Hostage Escape

by maksym

Overall★★★★★★★★★★3.83

Fun★★★★★★★★★★3.75

Innovation★★★★★★★★★★3.72

Theme★★★★★★★★★★3.91

Humor★★★★★★★★★★2.66

Mood★★★★★★★★★★3.50

Reversed tower defense with puzzle elements where you set up weapons to protect hostages during their escape.

You're an elite tactician. Use your "invisible special task force" to set up weapons on the level. Hostages are being held by evil terrorists. Place, aim and shoot those bad guys to create a safe path for hostages.

WHILE ROTATING A WEAPON(RMB) MOVE MOUSE CURSOR FAR FROM THE WEAPON FOR HIGHER PRECISION

WHAT SHOULD I DO?
Drag weapons onto the level, aim and shoot the enemies.

LEFT MOUSE BUTTON to MOVE weapon

RIGHT MOUSE BUTTON to ROTATE weapon

WHEN DO I WIN?
Your goal is to protect hostages and let them safely reach their target.

WHEN IT ENDS?
There are 7 levels about 5-10 minutes of gameplay.

HOW TO PLAY

PROTIP There are many protips on level completed screen.

Bug Fixes
- (22.04) Fixed Money bug. Dragging unavailable weapon caused money spend.
- (22.04) Rotation fix - now you can choose if you want weapon to rotate faster/slower.
- (22.04) Fixed Barrell colliders - sometimes caused bad ricochet angle.
- (23.04) Fix bug that sometimes allowed player to move to next level without passing previous one.

List of used assets (credits)

Casual Game Sounds (DUSTYROOM)

Clean Vector Icons (PONETI)

simple icon pastel tone (ASTR999)

Fantasy Wooden GUI Free

Grenade Sound FX (MGWSOUNDDESING)

HyperCasual - Free Sample (STEGO BUBBLES)

Low Poly Weapons VOL.1 (SIMON MERCUZOT)

PolygonStarter (SYNTY STUDIOS)

PSD Logo Templates(UNRULY GAMES)

WebGL Templates

Simple FX (SYNTY STUDIOS)

Barrell model

Royalty free music by

PLEASE IF YOU'RE PLAYING ON ITCH.IO USE FULL SCREEN

Tags: #3d, #low-poly, #singleplayer, #top down shooter, #top-down, #unity

Genres: puzzle, shooter

Tools: Adobe Photoshop, Blender, Unity

Comments77

Witdarkstar21 Apr 2020, 01:09

Really great twist on a class genre. You did a great job explaining what to do. Each level was a fun puzzle to solve.

Maksymauthor21 Apr 2020, 01:17

@witdarkstar thank you so much! Glad you liked the game. Gonna check yours ;)

FlyingKiwi21 Apr 2020, 09:09

Interesting concept! Clear instructions, creative puzzles and all tied together nicely.
Note: F1 in chrome opens a new tab even in full screen - maybe theres something I'm missing but restart wouldnt work for me.

Maksymauthor21 Apr 2020, 09:12

@flyingkiwi I changed it and now it's "R" button now updating the image instrucions. Thanks for testing!

Nehvis21 Apr 2020, 09:39

Nice concept, graphics and music! Controls are a bit intricate, though

ARBEX21 Apr 2020, 09:42

Excellent puzzle game, I enjoyed it, I'm wondering how did you manage to program all this, it's insane.

Gustav Andersson21 Apr 2020, 09:46

So fun with some puzzle! I played all levels and they were great. I would like some more difficult levels, like the one u don't have to shoot one gaurd, but maybe I'm to good, hehe..

Maksymauthor21 Apr 2020, 10:07

@nehvis thank you! I couldn't find better solution for making it more precise to control the weapons... it was really difficult and this is what it is. @arbex thank you I had a good template but still didn't create all I wanted. I desperatly wanted to create a Bazooka weapon but couldn't handle it :(
@gustav-andersson I bet you're smart guy :D but honestly for LD purpose I preferred to create a fully playable experience rather than insane puzzles. But there are a lot of possibilities.

Emperor Eagle21 Apr 2020, 10:10

Great game! Well made and smooth with amazing assets. I liked the puzzle and how unique it all was. It also fitted the theme well!

Lukas TAMAYO21 Apr 2020, 11:09

Finaly commentaries came back !

So basicly this game is awesome. The concept is pretty simple and the features work good. There are not many but they are well done and that's all that matters. The only bummer in this game is that it is too short. You do a very good job with level design to teach the player how to use everything at his disposal and when the serious stuff begins and you have to be pretty smart to get the highest score...

The game ends ?!

I know it's a jam and most of the time you end all the implementation of graphics and feature at the very end but a little bit more time to expand on some levels and have some kind of boss level at the end would have been so cool. SO COOL !

Anyway the game feels good, its pretty responsive, you have good feedback. Maybe something more like a pleasant audio sound and some police sounds through a radio would have helped the mood at the end of the level but honestly its only tiny bit of details. It's not the perfect game so it can't have the perfect grade but it's pretty feaking good.

Maksymauthor21 Apr 2020, 11:24

@lukas-tamayo I appreciate your feedback so much. I know that there's not enough levels... unfortunately common excuse here "didn't have time" I wanted boss and more weapons but yeah. Post jam version hopefully will feature both.

nosfer21 Apr 2020, 12:52

Nice concept, graphics (these cellshaded guys and animation :) and music. This can be polished into bigger game. What I didn't like is the need to use both mouse and keyboard - it could be played with only mouse with some UI elements and would probably be touch friendly.

Maksymauthor21 Apr 2020, 13:11

@nosfer thanks :) I will definitely improve the controls as I'm planning to release it on mobile

Charlez24521 Apr 2020, 13:29

Your game was a lot of fun to play! I really liked your take on tower-defense and the explosive barrels. There were a few bugs which I'm sure would've been fixed if there was time. (I got a black screen ~level 4 and couldn't proceed on Windows and the F1 doesn't work on Firefox). The music was also nice and gave the game a good atmosphere.

SplitPainter21 Apr 2020, 14:02

Dude, this is awesome! Music, gameplay and visuals. I like how everything was placed together - fits the theme perfectly.

Maksymauthor21 Apr 2020, 14:17

@charlez245 few bugs may happen unfortunately, thank you for testing the game. I changed to "R" for restart some GIFs lie about it but I mentioned it

Artyom Volkov21 Apr 2020, 16:44

Small neat game. I like graphics, which is stylish and very pleasant. Nice entry.

Fireshake21 Apr 2020, 16:44

Really great Puzzle Game, i think i would play it as a full release too. The Web version is a bit laggy.

GrizzliusMaximus21 Apr 2020, 16:58

There is nothing wrong with this game. Absolute masterpiece. I wouldn't believe this is made in a Game Jam

Maksymauthor21 Apr 2020, 17:15

@artyom-volkov @fireshake @grizzliusmaximus I greatly appreciate it. Thank you. I know there may be some issues but it's just a jam game :) hopefully you've enjoyed.

Artyom Volkov21 Apr 2020, 17:21

@maksym for a jam game it's pretty polished and feels better than many hyper casual games.

Maksymauthor21 Apr 2020, 17:23

@artyom-volkov It's really nice to hear it. I might decide to do a postjam version

surfskater221 Apr 2020, 17:30

Really well done, simple but effective.

Shaolin Dave21 Apr 2020, 22:15

The position/rotation wasn't percise enough for me to get past the first level with two barrels, but maybe I'll try again later.

I never heard of a "reverse" tower defense before but I love it. Graphics/sound were really good.

InflamedGums22 Apr 2020, 08:13

the game was a lot of fun, and, as others already stated, looks and feels very polished. If you decide to continue working on this game, I will definitely check out your updates. Great job all in all!

Maksymauthor22 Apr 2020, 09:40

@surfskater2
I am happy you enjoyed the game.

@shaolin-dave
I know that aiming should be more precise, couldn't come up with a better solution in 72h ufortunately. But I have a plan to create full version so I'll definitely improve this.

@inflamedgums
I'm going to decide in a short time if I'll work on it (most probably yes) as it's a good demo and people liked it. Glad you're the one who enjoyed, thank you!

Augus22 Apr 2020, 13:41

The idea behind this game is very simple, if it could be developed to involve something more interesting other than the current mechanic of lining up the gun to fire. In any case, good game, nice work.

Maksymauthor22 Apr 2020, 13:50

@augus thanks for playing. The idea may seem very simple but the whole design and coding part was a real challenge especially during a gamejam.

diinki22 Apr 2020, 14:24

Very well polished for the given time, I liked the spin on the theme as well! This has lots of potential especially if one decides to add more mechanics/levels, great work! :D

devilqube22 Apr 2020, 16:10

Very impressive, well done.

marcell-balog22 Apr 2020, 16:17

Great, polished game! I can see the coding part being pretty difficult. I could skip the levels instead of restart (or was it an intentional feature?), but it was useful actually. :D

Maksymauthor22 Apr 2020, 16:41

@diinki Thank you. As always time was my excuse. I planned more but shit happens.

@devilqube appreciate it! thanks

@marcell-balog thanks mate, it was hard... but somehow it went OKAYish. Restarting is for purspose :)

Gamer Fates22 Apr 2020, 19:37

Dope game! I like how it restarts in a new stage.

However, I wish the controls were clearly explained. I had no idea what to do.

Maksymauthor22 Apr 2020, 19:39

@gamer-fates thanks :) unfortunately I did my best in explaining the mechanics and controls. There are visible instructions in the left corner of the screen and it introduces mechanics mostly level by level. Appreciate your feedback tho! Cheers

Dan Colman22 Apr 2020, 20:45

Nice work - great mood and nice simple gameplay.

Maksymauthor22 Apr 2020, 21:52

@dan-colman thank you !

Jvdwijk22 Apr 2020, 23:28

This game was pretty fun, I liked how you had to set the on the right spots and look who isnt going to notice the civilians. Well done!

stevenjmiller23 Apr 2020, 01:25

Very fun and interesting game, I would be definitely interested in seeing more complex levels and more weapon types if you are interested in extending it. I do think it would be nice if you could sell weapons by dragging them back to the left side of the screen, just to make it a little more intuitive and less reliant on the keyboard. There was one instance in which I sold back a shotgun and the blue hit indicator remained on an enemy, but that was the only bug I encountered. Fantastic job!

JuanJ723 Apr 2020, 09:40

It was a bit difficult to understand at first, but the style is good and it's an interesting concept.

Maksymauthor23 Apr 2020, 10:22

@jvdwijk Thanks! Appreciate it. I wanted to make a few not very obvious levels

@stevenjmiller appreciate your feedback. That's what I planned: more levels and weapons (bazooka, sniper rifle, assault rifle) but for a gamejam there was no time. Also dragging weapons back to the left panel wasn't that obvious to code so I had to give up this idea due to no time.

@juanj7 best I could do was introducing mechanics one by one and give the player instructions to read. But I'm glad you've figured it out

Llewellyn and Michael23 Apr 2020, 10:33

Was cool, I had a bug where when I tried to enter the next level I pressed space 4 times instead of once and the game froze :laughing:
still an awesome game would love to see smoother animations and a way to skip slo mo though.

NoThoughts23 Apr 2020, 10:42

it hard to understand, but i like this art

Kanonix23 Apr 2020, 10:44

Impressive game ! I do think that the slow motion added some twist and, ironically, some dynamics to the game. Overall it makes me think of some mobile games from Voodoo that I actually played some times, however yours got no ads and that's what makes it better ahaha

Well done !

Maksymauthor23 Apr 2020, 10:51

@llewellyn-and-michael honestly didn't even check it shit can happen :D but glad you enjoyed

@nothoughts well I shooting red guys is some kind of an archetype in games :sweat_smile: but glad you like the art credits to amazing artists who made the assets

@kanonix not everyone may like the slo-mo but honestly if there wasn't slo-mo people wouldn't even notice how the mechanics work and the "main" gameplay after setting up the weapons is checking out how they shoot, after slo-mo you can always SHIFT to Fast Forward to make it faster ;D I hope my game will not finish as VOODOO games but man dev's gotta eat to right? :sweat_smile: Thanks!

bobost223 Apr 2020, 11:59

I really like the gameplay :D

Maksymauthor23 Apr 2020, 13:43

@bobost2 thanks! Appreciate that

ryannielson23 Apr 2020, 14:39

Neat game, short and sweet with a pretty novel puzzle machanic. With a few more enemy types and weapon options I could see this being a full-fledged game.

A few things I would tweak:
- Get rid of the countdown after you press the run button.
- Minor gripe, make the weapon rotation just point directly where the mouse cursor is instead of having it slowly rotate towards it.

Other than those really small things, I really enjoyed it. Good work!

Pilarius23 Apr 2020, 14:40

Cool concept, well executed. Nice entry :)

Guille23 Apr 2020, 14:50

The graphics looked nice! I could not get past the first level because the game was too hard ,or I am not getting something important. Whenever I place a pistol it always misses?

LungTakumi23 Apr 2020, 14:53

Great game! Great idea! I'm sure it will be hot on mobile platform.

Maksymauthor23 Apr 2020, 14:54

@guille okay like there's a written instruction in the top-left corner and it says to just drag the weapon onto the screen from the left panel, then you just AIM the red guy click "RUN NOW" and voila first level completed.

@ryannielson thanks for the feedback! When I coded the whole thing I made the rotation pointing exactly to the cursor but it was so unprecise that I had to fix it, trust me it's better now if you slowly rotate further from the weapon.

@pilarius appreciate it :)

Maksymauthor23 Apr 2020, 15:14

@guille with Right Mouse Button you can rotate the pistol. When there's little particle effect on the red guy (sparks) it means that it'll hit the target. Check out the gifs they may help you! Hope you'll make it

@lungtakumi thanks! I think it has potential to be a hit on mobile so I'll push forward with the project

Guille23 Apr 2020, 15:18

Playing again it worked. Last time I placed the gun aiming at the hostage keeper from very close I pressed "Run Now" and the hostage keeper still killed me. The game is very fun and interesting now that it worked.

Maksymauthor23 Apr 2020, 15:20

@guille I am glad it worked! There may be few situations I didn't predict because of lack of time :) Hope you'll enjoy!

Empheon23 Apr 2020, 15:56

Excellent game! Smart use of assets and puzzles are well thought! Well done :)

JAzambuja23 Apr 2020, 17:55

great game. love the art and te music, congratulations

DeathStorm23 Apr 2020, 18:36

A very interesting idea and conecpt.

I liked it a lot and had a lot of fun to play it.
Please add more levels, more weapons and do some Polishing, then this game could definitively a nice game to sell ;)

WEll Done

Maksymauthor23 Apr 2020, 20:23

@empheon Thanks! I did my best :)

@jazambuja appreciate it man those 2 are not mine I just properly set them up but they fit well my idea

@deathstorm thanks, that's what I am planning now. Currently working on mobile version that will feature more stuff.

angusdick23 Apr 2020, 21:16

nice puzzle game with a simple premise! I unfortunately couldn't get it to run smoothly, which probably gave me an unfair advantage!

Maksymauthor23 Apr 2020, 21:32

@angusdick well optimization wasn't very high on my priority list for a gamejam :( most people run it smoothly. I am glad you still enjoyed. I'm planning mobile release so maybe it'll run smoother :)

Harry Alissavakis24 Apr 2020, 09:56

Really innovative concept, and a nice art-style to go with it! Great job!!

JamesOliverMusic24 Apr 2020, 10:48

nice. took me a couple of tries to realise what i had to do. the artwork is nice. as i can see in your above comments, theres plenty of room to expand in a post jam version, so i look forward to seeing it!

Dextreon24 Apr 2020, 11:28

Really cool concept, I'm sure it has tons of work behind! Nice visuals and puzzles, and nice choice of music, I love it! You made an awesome entry, congrats for it!! :ok_hand:

Maksymauthor24 Apr 2020, 12:03

@harry-alissavakis Happy you liked the game. I'm quite proud of that concept I'm not gonna hide it :up:

@jamesolivermusic appreciate man, unfortunately there was no more time for better "tutorial" and it's written. Also checking out the GIFs on page may help, but glad you made it! Planning mobile version rather than PC :)

@dextreon coding was... like floating on the boat that's burning in the middle of the ocean but it won't stop burning because the water is gasoline :) thank you for realising how much effort it took. Much love

yxmx_rsx24 Apr 2020, 21:08

Very nice game. Simple and easy to understand what is going from the get-go. Good pacing, music, and art are also on points. I'm lagging a bit on the browser version which kinda takes away from the experience, but I tried the windows version and it runs smoothly. Overall, a pretty good game. Cheers!

G.A.GameStudio25 Apr 2020, 03:40

This game was AMAZING and I had no problems with it. I think that if you work on it more you could make it a mobile game. It would be cool to just see your game on the store one day and to know that I played it before it was on the store and that I rated it in Ludum Dare.

pepperkep25 Apr 2020, 04:17

This game is super satisfying to play. I do wish the rotation controls were a bit more intuitive since getting the rotation perfect on the weapons is a large part of the gameplay. A little bit more difficult of puzzles towards the end also would have been nice. I love how you managed to make completing a level feel really rewarding through the slow motion and the particle effects. I enjoyed playing it and there's definitely further potential in the idea.

Maksymauthor25 Apr 2020, 09:06

@g-a-gamestudio huuuge thank you! I'm very glad you didn't have any issues that are common with jam games. My plan is to make it mobile and I've already started working on mobile version. When it's done I'll do my best to let you know in this thread!

@pepperkep I'm happy that I managed to achieve satisfying effect. Obviously the game still needs polishing and that's what I'm gonna do next. Appreciate your feedback

James_777725 Apr 2020, 12:23

Probably the most polished game I've played this jam! Great visuals and music, the puzzles were fun to solve and it was really clear how to play the game. I especially liked the transparent versions of the hostages that ran along the path so I could see what would happen before pressing run. Great work!

Maksymauthor25 Apr 2020, 13:21

@james-7777 wow. That means a lot to me. Thank mate. I just properly used the available assets. Glad the ghost mechanic was understandable and helpful :)

Appreciate it

Infinite26 Apr 2020, 22:12

Nothing more to say, Very good game :) i liked the cinema frame effect ;)

Ulisses26 Apr 2020, 23:04

This game is awesome, good sound and graphics, mecanics working very well. Congrats, nice job!

hulkmaker30 Apr 2020, 02:09

the best one I have played, I have installed it in my PC to slowly enjoy.

Maksymauthor30 Apr 2020, 08:33

@infinite @ulisses @hulkmaker thank you guys, that means a lot to me :) I'm working on this game to be a full title. Aiming for mobiles and PC first :)

Manderxan7 May 2020, 14:03

Excellent entry with nice art direction. The music felt a bit off at first for some reason, but by the time I beat the game it had grown on me.

Plays well, and it's definitely the kind of game I would expect on mobile, though I don't play mobile games personally. And I prefer Zachtronics-style, puzzle games. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

I think I had a bug where one pistol cost double (even after supposed fix?), probably related to my broken mouse that keeps double-clicking. Still beat that level with just the one pistol though! Not sure if it was intentional or not.

elysiagriffin9 May 2020, 19:05

Thanks for submitting your game for me to play on my livestream!

If you’d like to rewatch the playthrough, you can find it here:

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/615928274?t=5h36m09s

Good luck on your ratings, see you next LD! :D

💜 Elysia Griffin AKA Button Feedback Lady

https://www.twitch.tv/elysiagriffin

joe4000112 May 2020, 20:58

Great game. I was able to get perfect on every level. Could use a tiny bit more polish but the level of fun and innovation were quite good.

Other games by @maksym

★3.82

Treekeeper - guard the last gate to heaven

LD38