Ludum Dare #44compo

Rent is Due

by jakobthequizguy

Overall★★★★★★★★★★3.35

Fun★★★★★★★★★★3.06

Innovation★★★★★★★★★★2.85

Theme★★★★★★★★★★3.59

Graphics★★★★★★★★★★3.48

Humor★★★★★★★★★★3.52

Mood★★★★★★★★★★2.94

CONTROLS:

Move up and down/Navigate menu - Arrow keys

Shoot/Select - Z

Hold Z to shoot repeatedly

----------

In a world where life is currency, Snail Man gets a call from his landlord, and he is not happy...

Guide Snail Man through the levels and shoot snail goo at the ninjas. They will steal your hearts if they touch you or get past you. As the levels go on your landlord will become angrier and send tougher ninjas!

The goal of the game is to collect hearts (you can hold 50 at a time) and deposit 60 of them so Snail Man can be a functioning member of society for once and pay the rent like normal people.

Unlike normal people Snail Man has special powers, make sure to upgrade them in the shop to stand a chance!

This was a fun jam! Unfortunately I didn't have time to add sound, but otherwise I'm happy with how it turned out.

My twitter: https://twitter.com/JakobTheQuizGuy/

Comments21

PurpledArtFrog29 Apr 2019, 08:42

Good polished entry - took me while to find the "Z" button ;)

JakobTheQuizGuyauthor29 Apr 2019, 08:48

@crosenlund79 Thanks! I've put the controls at the top of the description, hope it's more clear that way :)

PurpledArtFrog29 Apr 2019, 08:54

@jakobthequizguy Cool - might just be me that's slow ;)

Caspercaper1729 Apr 2019, 11:25

Really well polished! The gameplay is a bit simple though, next time you maybe want to try something more ambitious, even if it turns out less polished.

zondarg29 Apr 2019, 11:30

Nice little shooter. Not easy. Shoot rate could be a little higher from the start and the controls felt a little sluggisch (pun not intended :smile:) because you dont go continually but rather snap from position to position. But overall a good game!

LiauJ29 Apr 2019, 11:36

Beautifully simple game, I really enjoyed this one! Loved the humor too

BootlegJoe29 Apr 2019, 11:37

Nice little game!
Well polished and adhering to the theme, while having an interesting premise

Lubaka29 Apr 2019, 11:39

Great game which simply lacks a great sound track! (or maybe it has? i played it in the browser)
The theme is there and especially the difficulty! Its not an easy game so it can be a bit off-putting but atleast you've made it so that losing is not a complete restart!
A solid game i must say!

JakobTheQuizGuyauthor29 Apr 2019, 11:55

@lubaka Thanks! Last LD I made the game too easy, so in fear of repeating that mistake I might have overdone it in the other direction this time :laughing: make sure to buy upgrades when you can afford them if you're not, I tried balancing the game so it's still a challenge when you keep upgrading, and extremely difficult (might be impossible) after a few levels if you don't.

jka29 Apr 2019, 13:12

Nice game with nice graphics. I like how you have to balance paying of your debt with buying powerups. :)

Rancoud2 May 2019, 11:54

What you can improve:
* add audio
* need a little more balancing between waves when you don't pick upgrades early

Kylazaur2 May 2019, 14:28

Even without the audio I love the visual feedback it gives, great game, especially for a comp game, great job

Tony Redmer2 May 2019, 19:20

Great work with including rewarding animations. Very simple, but effective!

Aterlamia2 May 2019, 19:28

I really missed audio here it would made it even more fun to play i think. Only thing i can say is shooting feels a bit slow but it might be to easy if it was faster right way.

Gideon2 May 2019, 19:31

Had a lot of fun with your game. Humour is great!! Why is he snailman?? Because he always pays his rent so late? Very funny story and game. Great graphics, animations and fx. A bit too grindy for my taste, but all in all a very polished game. Just add sound and music and it's a complete game. Nice job!!

very dark lord2 May 2019, 19:45

Quite polished, nice visuals and really cool how you started it with a cutscene. I found the controls very slightly confusing though - took me a short while to realize I was moving between 4 invisible lanes, after wondering why the character didn't move as I wanted him to. :D
Also, there weren't enough hearts imho. Played like 7-ish rounds, with barely anyting new happening since the start, and I still only had the cheapest 2 upgrades and not enough hearts to buy a new one, let alone become a functional member of snail society. Still, great entry!

Dreadusa2 May 2019, 21:33

In any game with shooting, I suggest adding variance to the y position the "bullet" comes out at, it adds a lot of variety to shooting. Also adding alternate images for the "bullet" objects would make shooting even better. The game is super cute and I love the snail man! Overall all a very solid entry

toasteater3 May 2019, 06:23

Nice juicy visuals! I feel like the shooting part is a bit simple, and I think I saw another game this Compo with vertical "lanes" of movement just like this one, but this has its uniqueness in its shopping phase. I find it a bit hard to accumulate hearts in the game, and wasn't able to keep up with the sturdier enemies introduced each turn. Funny premise though!

JakobTheQuizGuyauthor3 May 2019, 09:41

@dreadusa good advice, I'll definitely implement it if I keep working on this game :) thanks!

And thank you so much to everyone who's commented so far!

GastricSparrow3 May 2019, 12:50

This game is bonkers! It's so hard but it's worth it. It made me realise that the theme essentially stacks the odds against you by having your health linked to your ability to upgrades... If you fall behind you're screwed!

KeyurRana3 May 2019, 20:46

Nice game and simple to understand. Getting more hearts was easier in the beginning, but got very difficult as I progressed, adding more heart drops would make the game more rewarding.

Overall, good job!

Other games by @jakobthequizguy

★3.91

★3.86

★3.74