Ludum Dare #41compo

FLAPPYKARUGA

by mrnyarlathotep

Overall★★★★★★★★★★3.32

Fun★★★★★★★★★★3.58

Innovation★★★★★★★★★★3.16

Theme★★★★★★★★★★3.76

Graphics★★★★★★★★★★2.84

Audio★★★★★★★★★★2.74

Humor★★★★★★★★★★1.97

Mood★★★★★★★★★★2.62

My entry for this theme; I took two games that shouldn't work together, Flappy Bird and Ikaruga, and mashed them up!

For those who don't know:

Flappy Bird is a game where you are constantly falling, and have to fly through 'gates' by constantly tapping up.

Ikaruga is a shoot 'em up with a unique mechanic where you can absorb bullets that are the same colour as your ship, and switch between colours at any time.

As with all of my Ludum Dare entries, all assets were made by me during the compo, and I'll be uploading them for general reuse on Open Game Art at some point, because why waste assets, right?

Tools Used

Unity for all the hard lifting engine work

Photoshop Elements for the 2D stuffs

Blender for the 3D stuffs

BFXR & Bosca Ceoil for the audio stuffs

Font used: Xolonium under the Open Font Licence

Controls

Q or Left Mouse Button - shoot

Space Bar - 'flap'

E or Right Mouse Button - change colour

I haven't tested, but it should work fine with a controller - let me know how that goes for you in the comments below!

Tags: #mashup

Genres: shooter

Tools: Bfxr, Blender, Bosca Ceoil, Unity

Comments21

Apples_mmmmmmmm23 Apr 2018, 05:36

Funny combination, and the titles go together quite nicely. The switching mechanic wasn't difficult, but I do suck at getting through gates for the flappy bird side of it.

mrnyarlathotepauthor23 Apr 2018, 19:50

@apples-mmmmmmmm - thanks!
The problem with using Flappy Bird as a template, is ultimately everything ends up as flappy Bird with knobs on.

And Flappy Bird straight up sucks as a game...

Apples_mmmmmmmm23 Apr 2018, 21:26

@mrnyarlathotep Yeah, that makes sense.

Matt Pattabhi23 Apr 2018, 23:33

Interesting idea I wouldn't pull too much from flappy bird

morphine23 Apr 2018, 23:55

Holy shit - difficulty much. I actually really like that this game just throws you into the thick of things. Man I probably died 5x before getting past the second gates. Super hard but thank god your respawn time is instant so you don't get frustrated having to wait. Nice job!

fashionbatman23 Apr 2018, 23:56

Nice concept. I had fun trying to manage those 3 mechanics at once. Good job!

gdort24 Apr 2018, 00:04

I thought of a lot of possibilities for a game in this LD. This wasn't one of them. Congratulations!

CaptainDreamcast24 Apr 2018, 00:30

Tried real hard to get to 10000 but only made it to 8000 points on my best run before a high gate->low gate combo ended me. Tested it with a Xbox 360 controller for PC, so yeah, controller input works. I appreciate how many input methods you added to the game, both with the Q/E combo and mouse input.

I think it was interesting to see you improve Flappy Birds in a way that doesn't break the original's simplicity. Ikaruga's switching mechanic was a good fit, as it goes along well with the original concept.

As for the Flappy-Birds-with-knobs-on thing, I'd say that's only mostly true for the beginning. When multiple enemies start appearing, the Ikaruga stuff comes more into play and that's when the game becomes more fun than Flappy Birds. I had fun and some exciting close call moments past 5000 points.

mrnyarlathotepauthor24 Apr 2018, 15:09

@morphine - I guess you didn't play the original Flappy Bird? This versions actually waaaaaaaaay easier with less 'jerky' controls, heh

@gdort - This was literally the first idea I had when I saw what the theme was!

@CaptainDreamcast - ah, a connoisseur! My disapointment is that Ikaruga is a _really good_ game and, well, Flappy Bird isn't, yet thats the DNA that comes through most strongly. Congrats on going for the 10k barrier though, I can't get past about 8000 regularly

morphine24 Apr 2018, 15:11

@mrnyarlathotep you are correct - I only knew the concept but I love your version

Ithildin24 Apr 2018, 22:44

Both mechanics blended amazingly well together. At first it sounded like combining the colour switch mechanic with the flaps could be challenging to coordinate, but it works perfectly.

I suck at Flappy Bird games, though, so I'm still struggling to get past 2000 points. On my first crashes against the ground/walls I was tempted to blame the game for being unfair or "something something collisions!", but a closer, more cold-headed second look showed me the ugly truth: I was playing like crap.

To nitpick a bit, the blend of 2D sprites for the obstacles and 3D-ish ships didn't click with me. Other than that I think you pulled off a really solid entry.

Awesome job!

mrnyarlathotepauthor28 Apr 2018, 13:56

@Ithildin - fair comments. Given one of the sources was 2D and one was 3D I wanted to represent that in the visuals, but I can't disagree going fully one way or the other would have been more aesthetically pleasing.

ROBOWARRIOR198228 Apr 2018, 16:04

An improved version of flappy bird, nice job! Add graphic effects and more feedbacks (ship that turns more on itself, particle when you pass a door, with voice) and change the music and it's good!

TheMonsterFromTheDeep28 Apr 2018, 17:12

I really like this. The combination of specifically the Ikaruga genre is actually really clever -- if it were a combination with a normal shooter genre, this game would be an absolute nightmare, because one would have to fly out of their way to shoot the enemy ships, which would inevitably lead to crashing into a wall. However, in this case, you can simply dodge the ships by switching color and shooting at them when convenient, and it all works out very nicely.

I suppose that does lead to this being more of a flappy bird game than anything else, but I think it's more fun than the original flappy bird. :slight_smile:

Noxalus28 Apr 2018, 17:15

Great combination!

XMoby28 Apr 2018, 17:21

Very interesting mash-up, I like it!

A couple of things I would adjust:
1. Having a way to trigger the "Retry" with the keyboard/gamepad. Right now, I have to click the button, then go back to the keyboard without delay to start playing. It resulted in a couple of very early deaths. ;)
2. Since the whole point of the game is getting the highest score, it would be nice to keep track of the best score, so we have a target to try and reach.

hypp28 Apr 2018, 17:25

This was a nice combination of ideas, and I liked the changing colors and absorbing bullets.

Alex_LemminG28 Apr 2018, 17:39

Fun game, flappy bird seems to match very well with shooting mechanic. I really missed hotkey for restarting game though

Zirrrus3 May 2018, 18:25

Really neat, but sheesh, it gives me a surprising amount of anxiety.

This seems like a well-fitting combination of games too, nicely done!

kelbg3 May 2018, 20:08

Pretty interesting mix of genres. The game was fun, it's quite challenging to keep track of the bullets, enemies, and colors while also not crashing into the walls. Love the sounds, and the spaceship reminds me of a Star Trek Shuttlecraft which is pretty cool. I kind of wish it had a somewhat slower pace, but still very nice work overall!

mrnyarlathotepauthor12 May 2018, 23:44

@XMoby and @alex-lemming - good call on the insta-retry button!