The Turgenev Study

Overall★★★★★★★★★★4.34
Fun★★★★★★★★★★4.24
Innovation★★★★★★★★★★4.31
Theme★★★★★★★★★★4.30
Graphics★★★★★★★★★★4.61
Audio★★★★★★★★★★4.36
Humor★★★★★★★★★★2.34
Mood★★★★★★★★★★4.26
Harvest DNA and assimilate new samples for your utmost important study.
Your laboratory is located in a warzone resulting in a limited access to any energy sources. Your agent can only launch an harvest phase every 10 seconds. Do your best despite theses harsh conditions.

GAMEPLAY

- Harvest happens every 10 seconds. All cells in your harvest zone will be converted to fresh DNA
- Reach the DNA treshold to activate assimilation mode
- Assimilation let you collide any cells to add it to your samples
- Each cells has a specific effect on your agent. Right clic and roll over cells to check these effects

CONTROL

- left clic burn a catalyst to repel cells
- right clic pause the game. useful to analyse cell properties

SCORE BONUS

- collect same type cells : 100/200 pts for 3/5 same type cells
- collect all cell types : 300pts for each fullset

Comments29

Rawb3 Oct 2022, 22:25
Really beautiful and fun game. It is extremely well polished
Demigiant
Demigiant4 Oct 2022, 10:52
Great overall, and I was especially impressed about how smoothly your agent follows the mouse at its own pace, which in theory should be frustrating in such a close net of enemies and instead has a perfectly balanced feel and works really well.
blk_dg
blk_dg4 Oct 2022, 11:11
Evidemment encore un jeu très solide ;) Very cool game, challenging but when sometimes I usually give up easily this time I wanted to see more. Loving the design so many lovely pixels to look at, very very very cool
TheWustache
TheWustache4 Oct 2022, 13:46
Amazing! This is an incredibly polished game. The art, sound, music, gameplay, everything just feels right. I especially like the color scheme and line art. It makes the game readable despite so much going on. The minimalistic soundtrack is lovely.

The tradeoff that is fundamental to this game -- getting closer to cells to harvest more overall -- works very well. The risk/reward is obvious and leads to some very tense moments. Also, a harvest when you're getting completely swarmed just feels great :)

The upgrades also make sense; none feel useless and the difference they make is always clear. I found it a bit difficult to choose a cell to assimilate on a densely populated playing field, but I suppose that's why you're supposed to harvest.

I was worried that pausing the game to read the cell descriptions was going to break the flow, but it was actually fine. The number of different cells quickly got overwhelming, but I could usually focus only on the ones close by. Still, I had difficulties quickly telling apart some of the more similar-looking cells, but again, not a huge issue.

I sometimes got hit immediately after assimilating a cell. That was a little annoying. Perhaps you could repel nearby cells to prevent this?

Having a settings menu like that in a jam entry is also just a total flex :)

I think I'm going to play this one for a while!
LDJam user 2987344 Oct 2022, 14:17
such beautiful graphics!!!(plz check out our game too!)
Amolker
Amolker4 Oct 2022, 23:24
It is the best entry of this game jam. It so good I just want more of it. Perfect.
It reminds me Transistor game with this cells. And each one has it's uniqe fitchures. And uniqe buffs for you.
Maybe it's become too easy in late game (it is possible to become literaly immortal), but anyway. I love this game so much.
I don't know how you did it in 72 hours. Just brilliant.!

Screenshot4.png
Klardonics
Klardonics5 Oct 2022, 02:00
Everything really comes together nicely here, especially how the music is synced with timer. The microbiology theme is really unique and immersive too.
Dssdiego5 Oct 2022, 02:23
Wow! Beautiful game!
FireSlash
FireSlash5 Oct 2022, 03:24
The effects on this game are frankly nuts. I don't know where you find the time.

I agree with the earlier comments around visibility and noise; at a certain point I simply don't have the mental capacity to be aware of everything on the screen, and certain cell types can snipe you from afar with their charges. A stronger tell might be useful here; I know you're limiting your palette but some kind of pink flash could do a lot to help direct the player's attention to oncoming threats; audio cues could help too.

Even then it might be worth reducing the number of enemies and focusing on giving them interesting behaviors vs going for quantity. At least early on anyway. perhaps the issue is more just about pacing.

Overall I really love this entry. It looks fantastic, has solid mechanics, and is weird in all the best ways. Fantastic work!
Hekateras
Hekateras5 Oct 2022, 06:20
Love the concept, love the implementation, this is both incredibly polished and the core gameplay loop you have here is excellent. It's really punishing though. I had to keep trying despite dying many times and I'm still not good at it yet. Any tips? I keep dying after 3-4 upgrades when I get swarmed by multiple seeker enemies that just don't get repelled long enough.
I'd love to have an "easy mode" of this for postjam. :)
jefvel
jefvel5 Oct 2022, 09:08
This game is really fun! It took a while to understand everything that was happening, but it really felt like doing an experiment, exploring everything there is. Once I grasped the mechanics it became really captivating. I managed to max every score combo in the grid, and got so much health it was impossible to die between the collecting procedure. The health should probably have a cap as some others mentioned above.

It's so polished, and stylish, with the music matching perfectly. Amazing!
Vatx5 Oct 2022, 11:25
Wow, this is an absolutely incredible entry.

Not even sure when to start, the visuals and music are really nice, simple and clean with everything being clearly readable. Everything has that nice and smooth flow to it too making it really pleasant to look at.
It's both an relaxing and intensely challenging experience especially on later stages.

Everything has a purpose here and the risk/reward factor of not only trying to get as many cells as possible but also choosing the right one for current situation makes the game incredibly engaging.

The only minus is something that others mentioned beforehand, it can get a little bit overwhelming on later stages due to sheer amount of things on screen so either reducing the amount of cells present at once or having some way to at least partially clear the screen would be great.

Overall an incredible, well polished game that I can't get enough of and I most likely will find myself playing it from time to time long after the Jam will be over. Amazing Work!
M.Kusy
M.Kusy5 Oct 2022, 12:34
Absolutely amazing. I got dragged into it for an hour, it's one of thise games that infuriate me in the best possible way. Simple graphics complement the idea very well, just like the sound.

It's always great to see a jam submission that not only plays great but also works as a completed game from start to finish.
Cheville
Cheville5 Oct 2022, 13:58
Probably the highest quality game I played so far. Hard as Hell but that doesn't take away points for me.
Tyrannas
Tyrannas5 Oct 2022, 21:04
Pretty satisfied with this score, honnestly I dont know how I could have much more the screen was 100% crowded with cells haha
Aside of that ... WOW. Everything is soooo polished that's insane, the particles, the movements, the theme, and it's actually super fun to play. Well done !
Tyrannas
Tyrannas5 Oct 2022, 21:05
@amolker just saw your screenshot, how the HELL did you get that much medibots ??
crwohlers5 Oct 2022, 21:29
Really just incredible entry overall, not much to say. Very satisfying to play, really incredible graphically, and the audio is great as well. My only wish is to be able to wee what each absorption does before leveling up. Really great work!
torcado
torcado6 Oct 2022, 04:26
this is incredible, as always with your games. the game is just absolutely gorgeous, I can't stop gushing over it. very very very visually pleasing. all the clean lines and circles, the beautiful fluid movement of the particles, the movements of the enemies, the dashed lines and flashing icons, everything looks so good. The audio is also incredible, it's immensely satisfying the way the sounds and music line up with the seconds on the timer, pentadrangle did an incredible job there.
Gameplay wise, it's super interesting. I've never played anything like this. the dynamic between running from enemies most of the time to then trying to get as close to as many as possible is really interesting, it has a very cool intrinsic risk reward system. discovering what all the creatures did was very fun, I could totally see this expanded basically infinitely, with any number of new enemies and abilities. The set you've ended up with here fits really well. I think it's just barely on the threshold of needing another mechanic, the blasting is neat and i like the current gameplay dynamics (moving to dodge, blasting when you're in a pickle) but it feels lacking, at least compared to how many different elements were given just for the enemies. The lure mechanic feels largely useless to me, but I may just be misusing it.

After about 4 runs of dying in a few rounds while i was learning the mechanics and enemies, I ended up with a run that became basically invincible, as how @amolker mentioned is possible. because of the damage invincibility time, once you get 5 medibots and refillers, it's impossible to get hit enough in a round to lose more health than you gain. I'm not sure what the best solution to that would be, other than just limiting the max number of medibots. Regardless, it was fun to play around in effectively a sandbox mode after that moment. I wrapped the circle with catalysts and medibots and stopped once I realized they circle forever:

fantastic work guys.
kankje
kankje6 Oct 2022, 23:28
This has to be the best entry in the jam. Most games suffer a lot from the 10 second theme, either they're too hard, too boring or the theme feels forced, but in this one it feels like a natural part of the game and you don't really even notice it. The art is simple but unique, the controls and UI are fluent and everything just fits together perfectly. It's also quite addicting as I spent way too much time trying to get the immortality combo going. Excellent entry, bravo! 👏👏👏
Cool Summit7 Oct 2022, 01:46
Something mesmerizingly beautiful about the way all these little creature- and even the player triangle- move about. Even after reading the instructions though, it took me several rounds to even figure out what I was even supposed to be doing. Once it clicked though, I was addicted. Well done!
Solah
Solah7 Oct 2022, 08:27
Great game! I am so bad at it but it is very well designed, well done!
GoogleFrog
GoogleFrog7 Oct 2022, 14:09
Amazing. I like the variety of upgrades.
robobarbie
robobarbie8 Oct 2022, 05:23
oh this is absolutely awesome. feels so smooth to play, excellent use of simple graphics too to make a very visually appealing game. nice job
Thiefaine9 Oct 2022, 11:56
Great job on this game ! lots of features & systems, the controls are well done, the 10 seconds theme impose a pace that would have been good to improve i think.
GG !
sergilazaro11 Oct 2022, 12:35
The only thing I'd "criticize" about this game is that the blue color is simultaneously too dark and too... "bright"? Like I find it hard to read the text when it's blue on black, but at the same time is like those blue LED lights that burn your retinas.

But as I said, that's the only thing. Everything about this game is awesome. Like, top notch for a jam game :)
Doot
Doot18 Oct 2022, 12:08
Yaay, another awesome game by Puncake!

As always, your game is super polished and fun to play.
I love how everything connects together very nicely.

The assimilation mechanic for upgrade is smart, it changes from classic roguelite / vampire survivor games where you have to chose between 2-3 upgrades on a static screen when you level up.

Great job, that's quite a perfect jam entry ✨
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