SHOTGUN DERBY

by lunkums

Overall★★★★★★★★★★3.05

Fun★★★★★★★★★★3.14

Innovation★★★★★★★★★★2.26

Theme★★★★★★★★★★2.86

Graphics★★★★★★★★★★2.45

Humor★★★★★★★★★★2.87

Mood★★★★★★★★★★2.92

Note

This game would qualify for the Compo, except that I didn't make the sound effects by myself! Other than that, the game is made entirely from scratch in MonoGame. All the source code can be found on GitHub.

About

SHOTGUN DERBY is an arena shooter where you mow down zombies with a shotgun and lob grenades to explode them to bits. Every 10 seconds, a new wave of zombies spawns as the horde grows progressively larger. I didn’t have enough time to make coins useful or to add a dynamic arena, but I was able to spend a lot of time polishing the core gameplay.

I hope you enjoy!

Instructions

This build is Windows only

1. Download
2. Unzip
3. Double-click LD51.exe

Controls

- Move: WASD
- Shoot: Left Mouse Click
- Grenade: Right Mouse Click
- Select: Enter / Left Mouse Click
- Volume up/down: +/-
- Exit: Escape

Post-Jam Updates

Version 1.1

- Add FPS counter (toggle with F12)
- Add grenade cooldown
- Improve enemy collisions
- Block mouse input if game is not in focus
- Enable key rebinding (see MonoGame docs for options; use "Name" field)

Extras

If you want to mess around with some of the settings, go to the settings folder and open "settings.json."

Tools: MonoGame, XNA

Comments22

salamandur4 Oct 2022, 01:21

Sik game. I like the effects. Simple but effect!

lululululu4 Oct 2022, 01:25

simple fun

LDJam user 3062514 Oct 2022, 02:24

There's a certain charm to the Atari VCS block graphics. We don't need no stinkin' sprites!
It plays nice. The only criticism I have is that oftentimes I wipe out the zombies, or zombie, quickly and I sit around waiting for the timer to reach zero. It'd be cool if the game would spawn an extra zombie or two in those situations.
Overall, fun game.

Coda Highland4 Oct 2022, 03:15

Not bad at all! Simple, effective. Solid gameplay loop. As a matter of personal preference I'd like something a little more frenetic (faster reload but more enemies) but this is a well-executed game.

PhoenixofForce4 Oct 2022, 15:11

Sadly the game doesnt start for me(both versions). The command line shows no error.

TheFlanMan4 Oct 2022, 16:23

Sick af good stuff!

goody4 Oct 2022, 16:31

nice game it's a fun simple loop with crunchy sounds, if the shotgun had some knockback that might be a nice little touch

dod1084 Oct 2022, 16:34

Doesn't work for me, any idea why?

lunkumsauthor4 Oct 2022, 22:55

@phoenixofforce @dod108 did you run LD51.exe/ShotgunDerby.exe? Do you have .NET installed? What platform are you? Any additional information you can give me?

PhoenixofForce4 Oct 2022, 22:59

I ran both, both didnt work. I am not sure if i have .NET but i would lean towards no. I am on Windows 10.

LDJam user 2989875 Oct 2022, 01:23

Simple but amazing - this brings back retro vibes lol. Great work on this game! I loved the different sizes of the enemies, and the corresponding speeds and healths.

CasualNothing5 Oct 2022, 01:25

Simple and clean.

Empty Set5 Oct 2022, 01:49

Simple but fun. I found the contrast between the realistic sound-effects and the square player/enemies to be entertaining. I like that the reload sound effect clues you in on how fast you can shoot, without any sort of visual indicator being necessary. I also like that the grenades can kill the player, too, so you have to be careful with them. On the other hand they take so long to go off that they can be a little hard to use since the arena is quite small.

The game is a little bit sparse for content - more weapons, a use for coins, or maybe a boss would be cool. But, such is the nature of game jams.

theslate5 Oct 2022, 05:29

Take that red squares! Ha! Great simple game. I didn't notice the grenades until I read the comments. I think I got a high score of $9, but the score cleared when I died, so I don't know. Great work!

dod1085 Oct 2022, 09:38

@lunkums I tried both LD51.exe and ShotgunDerby.exe, installed .NET, still doesn't work. I have Windows 11.

lunkumsauthor5 Oct 2022, 13:40

@dod108 @phoenixofforce I think I figured out the issue. If curious, see below. Otherwise download ShotgunDerby1.1.1a.zip and if that doesn't work try ShotgunDerby1.1.1b.zip. Let me know if you have other issues.

Explanation: My build tool wasn't configured correctly and it was leaving out files that would otherwise make the game a standalone executable. The new .zip includes the .NET runtime which is why it's a lot bigger.

dod1085 Oct 2022, 14:14

@lunkums Should I have .NET installed? I uninstalled it after last try and now neither ShotgunDerby1.1.1a.zip nor ShotgunDerby1.1.1b.zip works.

lunkumsauthor5 Oct 2022, 14:30

@dod108 You should not need .NET installed with ShotgunDerby1.1.1b. I explicitly built the game as a standalone application. At the least, it should run if you reinstall .NET 6, but I'm going to figure out why it won't run by itself in some cases

lunkumsauthor6 Oct 2022, 20:18

@phoenixofforce @dod108 Worked with bytinggames (check out his game) to fix the issue. Looks like there was a localization issue. Try ShotgunDerby1.2.zip.

dod1087 Oct 2022, 10:10

@lunkums Now it works. The core gameplay is fine but it needs some polishing in my opinion. Bullets could be faster with smaller spread and enemies larger, that would make it more satisfying. Also larger enemies feel too spongy sometimes. Money counter doesn't seem to do anything, I picked up some yellow stuff once and it didn't increase my money. So, not bad game, but could be polished more.

exaggegen8 Oct 2022, 10:35

I don’t know why, but I couldn’t collect coins when I got 9. And so somewhere around 15-16

jandourek8 Oct 2022, 20:59

Pretty cool! I really liked the particle effects, but it's a shame they don't always appear. Also some sort of scoring or combo system would be really nice! Other than that, it was simple, but really fun!