!).

Egor Iv2 Aug 2017, 15:31

Best of the best)

stevenjmiller3 Aug 2017, 19:19

Glad to see it fixed! I went ahead and tried out all of the characters I had missed. My new best score is 84. Those drone and fridge combinations get me every time.

orcdraco4 Aug 2017, 17:38

Best LD-39 game I've played (so far) :) The stomping sounds satisfying and the characters are cute. The game is really fun and replayable.

Angela He5 Aug 2017, 02:11

Everything's so quirkily funny and cute in this game - the eyebrow mechanic, the art, the music, the descriptions of each enemy. I love it. The shop person kinda creeps me out. They're still cute though. Thanks for making this lovely game. PS.Can't say my high score because it's embarrassingly low but I bought 3 eyebrows.

Linky4395 Aug 2017, 07:16

Holy shit, incredible game! Too bad the Compo version has a glitch in which you can't reuse a robot you already purchased, but holy cow! The graphics are impressive, the audio is great, the concept is really really good.

Congrats, that's a fantastic game you made here.

PNghasemi5 Aug 2017, 10:47

I couldn't play the game because of my slow internet speed, but from the Gif, I can say that the game must be so good. I tried to make a turn-based game but I couldn't make it. I wish I could make my game like this. but whatever, the game looks so good.

eLeDe5 Aug 2017, 11:33

Nice gameplay. You must think carefully each move! Good job!

Jupiter_Hadley5 Aug 2017, 14:34

Cute graphics! I included it in my Ludum Dare 39 compilation video series, if you’d like to take a look :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tnbJWl_w0c

Steve Johnson5 Aug 2017, 18:02

Wow, I'm super jealous now. You made the same game as me but more variety, more space, better art, better music fit...excellent job! I had fun playing this. I did feel like the battery should have had _one_ more charge, though.

I really liked that you could hover over an enemy to see its movement pattern. Great little bit of UI affordance that most games miss.

If you ever want to team up and polish this for iOS or Mac, let me know. I've played with the Haxe toolchain before and didn't like it much, but I can get by and I'm an experienced Mac and iOS developer.

I'm also looking for future jam teammates, and if that appeals to you, shoot me an email!

PeachTreeOath6 Aug 2017, 21:42

Never seen an eyebrow fetish before, guess I need to get out more.

The UI is sooooo good. At first I was like "man does this guy expect me to memorize every movement pattern?" and then I immediately found the tooltip system right after. Very easy to play w/o going through even a tutorial. Big props in that department. The gameplay itself is simple and satisfying. It's like a faster paced roguelike.

Agreed the battery should be a tad more forgiving, or perhaps the bot upgrades could be a tad cheaper. Like others said it was hard to experience the full game at the farther ranges just cuz you could get some bad sequences and kill you off.

Eremiell8 Aug 2017, 16:24

Sadly can't find a way to run this on Linux in any of four browsers I have installed (Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Vivaldi). Still kudos to you!

thaaks13 Aug 2017, 16:24

Full score from me for this game! Great game mechanics, nice theme implementation, cute graphics, good sound and a wonderful little sound loop!
I would love to see this game improved! Great job!
One idea: a minimap to find enemies and to get some overview when a level is finished.

icxon22 Aug 2017, 20:59

Congratulationson on COMPO #1! :trophy: It is very fun to make clicks in accordance with the music.

My playtest as well:

Ethan Kennerly23 Aug 2017, 02:36

Well-deserved! When I dodged enemies and got power and listened to the charming music with the bouncy bots, I felt joyful.

Locomule21 Sep 2017, 17:20

You peeps, if you are running out of batteries, try strategy. The Wait feature is your friend. Speaking of friends, try kiting one along with you if you have energy to get to a new area before eating it. If you leave an enemy unstomped, new enemies may not load fast enough, etc, etc..
Jezzamon - I played the newer version. Amazing, but you know that already. Anyway, found a bug, a battery I couldn't collect. The only details I can think of is I was using the 9/10 bot, had left the battery behind while fighting and wound up going back to it. I jumped on and off it several time to make sure it was bugged. Hope this helps, great game.

Other games by @jezzamon

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I Have Put The Creature Into My Gun

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LD56