BreakEven

by f1krazy

Overall★★★★★★★★★★3.08

Fun★★★★★★★★★★2.94

Innovation★★★★★★★★★★2.52

Theme★★★★★★★★★★3.06

Graphics★★★★★★★★★★3.12

Audio★★★★★★★★★★2.52

Humor★★★★★★★★★★3.29

Mood★★★★★★★★★★2.85

Your proud nation is sinking deeper into debt with each passing second. Your mission: raid a military base in neighbouring Plentania and steal their money and valuables, while fighting off the Plentanian army.

The deeper your nation's debts grow, the deeper into the base you will have to venture...

Features:

- Five levels
- A fully-fledged storyline
- ~~A lot of glitches~~ UPDATED: Now with ~~70%~~ 80% fewer glitches!

Controls:

- Arrows: Move
- Z: Shoot/Advance through dialogue

Changelog:

- 2021/04/28: Fixed the broken collision detection and a few minor visual issues.
- 2021/05/12: Further collision detection fixes, added missing sound effect, adjusted visual FX

Made using the TIC-80 game engine.

Tags: #2d, #pixel art

Genres: action

Tools: TIC-80

Comments24

zimny1126 Apr 2021, 20:27

Nice take on a theme, fighting against deepening debt in unconventional ways :) Yes, there are bugs and glitches, but making a game for 2-3 days is difficult and sometimes things don't go as planned, so cheer up and "always look on the bright side of life" *whistling* :)

vrerabek26 Apr 2021, 20:43

Hey, the game is really glitched, don't know what I expected after reading that, haha! Don't worry about that, the graphics and sounds are great though. If you manage to fix it, I would love to play post-LDJ version.
Love the death messages by the way :)

Wesxdz26 Apr 2021, 20:54

I like the story and dialogue.The tank movement is seriously not responsive at times and that breaks the fun for me. Maybe it would be a good idea to reduce scope and focus on getting important mechanics finished early next time?

F1Krazyauthor26 Apr 2021, 22:35

@wesxdz That's most likely the broken collision detection, it keeps thinking you've hit a wall when you haven't (and thinking you haven't hit a wall when you have). I'm glad the story was at least enjoyable, I was hoping it would be.

Thanks for the support so far, I'll definitely have a think about what I can do to fix this up a bit.

Jeremia27 Apr 2021, 12:46

Cool game, a bit glitchy as has been mentioned before.

I even got an exception (uploaded for your convenience):

It happenes when I drive to the right into these things:

F1Krazyauthor28 Apr 2021, 21:18

@jeremia I found that same glitch myself earlier today and I think I already have a fix for it. Thanks for the heads-up, though, and I'm glad to hear that you liked it anyway!

F1Krazyauthor28 Apr 2021, 22:37

@vrerabek I've just published an update that fixes the worst of the issues, feel free to give the game another go.

SuperGamersGames28 Apr 2021, 22:53

Nice take. There are a few collision errors but I have no idea if that's on tic80's end or not.

LordSylvestrion28 Apr 2021, 22:54

Quite a fun nifty little game. ^^ A shame there is only one map for now but the gameplay was very enjoyable! Dodging enemy bullets in a tank is fun while trying to maneuver in to shoot them gave a few thrills.

One disappointing thing though, can't run over the foot soldiers. : D I hope that is a planned feature. c: And if it isn't then make it one, those little guys are hard to hit and could be easier and more fun to just run into if the chance is there.

variable_enigmatic28 Apr 2021, 22:55

This was cute. I think it's hilarious that you have to go blow things up to get out of debt.

F1Krazyauthor29 Apr 2021, 07:10

@lordsylvestrion Being able to run over the foot soldiers is actually something I considered, I just never got round to it. As for having only one map, that was a conscious decision: you're going *deeper and deeper* into the base each time, as well as getting *deeper and deeper* into debt, so it gives a nice double meaning to the theme.

@supergamersgames Any collision issues will likely be on my end. Can you provide more information so I can take a look at them?

SuperGamersGames29 Apr 2021, 14:32

@f1krazy When you drive into a wall it you can’t move along it (if the wall ran left to right and you ran up into it you couldn’t move right or left until you backed away from it).

F1Krazyauthor29 Apr 2021, 17:01

@supergamersgames Strange, I thought I fixed that along with the other bugs. I'll take a look, thanks for letting me know.

HolyBlackCat2 May 2021, 15:48

A nice little game. A unique take on the theme.

Sticky wall collisions were slightly annoying.

neontropics8 May 2021, 13:04

The core gameplay of this was very fun and had a good mix of action and some strategy, and the game had major MS DOS vibes which was fun. Nice entry!

I would've really liked if you could run over the soldiers, and it would've added some more feedback if you got bumped back a bit when you got hit.

wizard sino8 May 2021, 17:31

The only improvement i could think of is soldier-smooshing.

darkshadow8 May 2021, 19:08

Very retro, I'm not familiar with the TIC-80 so it is probably pretty impressive use of the limit specs of the machine, the inertia to the movement was nice, getting a bit of lateral velocity to snipe enemies was good. Found clipping into the grey building quite annoying though.

Spaghetti8 May 2021, 20:35

Fun game! Simple but pretty enjoyable. Good job!

Francesco8 May 2021, 22:13

First of all congrats for this nice little game ! I liked the retro style, and the funny dialogues !

About the gameplay, I think it gets quite repetitive the third/fourth time around. The tank is quite hard to maneuver sometimes, and I found the enemies not really responsive. I also suggest increasing the challenge...

... and adding the possibility of crushing the soldiers !

Prof.Suarez12 May 2021, 16:38

Great game, awesome story. Awesome you completed it so quickly.

blobo15 May 2021, 17:51

Dang, any games created with a tiny console like Pico-8 or TIC-80 always impress me. I like the story, and the graphics are pretty nice too! Great job.

epb900016 May 2021, 10:32

Haha, I loved the story and the retro style the TIC-80 platform provides (which I didn't actually know about until today.) I liked the reuse of the same level forcing you to explore more of it each time, which is an excellent use of the theme on top of the story.

F1Krazyauthor16 May 2021, 13:50

@epb9000 I learned about TIC-80 myself through Ludum Dare, this jam teaches you a whole lot of new things! Glad someone picked up on the theme integration as well.

Squerf18 May 2021, 15:34

Haha this was completely ridiculous - in a very fun way :D I didn't get too much time to play it but I minced my way through a good few of those pesky Plentanians! The sense of fun in this is great. My criticism is just that it needs a bit of polish :) There are some oddities like being able to drive underneath boxes and that sort of thing that kinda detract from it. Good stuff :)

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