Protect The Artifact

by willypa
Overall★★★★★★★★★★2.82
Fun★★★★★★★★★★2.73
Innovation★★★★★★★★★★2.36
Theme★★★★★★★★★★3.39
Graphics★★★★★★★★★★2.78
Audio★★★★★★★★★★2.41
Humor★★★★★★★★★★2.26
Mood★★★★★★★★★★2.49
Just survive....

Tip: Use the boost!

Follow me on itch.io or go into the itch.io site and check sometime, will come a Full Version of the game fixing all current bugs

screenshot

Comments51

James Shipp
James Shipp20 Apr 2020, 06:28
Nice reversal of the usual gameplay elements, with the player damaging enemies instead of vice versa!
BilbyCoder20 Apr 2020, 06:37
Quick to grasp, nicely implemented controls. Congratulations on a 48 hour game. I noticed that time in that world is metric.
Brian Teng
Brian Teng20 Apr 2020, 06:40
The boost mechanism is interesting -- it gives you not only an advantage but also a challenge (harder to control)!
EternalXP
EternalXP20 Apr 2020, 06:43
A very fun game. I like the sprites
Peret20 Apr 2020, 07:10
Could be better:
- Timer goes to 100s not 60s.
- Can lose you player if goes off the screen.
- LD is not on the center of the screen.
- Difficulty does not increase. Maybe with some random value that make Reds faster or stronger.
- Menus and fonts could be prettier.
- Achievement bugged, appears and disappears constantly once unlocked.
- Sound of killing Reds and LD could be different.
- Could have a music on the background.

What I like:
- Nice graphics, simple and nice.
- I like the idea of moving around and defend LD.
- Death animation of Reds.
- Ending animation is cool.
- Cool sound of killing a Red.
- Nice visual atmosphere.

Well done! Keep it up!
WillyPaauthor20 Apr 2020, 07:14
@peret yea, the timer is bugged out, ik, but it was not the most important thing, Achivement text bug is noted. Will be fixed to next update(will come after voting period is over). In next update the camera will follow the player. And lastly LD Artifact will also be in the middle of the screen the next update :)
ChloeOfArroyo20 Apr 2020, 10:42
Lol, love that the timer goes to 100 seconds! difficulty should increase over time though - overall a solid game for 48 hours
WillyPaauthor20 Apr 2020, 10:46
@chloeofarroyo :), next update will have different difficluty modes, I hope I am allowed to post updates to the game after the voting period
ilikescifi
ilikescifi20 Apr 2020, 10:49
Quite nice here. A little buggy here and there (as mentioned before). Good work!
WillyPaauthor20 Apr 2020, 10:53
@ilikescifi yeah, In my opinion the bugs aren't to big. nothing completley too game ruining
peto184
peto18420 Apr 2020, 10:56
I liked the simple colors and death particles of the enemies. However, I did expect the difficulty to ramp up, otherwise I could have played endlessly. Achievement was unexpected but it was nice suprirse. The artifact death animation was great. Nonetheless, cool game! :)
WillyPaauthor20 Apr 2020, 11:03
@peto184 yeah, I experianced a glitch when I developed the game that the game would crash with the spawning system I had.... so I had to remove the difficulty... sadley :( But If you follow me on itch.io I think it will notify you guys when the next update comes out.... in that update the difficulty will arrive :)
oller12520 Apr 2020, 12:24
The boost is a bit of a pain to control with WASD. If movement was "click here to move" or something similar there would be a better justification for using it. Still pretty fun though.
Honest20 Apr 2020, 13:36
Achievements are cool! But the Achievement text flickers after showing up, pretty cool game though!
Stefanie Leitch
Stefanie Leitch20 Apr 2020, 14:11
Pretty good game. Graphics were nice, I liked the glowing effects. The achievement text flickered so I couldn't read it. The timer went to 100 seconds, not 60 seconds as you would expect, and honestly I wish there were more enemies or mechanics to keep things interesting.
Tenik20 Apr 2020, 15:02
Nice game, as others have noted there are a few bugs, and for me it is so laggy that it even crashed. With all that said, completing a compo in 48h is not easy, and fo your first try, I would say that this is a win :)
Prackli20 Apr 2020, 15:04
It could take a restart button, for now I can only quit or go back to the menu, if you press the boost button too many times you crash the game, and when I get outside of the sreen I loose the player and cant revert it.
Artylo
Artylo20 Apr 2020, 15:05
Frankly, not much going on. If this is your first outing in game development, it's a nice start, but I couldn't even exit the game without having to Alt+Return and exit manually. The graphics aren't really anything but simple shapes and colors with a filter on top and it's horribly silent with only the odd SFX in it.
Courtmac
Courtmac20 Apr 2020, 15:10
I didn't even know there was a boost and made it to 300 before closing the game. Maybe the enemies should get faster as time goes on, too. It's a good start but it seems everyone's already covered the important stuff
WillyPaauthor20 Apr 2020, 15:13
@artylo thanks for the feedback, I will look into the quitting issue
WillyPaauthor20 Apr 2020, 15:13
@tenik it shouldn't be that laggy... but I will look into it
WillyPaauthor20 Apr 2020, 15:15
@prackli camera will follow the player in the next update :) and there will be a restart button, and that you cant boost too much...
WillyPaauthor20 Apr 2020, 15:16
@courtmac yeah. Thanks for the constructive comment
WillyPaauthor20 Apr 2020, 15:24
@courtmac @artylo @prackli @tenik @bloodpulpgames @stefanie-leitch @honest @oller125 @peto184 @ilikescifi @chloeofarroyo @peret @eternalxp @brian-teng @bilbycoder @james-shipp and everyone else that comes here.... I am aware of the bugs that currently exists. Follow me on itch.io or go into the itch.io site and check sometime, will come a Full Version of the game fixing all current bugs. And even coming feature updates and such. This jam was just the beginning of a full big project I will be making. The full game will be in a separate link, so thats why I want you to check the page / follow me on itch.io

Have fun playing,

William
P1x3lc0w
P1x3lc0w20 Apr 2020, 15:37
A nice idea for a game definitely. i like the idea of the player itself being the weapon, however i feel like the game was not difficult enough. Adding achievements, for example, doesn't feel necessary for a jam. I'd personally focus on, for example, adding another type of enemy to keep the game a little more interesting. Even if the sprites itself aren't that impressive, the effects make the game plenty stylish. Overall a nice concept tho and all in all well made..
Saviqq20 Apr 2020, 15:38
Fun little game I messed around with it and here are my notes:

Things I like
- interesting mechanic changing life for boost
- cool art and sound effects
- implementation of some sort of achievement system

Things that could be better
- increasing difficulty, currently it's not that hard to play for a very long time, get's repetitive after a while
- more achievements
- add some background music to improve overall atmosphere

Overall nice game for 48 hour period
VeniTheRich20 Apr 2020, 16:47
Nice game! Even though it is very simple, for some reason it is addictive. The sounds of killing enemies are spot on. It does get a bit repetitive though. This could be improved by having more kinds of enemies (maybe some shooting enemies) or increasing difficulty levels or more achievements so that people have a goal to push towards. Keep up the good work!
Reiqy
Reiqy21 Apr 2020, 12:15
Very addictive game. Maybe try adding more enemy types. However kinda unusual for a minute to have 100 seconds instead of typical 60.
bigTINYGames21 Apr 2020, 20:24
add variations to enemy statistics, dash ability to player, some animations and random pitch as sounds are too repetitive
TheWinrawr
TheWinrawr21 Apr 2020, 20:27
Pretty good game for 48 hours! I definitely think you could've added more to the game though. As of right now there's not much to do besides running into enemies.

Things that you could add:
* Different types of enemies, like ones that shoot projectiles, for example
* Some background music.
* Particle effects when you kill an enemy

Things I like:
* The SFX when killing an enemy is pretty neat.
* The achievement system is also a really cool feature of the game.
* Overall graphics are good and fit the game's style very well

Great job on your game!
sydream22 Apr 2020, 15:16
Like the lighting used, subtle but effective. Like the various animations for when the NPCs dies. Could have polished a bit with nicer fonts / menu / hud and audio sfx but in 48h you managed to do what most people can't so well done, be proud.
Kaisean Games27 Apr 2020, 07:50
Nice feel to the game. Especially for a compo game.

Things that could be improved:

* Fix the time counter. It counts seconds to 100 instead of to 60.
* Different enemies (maybe even ranged ones so that you have to prioritize where to go first). Currently there's not much gameplay besides just circling around the artifact and prevent the enemies from getting close
* Maybe upgrades

But otherwise, well done for introducing the achievements as well. I see those rarely in LD games.

Keep up the good work.
Gelgavish
Gelgavish27 Apr 2020, 08:46
Really nice and relaxing game :) the boost is kind of annoying though :P
g1234527 Apr 2020, 08:47
For 48 hours this is a really nice completed game! You even had time to add a losing animation for it too!

Also I like that the energy goes up slowly, unlike some other games where if you make a mistake you can never recover.
SAVVU
SAVVU27 Apr 2020, 08:52
It was great to actually kill the enemies without shooting something but colliding with them bu myself haha! The controls are very smooth as well making the game really enjoyable! I wou;d suggest to to add some other kind of enemy after lets say 1 minute of play (Maybe some blue that needs 2 collisions to defeat)! Overall a great experience wish you goo d luck!
WanS2427 Apr 2020, 09:32
Concept is nice, if you add more impact and some gameplay mechanics to improve combat it would be really good. Visuals are good, though they lack some little details and better sprites overall, love the glow. The character runs very fast even without boost, so it's hard to control him. Maybe it's how it was intended, but I think that controlls should be more precise. All in all, good job for 48 hours.
firellon
firellon27 Apr 2020, 19:27
I've got the Slasher achievement unlocked :)

I think gradual increase in difficulty could help the game to be a bit more challenging after a while (currently enemies seem to spawn at the same rate, so it gets repetitive eventually)

Nice graphics style. I was thinking I'm the LD box for a little bit (since the camera is centered on it) and was flabbergasted about how the controls are inversed and it's really, really hard to go around

Then I realised that I'm the green guy and it became way easier :D

Overall, alright compo entry.
designernap
designernap29 Apr 2020, 19:22
Cool simple game for the time you have :) Nicely focused and a well rounded end result. Keep it up!
Game-mon
Game-mon9 May 2020, 17:50
Nice game! Quite fun to play. A few downsides for me: the gameplay might be a bit too simple and becomes a bit boring after a minute. I'm not a huge fan of these graphics, some more detail, animations, particles could be nice. And it felt like it's almost impossible to lose, it's a bit too easy. But still a cool entry! Good job :)
Game-mon
Game-mon9 May 2020, 17:50
Nice game! Quite fun to play. A few downsides for me: the gameplay might be a bit too simple and becomes a bit boring after a minute. I'm not a huge fan of these graphics, some more detail, animations, particles could be nice. And it felt like it's almost impossible to lose, it's a bit too easy. But still a cool entry! Good job :)
kamekai
kamekai11 May 2020, 17:43
This game has no business being as fun as it is. But it looks so good! You chose a great aesthetic for the time budget. The bloom and bright neon colors and bouncy feel sell it. I think around a minute in you should start amping up the difficulty every 30 seconds or so so that things don't become too stale.

Great job!
GaryS
GaryS11 May 2020, 17:46
Feels nice to play - I liked the speed of the player and the momentum of the physics. One thing to note is that I found moving diagonally is quicker than moving UD/LR - you probably want to constrain the speed there.
I made it to about 230 seconds before I gave up. I didn't need to use the boost at all, so I really think there needs to be a difficulty curve added here. Another nice idea might be if you could push the artifact around to move it out of the way of enemies.
pee-thief
pee-thief11 May 2020, 17:48
I like the lighting effects
GameOverMexico
GameOverMexico11 May 2020, 17:49
It took me a while until I saw that the LD died, but then it lasted a while and this was what lasted, it would be fine if there were waves and more appeared.
fabula_rasa11 May 2020, 19:44
It is very basic but impressive for such a short time and working alone! I don't know how you achieved that but congratulations!

But because it is very basic, it gets tiring and rather boring after a while. Difficulty doesn't ramp up, enemies don't do anything new, you can't do anything new, enemies just keep coming in the same patterns over and over. And because it's not very challenging to begin with (which is nice - start your player of slowly) and it doesn't become harder over time - it becomes just tiring and repetitive.

Difficulty changing over time, introducing new enemies and so on would really do this game good.

I also noticed some achievements popping up downstairs. The pop up is in red colored font and appears on the red background of the ground - making the pop up barely visible and readable. You should really move it somewhere else to make it more readable :smile:

Also, I have no idea what's up with the counter in the top middle. At the beginning, I thought it's minutes and just counts time played. But I noticed later that it can't be because there are 100 "seconds" in this "minute". So can't be time. So now I am very curious! What is it?
Bredian11 May 2020, 19:54
Well, I like that you implemented some advanced techniques here: particles and achievement system. It is strange to see that a person created the achievements struggles with timer programming (picture in comment above: there are 296 secs, or 2 mins 96 secs). Good prototype, it would have become much more interesting, if there was more content: bonuses, different enemy types, levels maybe. That would make a candy from this game.

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