Ludum Dare #56compo

Microstrike

by thesand

Overall★★★★★★★★★★3.04

Fun★★★★★★★★★★3.04

Innovation★★★★★★★★★★2.22

Theme★★★★★★★★★★3.14

Graphics★★★★★★★★★★2.97

Humor★★★★★★★★★★2.19

Mood★★★★★★★★★★2.45

This is my Ludum Dare 56 entry!

You are a lone microbe fighting for survival in a hostile, microscopic world. Battle through waves of attacking microbes, using your shooting abilities to fend off enemies and absorb their nutrients. Each kill grants you XP, allowing you to level up and choose from a range of powerful upgrades—boost your attack speed, increase damage, become faster.

Prepare yourself for the ultimate challenge: a massive boss microbe that will test your strength and strategy. Adapt, mutate, and survive—or become just another meal in the microbial ecosystem.

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Keyboard shortcuts
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- Move Around -> WASD
- Shoot -> Mouse
- Dash -> Spacebar (Currently has no indication when off cooldown)
- Restart game -> R
- Quit game -> Q

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Info
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The green following microbs are the ones with the most health, and can only hit you by touch you.
Then the blue ones are ranged, they will try to shoot you back.
The red ones will try to bomb rush you, while they are the fastest, they are the ones with the least amount of health.

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Screenshots
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You can choose upgrades everytime you level up!

Genres: action

Tools: Aseprite, Unity

Comments30

Sviborg7 Oct 2024, 08:36

Classic! Good game.

RilleP7 Oct 2024, 08:51

Decent game, nothing to crazy, but kind of fun. Well balanced difficulty, I lost twice before winning. I really like the visual deformation effect.
The upgrade UI was feeling a bit bad, like missing feedback on click and it faded out too slow while the game had already unpaused.

Nonnen7 Oct 2024, 09:23

A solid game! I liked the balancing of the waves, they felt like a challenge without being overwhelming. The particle effects when the microbes explode is quite satisfying, and the graphics are quite cute! I noticed it takes a second or two for the upgrade screen to disappear, giving the enemies that might have paused quite close to the player a chance to do damage while you can't see them. Overall well done!

DogeSquad7 Oct 2024, 11:49

I always like vampire survivor like games and this one also just is pure fun to shoot and move around.

SkyyStorm7 Oct 2024, 19:13

Decent game, the graphics and controls were good, responsive for the most part. It can really do with some sound though, to help make it feel nicer.

ROBOWARRIOR19828 Oct 2024, 06:15

Very simple and clean vampire survivors clone, nice for a 48h gamedev.
With more effect and sound etc...it be really good and better !

CrociDB8 Oct 2024, 12:01

Simple and fun. I do miss some of the feedbacks, like enemy life bar and some impact when I hit them, but it's overall a pretty good entry. Good job!

Zamizmi9 Oct 2024, 07:45

Liked the controls and the variety of enemies in the game!
The final boss was a nice surprise and accidentally cheezed it by standing still and shooting as the projectiles missed me. Maybe rotating the spawn points might help with this?

Also the camera was nicely used in the game! Well done!

Trusty9 Oct 2024, 16:00

Nice job with this one. Felt satisfying to float around getting baddies. I do echo what RilleP said, would be nice to have it not unpause until the cards disappeared. Thanks for the game.

splittheatom9 Oct 2024, 16:04

Congrats on your game! For 48h it's very clean and I think you nailed the balancing and the progression.
I am bit sad there was no sound for the game (unless I had an issue, if so I apologize!), it would really add tons of feedback.

BUDSTER169 Oct 2024, 18:36

I really liked the damage looks but the game could have really benefitted from some audio, even the most unprofessional sound effects can really up a game's feel!

SdCorpse9 Oct 2024, 18:58

The game really needs sounds. Gameplay is simple and interesting.

Dianavi9 Oct 2024, 22:53

Nice game, lots of potential! You should polish it, even after the jam. And you made it on your own—well done!

AStrayRae10 Oct 2024, 01:54

Love the wobbly look of the cells! Especially the bullet impact effects and when two of them squish up to each other. :smile:

crid62610 Oct 2024, 05:31

Great job. Even without audio, this game has much potential.

SMielke10 Oct 2024, 11:27

Great arcade game! Keep up the awesome work!

Game-mon10 Oct 2024, 12:27

Nice, reminds me of Agario! Gameplay loop is very classic but still works okay. I'd recommend pushing the game juice a little further! Add sfx, particles, white flash on damage, screen shake, ... So much little detail could be added but would make an enormous difference. Also I'd suggest adding some kind of textured background to emphasize the movement.

All in all, a solid entry with potential!

Martingonn10 Oct 2024, 15:23

Interesting! Seems a bit like agar.io! Had a lot of fun running from the other creatures while observing them at the same time. Also love that there is friendly fire between the enemies :)

ellaris10 Oct 2024, 17:49

02:45 An enjoyable experience.

+ I really liked the animation of enemies taking damage and eating up the xp.
+ I didn't like the green enemies because they were closely color related to the player and xp which was confusing at first, collect the green stuff, the green stuff hurts.
+ The red guys weren't too much of a problem, but they didn't seem to drop xp when exploding, which was sad, also a missed opportunity of having them damage the other enemies.
+ For the upgrades, there wasn't that much of them but for the length of the game it was ok, although that could make the extra xp upgrade a trap for the players.
+ Another thing about the level up is I think the flavour text and the mechanics should be more separated (like with an empty line, or have the effects at the bottom and the description at the top) as sometimes it was a bit confusing, like double efficiency giving you 15% boost.

mode_0x1310 Oct 2024, 20:12

Simple and enjoyable! :)

Sharky318811 Oct 2024, 03:20

Great job! At first i thought the game was quiet simple and it didn't have a lot of depth, but as i played a bit more it was nice to see that there was some more of the game to explore with the level up system.
Some audio really would have helped this as the graphics on their own probably need something to complement them to give the game a bit more juice.
I really like the little chunks that were taken off the enemies each time you hit then, a nice small detail.

LangiT11 Oct 2024, 03:41

Really great entry here. I wish it was endless! Found a pretty easy way to cheese the boss by just sitting in one of the spots that it doesn't shoot bullets.

MaximeG11 Oct 2024, 15:03

Waw super nice game, I loved the soft body effect, good job!

Levi12 Oct 2024, 03:35

Geometry wars meets THE CELL. You made a game, I played the game, and I had fun and clicked retry multiple times: that is a success. I specifically really liked the touch of the soft-body interactions of the cells. I'm just envisioning this game scaling up and you have hundreds of these things all squishing together and forming crazy interactions as they chase you. Good game design :)

bentglasstube12 Oct 2024, 20:40

I really enjoyed the art style and especially the effect when the enemies were damaged. It got a little monotonous but that's not surprising for a jam game. Very fun and wave 7 was surprising :)

crcdng12 Oct 2024, 23:19

Decent game, adding sound is the obvious next step.

Planetary13 Oct 2024, 08:55

A classic shooting game, but is a good entry for the theme! I finished the waves faster than I expected, but for Ludum Dare is a good game. I like that you introduced a boss for the final wave. Overall, congratulations!