VampySitter For Ludum Dare 46 "Keep it Alive" (WASD and mouse)
Design, graphics, music && programming: MacDoom
There's a suicidal Vampire loose in his castle! And you are his... VampySitter!!
He waked up looking for someone to satisfy its unspeakable thirst of BLOOD.
Help him find suitable sacrifices for his monstruosity. Move the camera with the malevolent WASD keys.
Look out for his thirsty meter on the upper right corner for its emptiness shall end Our Vampy's life! Stop reading! Go for Your master's food!
Look out for those Pointy stakes! Just click them out our vampy's way.
Beware of the deadly pits of hell as the castle change their location beneath the shadows. One false step and your vampy-sitting check will never be yours.
Luckly you took a Garlic from your momma's kitchen. Use it to take him away from danger!... or bring them to sweetness. Use it also to go with your meal somewhere safe and cozy.
If danger lurks too close or suppertime is getting late you can always "persuade" your vampy to go rapidly to some direction with your trusty cross.
Lets keep Vampy alive!
Controls:
-WASD or Keys:. . .Move
-Left click:. . . Break Stake
-Q or Right Click: Garlic
-E or Middle click: Cross
-R or F11:. . . . Restart game
-ESC or F12:. . . Exit game
-Alt + Enter: . . Windowed mode
3 levels of Slaughter!
- More pits - Faster stakes - Get hungry faster - Goes more by its own if unattended - Slower auto-find Vampy camera
Warning: Hell awaits only vampire masters
Known Bugs: - Sometimes the vampire, when drove off a wall, will start walking out the playing area. Known solution: F11 or R to restart
- Sometimes a victim invokes a doppleganger to haunt your glitchiness
Engine: - Game Maker Studio 1.4
Graphics: - Aseprite - Photoshop, Banners "VampySitter", "Game Over" and 2 "Press any key" by my girlfriend Carla =O*
FX: -Bfxr -Jeskola Noise Generator -
Music:
-Intro & Game Over Organs Based on Bachs tocatta and fuge in D minor with Jeskola Buzz
All 5 stars across the board baby; this game is perfect. Once I figured out the controls, I had a blast. Fell out of my chair laughing when the vampire first jumped down a pit. Absolutely nailed the theme; most creative submission so far.
Hey @frozen-stick ! Fellow game maker! Can't comment right now on your LD page due to site's problems. Loved the frenetic gameplay! Great sound and overall feeling. Excellent job!
Really love the idea and how the game looks, great job. One criticism though, the gameplay can feel a little sluggish, moving the camera to look for victims is really slow and I rarely used the garlic, instead using the cross since it moved the vampire so much faster. Really impressed with the game overall though.
@dmtroy Thanks for the feedback! The garlic is meant to move Vampy more accurately for dangerous areas. There were a few obstacles that didn't made it to tha jam version. Hope to update it after a postjam cooldown. Now let's take a look to that Baby Dragon!
Great job on the animations, you gave the vampire a ton of personality. It's unfortunate I'm always scaring away the wampire as that walking animation is so good. I liked that there was a bit of risk/reward to your options. At first I started with garlic as it's safer in general, but then I started using the cross more because there are no pits at the top so it seemed safer. However, it DOES expose you to stakes more, so you really just have to juggle your risk that way. Pretty cool game!
OMG, the eating blood animation is the best thing I've seen in a while! It is bloody, creepy and yet fun and nicely translated into the pixelart work! A vampire is also a nice interpretation of the theme.. I could imagine this game be a bit bigger to make it into a stand-alone game, outside of a jam? Maybe include some riddles or clues the player has to find? I really like the effort you put into "remixing" the sound! Nicely done!
Very funny and I liked how you make the game have their own... 'personality', somehow. Looks good, plays good and have some kind of challenge so I think is a solid/good game. Nice work here!
Hey @misterg420 ! Maybe I'll continue this game's development into something bigger. Lots of fun making it and lots of ideas but. Thnx for the compliment =O)
@palvel Many obstacles and features of the original idea couldn't make it as programming + animating + audio creation all by myself was really time consuming. For the next jam I'll be harder, better, stronger and faster :) Thnx for the feedback. Excellent work with the Necromancer! The selection process is an important, yet overlooked, responsibility of a man who wants to raise a family.
Main Menu aside all the other sprites were beautiful and smooth (especially when Falling and using the Cross), the game was fun, and the Audio was really great. Loved it.
This vampire is truly suicidal. Sometimes he's even ignoring victim standing right next to him :)
Art looks awesome and music adds to the creepy mood immensely. Add some time to polish few minor issues related to vampire getting stuck on level borders and this could be nice game outside of game jam.
I liked the animations and the audio was nice. I adored the creepy atmosphere.
It took a while (or rather, it took some vampire deaths ;)) to get used to the controls. At the beginning, I was quite confused. It's not easy commanding the vampire around!
@cobear25 A mouse is really usefull in my game indeed. A lesson I'll keep on mind for the next jam due to compatibility of different setups. Loved your game.
Nice work!! Loved the idea behind how to control the vampire and the animations :)
I had some issues figuring out the controls and felt it could have been slightly easier to start, I got insta killed by the first log quite a few times (until i realized you could click on it and break it).
This vampire is so cute! I liked the game and had a lot of fun! The animation and sound are very funny, the graphic style creates a Gothic atmosphere.
You can get stuck in the game for a long time. :) It would be great to add a result counter to compare the time and number of victims in different sessions.
The unusual movement mechanic was quite tricky to get used to. I think I would have struggled even with full day light -- maybe the visibility circle could have started easier/bigger and got smaller over time to ease progression. That said, well done for coming up with something new & innovative! The pixel art/animations were nice, and I'm glad you got some organs into the audio where I didn't! They really set the mood. A strong entry. :slight_smile:
Thnx @aj-jones! never played a game like your's also :v:
@primum-ludum The result counter is going to exist on a future update. thnx for the feedback.
@gwinnell For the organs I used Jeskola buzz's organ machine, it's free. The visibility circle is a great idea! It's going to my changelist right away. Loooved your game! Been playing a lot of retro FPS this month and you goit it right on spot.
This is really cool, I especially liked the graphics. It's a very dark game and the atmosphere was near perfect, but for some reason I didn't think the in game music fit too well - not that the music was bad, but it isn't the music I think of when I think of vampire. The music to the opening sequence and the sequence in general was a perfect opening to the game though. The game play doesn't have a lot to it and I think that the cross and garlic are too similar (unless I misunderstood how to use them). I enjoyed this :D
Awesome game! I love the concept, it is original and works well with the theme. The graphics look good and I laughed out loud when the vampire fell down the hole. Well done!
Everything was good except the gameplay needs more polish. The mechanics don't seem to interplay in an intuitive manner. Good graphics, good design, just needs the gameplay/mechanics tweaked.
@jupiter-hadley Thanks for playing my game! You have to use the cross and the garlic to guide Vampy to his breakfast. Once he is near he will be attracted and willing to attack at left click. There's mucho to polish for a post-jam version.
The presentation side of the game was great. From the title screen to the vampire's individual expressions every sprite seemed very finely drawn. Animations of "Vampy" were definitely the highlight of the game, along with the original idea, which was very fitting for the theme.
Audio was mostly great. There was a small bug with the music which played at game over, as it didn't stop when pressing restart, and then continued to play on top of the starting track. A small yet annoying bug, but as you probably ran out of time to focus on small quality of life fixes like that one, I'll give it a pass xd.
Another nitpick: on the difficulty selection screen (along with the rest of the minor UI you had in place), it would have been nice to be able to use the mouse, as it can be used in the actual gameplay too.
Overall tho, I think the biggest issues in the game were the controls, camera movement (which does work as expected, but felt a bit unintuitive) and the lack of explanation. Without reading the jam page, the controls and the objective were quite unclear to dechiper from the game itself. You did at least have the controls listed in the help section of the main menu, but if you could have somehow taught them through gameplay or a short tutorial it would have helped a lot. Remember: people don't read!
But despite the few flaws I mentioned, I think you still have a great LD entry here. For a one man team, I must congratulate you for this achievement! A quite unique and stylish jam game, great job!
A great experience - really enjoyed it. The animations really brought it to life, and a game where you don't control the main character felt quite original (oh, that was a possible theme wasn't it?! haha!). Awesome job!
Hey! Played your game and loved the art style and the concept was very cool! Here's the feedback, sorry for the late post, I got sick and had to take a break
Once I figured out the controls, I had a blast. Fell out of my chair laughing when the vampire first jumped down a pit.
Absolutely nailed the theme; most creative submission so far.