Ludum Dare #41compo

Zap Herder

by foolmoron

Overall★★★★★★★★★★3.45

Fun★★★★★★★★★★3.16

Innovation★★★★★★★★★★3.67

Theme★★★★★★★★★★3.38

Graphics★★★★★★★★★★3.83

Audio★★★★★★★★★★3.50

Humor★★★★★★★★★★2.53

Mood★★★★★★★★★★3.21

An electrified arcade highscore game mixing the totally incompatible genres of snake-like action with turn-based movement and some luck-based risk taking!

NOTE: The web version is slow for the first few clicks, but it becomes smooth after that. Download the desktop version for better performance, although the game is known to crash on exit...

Made as an learning exercise for Unity 2018's new entity component system and threaded job scheduler. Each of the 20,000 dots on the screen are real, individually processed entities that are updated every frame at (hopefully) 60fps. The lightning path is calculated based on the actual positions of the dots each frame.

CLICK/TAP to ZAP and mark the dots along your path as zapped

GET POINTS based on how many dots you zapped, plus bonus multipliers

HIGHSCORE for a fleeting sense of accomplishment

BONUSES
The multipliers that pop up are based on the following actions:
Quick Click - move in a short amount of time after stopping
Gotta Go Fast - move instantly after stopping
Long Distance - make a long movement
Sharpshooter - make a super long movement
Risky - touch 1 zap that has already been zapped while moving (mostly random)
Wow - capture a good amount of unmarked zaps when you die
Glorious - capture a ton of unmarked zaps when you die in a blaze of glory

SOURCE CODE : https://github.com/foolmoron/ZapHerder

Tags: #2d, #arcade, #avoidance, #high score, #unity

Genres: action

Tools: Unity

Comments20

sndr24 Apr 2018, 21:58

This is a really cool take on the theme! Interesting genres you chose, and you got a sweet little game with quite a polished mechanic. :) Good job!!

Arbosis24 Apr 2018, 22:03

This is cool, I can see it working on mobile as well. I hope you keep working on it :)

incobalt24 Apr 2018, 22:11

Short and to the point. That's nice. There's a bit too much randomness in the arcing, though. It's hard to tell if you're going to hit something or not.

benbusby24 Apr 2018, 22:12

The visuals and sound effects in this are fantastic. If this were a mobile game, I'd buy it in an instant. Gets really fun when you try to go as fast as possible. The highest I'm able to get is about 155K. Really nice job with this!

Bhavin25 Apr 2018, 18:14

Woah!! That was all 5 for sure!!

machrom25 Apr 2018, 18:27

Really cool mechanic, polished and great overall. Nice job :)

ppNovAqq25 Apr 2018, 18:45

This was really cool! Nice game!

John Darrington26 Apr 2018, 02:02

Loved the mechanic, loved the "sharpshooter" reminded me of quake. Polished idea, was hoping for more random dying based on your description :D

aeveis26 Apr 2018, 04:59

The randomness of the lightning is pretty funny with the snake mechanic. All the score heuristics were nice. Here's my high score:

candlesan28 Apr 2018, 03:49

Loved the concept. Felt like the lightning gave me not quite enough time to actually plan my path but it could also be my slow reflexes from getting older. Mood was great and the sound was really well done.

Kappa.B28 Apr 2018, 05:42

Interesting game, Loved the particle effects and sounds, if felt great to move around and try to make the longest line. I wish I had taken s creenshot of my high score to share but my high score was 59k. Well done

Kutase28 Apr 2018, 19:37

Nice concept. Graphics style looks cool. As unity developer I will also learn ECS and new job system. Your source code may help me.

Baby Dino Herd29 Apr 2018, 02:43

Really excellent job! I'm very impressed with the overall level of polish, particularly in terms of the graphics, UI, mechanics, and game flow. Everything works really well for a nice short-form experience.

Remi Gourrierec29 Apr 2018, 18:33

Good short game. Kind of limited but feedback and visual experience keep us trying to make a better score.

Good work !

ectucker129 Apr 2018, 21:29

This game is a lot of fun to play, but I didn't quite understand what was going on. I'm not sure precisely what causes death, or what causes the "risky" bonus. The audio feedback was great, but I'm just not sure what triggers everything.

Anudin29 Apr 2018, 22:40

- Visuals feel polished
- The zapping feels smooth

- Sound effects are too repeating
- Score system seems completely luck based - got 200k score and I don't know how
- I often died on my first zap and don't understand how that's possible

Maybe make the random twitching slower so the player actually has time to react? But in general I like what you did - the game feels "alive" and it's a nice change from stale worlds / games. But there are serious changes needed to make this more skill based and therefore more fun.

foolmoronauthor29 Apr 2018, 23:40

@Anudin Yeah I agree it's balanced too randomly right now. If you know how the bonuses work and go for them strategically you can reliably get ~200k, but getting above that is pretty random.

@ectucker1 "risky" is if the path you're taking touches 1 dot that has already been touched before, death is when you hit 2 dots that have already been touched. It is definitely very random right now but that's kinda what I was going for.

Thanks for the feedback!

C1FR130 Apr 2018, 02:28

its somewhat skill based to get a large area of zapped dots, but the ending score seems almost 100% luck based, I have covered about half the area then died early one one run, then on the next round I covered the whole board and got about a third of the previous score. High score for me is 129,064. Aside from the amount of luck involved its an interesting concept, and its kinda fun trying to get a high score. Visuals are pretty good too.

PanicTheFirst30 Apr 2018, 18:59

This game looks awesome! I really like the visuals. Gameplay is also pretty nice and I played more rounds than I thought I would. :D Good job!