I got into developing hyper-casual games lately. Even though I had planned using some different development systems for each jams, after announcement of theme I decided to develop a hyper-casual game. I wanted to extend it to a casual but that will be on full release I think.
Game is simple, you are trying to protect animals gathered at the center of the screen. There are some alien ships who want to destroy animals. Your goal is preventing aliens as long as possible while not letting animals die from hunger. I am thinking adding some powerups to give some variety to gameplay and maybe a different part to see gathered animals (this is supported in this version to but I did not finished implementation). If you can give me ideas about gameplay that will be very helpfull.
I codded whole game by myself there is only free LeanTween library in addition to my codes. I developed game in Unity. At the start my goal was participating in Jam but whole game finished yesterday so I decided to run for compo. I tried to try out some different tools and styles for graphics and I am aware that neither graphics not musics are good. I don't have a sense of art I think.
Anyway time to make a game for Jam this time. Enjoy Precious Animals and keep them safe as long as possible for me please.
@willoftw@dimling hi one of my friend had encountered with that error too but I could not recreate it to fix. But I will look at it again. @leon-oost thx for feedback I will consider that
Really fun game, there are times where I felt stupid for deflecting a projectile back to me after it had already passed the animal. Really challenging, but I like it.
@technosander@singleshoe@hexiez123 thank you all for playing it and feedback. @joskerdu I could not figure out to how to solve it, I solved it to the some degree but I can't find the real reason sadly
The music is bizarre and the game is very difficult. I like the different aspect ratio too - completely unique. So far the only game I've played that is portrait instead of landscape - nice originality!
@cogcomp thank you that was my goal, nice to see it worked out. @madbookstudios initially, I designed the game for mobile and when I realized most of us will play on html it was too late to change ratio :). Musics were my first attempts and I have really bad sense of music :(
The music's okay, but the sound effects really hurt my ears. They're very unpleasant popping noises. Would be nice to be able to mute either music or SFX or both at the player's discretion.
Gameplay is fun conceptually, but very hard. Sound effects when they shoot at you would be preferred over sound effects when they die, it would make for a better clue that I need to swivel the shield somewhere else. Also not sure what the floating yellow orbs are - are they also bullets? I've been stopping them with my shield as well.
Since it's a browser game, it should be playable on mobile regardless, so it's okay that it was too late to change ratio. That's why mine was in a similar portrait mode ratio.
@papabirb thank you so much for detailed review. I am noting these to fix. Also those yellow things are actually feeds that animals should take. I wanted to distract player a bit between missiles and feeds but signs were not clear enough for that I think.
Has that special something that keeps you restarting instead of quitting. Plays a bit rough, at least on web, but still very addictive - even if some deaths felt unfair wanted to keep going.
It was enjoyable, but tough. It would be cool if it got progressively harder, or if the different types of missiles had some visual cues.
Powerups would be cool! They could give you a bigger shield or invincibility for a short period of time. Or one that explodes all the enemies on the screen. I could see this game being very addictive on mobile.
Too me it was a bit too difficult - but fun concept :thumbsup_tone1: The difficulty could be hugely different depending on which "fleet" you were up against.
This game could have really used some intro level gameplay before the onslaught of bullet hell that it is currently. Bullets that reflect and then come right back as a first attack just seems unfair. If there was a slower progression of difficulty then this game could have been a very addictive play.
@dandala88 I am aware of that, I could not stick a good system for tutorial at the time of jam, maybe because of exhausting. On editor and on mobile, game gives you more break between bullets, but I couldn't figure out why this was not the case for web but I will definitely look at it. Thx for feedback
Well executed, although incredibly difficult. I can't seem to last very long. I think it's because there doesn't seem to be a way to anticipate the attacks. They just come and if the enemy is too close, you don't stand a chance. Nice work.
@zerohbeat I did not want to make it so obvious so left it to a randomness. There is plenty of time for most attacks but yeah it can be unavoidable time to time. Thx for feedback
The game is reaaaaaally hard and unfair sometimes (especially when bouncing a missile, and it just keep falling indefinitly) ! xD Also I would have loved to know what I should protect my "ball" from and what I was allowed to let pass through the shield.
@sokette thx for feedback. I could not figure out what keeps bounced missiles to come back, there is no affector pulls them but sometimes physics mess up I think. Meal think was very late addition that I wanted to add a new thing which player needs to consider and take risk but it was not well introduced as you said
Really great game but found a bug straight off, when I click retry after dying nad kill an alien,it adds my previous score so like if I died at 9 and kill an alien next run,it gives me 10 score straight off, but a pretty fun game overall
Pretty cool game here! I enjoyed it and liked how the enemies would roll up, and start shooting. I found it intuitive, intense, and fun, for an enjoyable experience (especially as more animals came up). I would recommend a bit of a visual polish (graphics are nice, but maybe some lighting effects etc). Overall, well done for one of two games you made in just 72 hours!
@sandra-martinez yeah, I could not found a way to solve it though it seems I need to recreate project since error comes from standard packages. Thx for trying, it is hard to stay alive long :smile:
The bullets coming back and back to the player after deflecting them felt terrible. Also some telegraphing on when the enemies are about to shoot would be nice. Other than that, nice job!
@suchista thx. That bounce bug is handled by rigidbody which results in to keeping velocity the same sometimes, I will probably write my own bounce script to make it stable. I am planning to add very short disclaimer before shoot which will decrease over playtime and experience. But I don't want to make it to obvious so that player sits quietly until enemy fire.
Had a crash when clicking quickly after game over.
I really like the idea of the game and had fun with it. The concept is fun and trying for reflections is fun too. That said the web version could use a different resolution and maybe pull the difficulty back a tad?
Fun and cool concept - and a game that is about saving animals deserve respect. My feedback is if you added a background would help immersion and mood further (and balance difficulty a bit more). But since it is very gameplay focused, it is worth it, this is what matters in a jam game.
ouch that was really hard to play. I tried to play it on my phone if that was easier (the screen ratio seems to be for phones) but unforunatly it didn't scale well but the inputs worked.
the music added a nice crazyness to the game :) but after hearing it for 10 minutes on repeat I think I need to clean my ears (or brain) now :)
@splitpainter thx for playing. I will consider to adding some background but I could not quite found a setup this action goes on, it will probably a spacey background. @smiley sorry for your ears. I just enabled it to mobile but screen ratio is not perfect fit for it, I'm glad that inputs worked on mobile
Seemed a bit difficult at the beginning for a hyper casual game. I wish I had more control, maybe a limited resource I could use at the last second to protect the animals if I missed a bullet. Cute art!
@scott-steffes I can think some very short magnet affect or slow time system but there is only one input in mobile which makes this kind of little things impossible I think. But I will look into that
Very challenging! I loved the visuals, I was able to collect two animals for a couple seconds on my best run! I did not run into any bugs, and I gave it several attempts. I like the space theme.
Nice little game! I wish I had more control over where the rockets were going after they deflected - would be cool if they followed the mouse a little or something. Also, did you really do TWO games for LD?!
@frenchie yes, page has link to that game too if you want to check it out. After compo, I wanted make something else. I am considering little deflect direction, I relied on unity physics on compo but it let me down. Thx for playing
A decent concept, but has a few issues. The barrier seems to not move perfectly in some instances/gets stuck. It would also be nice if bullets bounced back in the direction that the barrier is pointing toward so you could aim at the enemies. Things also get a bit weird with multiple animals joining together and I am not sure this is necessary, or could use some work before it could be an ok mechanic
Thanks for bringing your game for us to check out on stream. If you'd like to watch the video again, the highlight is at https://www.twitch.tv/videos/617290861
Comments71
Gameplay is fun conceptually, but very hard. Sound effects when they shoot at you would be preferred over sound effects when they die, it would make for a better clue that I need to swivel the shield somewhere else. Also not sure what the floating yellow orbs are - are they also bullets? I've been stopping them with my shield as well.
Since it's a browser game, it should be playable on mobile regardless, so it's okay that it was too late to change ratio. That's why mine was in a similar portrait mode ratio.
Cute game!
Congrats!
Powerups would be cool! They could give you a bigger shield or invincibility for a short period of time. Or one that explodes all the enemies on the screen. I could see this game being very addictive on mobile.
Well done otherwise :smile:
:purple_heart: :dart: :frog:
Also I would have loved to know what I should protect my "ball" from and what I was allowed to let pass through the shield.
But otherwise, good job for this entry ;)
I was breaking a record when the game crash ;D
I really like the idea of the game and had fun with it. The concept is fun and trying for reflections is fun too. That said the web version could use a different resolution and maybe pull the difficulty back a tad?
the music added a nice crazyness to the game :) but after hearing it for 10 minutes on repeat I think I need to clean my ears (or brain) now :)
If you’d like to rewatch the playthrough, you can find it here:
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/615952171?t=5h03m23s
Good luck on your ratings, see you next LD! :D
💜 Elysia Griffin AKA Button Feedback Lady
https://www.twitch.tv/elysiagriffin