Joe's Alien Assault

by aruseus
Overall★★★★★★★★★★3.00
Fun★★★★★★★★★★3.12
Innovation★★★★★★★★★★2.28
Theme★★★★★★★★★★3.18
Graphics★★★★★★★★★★2.88
Audio★★★★★★★★★★2.50
Humor★★★★★★★★★★2.81
Mood★★★★★★★★★★2.75
Help Joe get rescued from an alien infested planet. Find radio towers to send a signal so Jane can come and pick you up.

Made in C without an engine using SDL, OpenGL, and emscripten.

Comments21

Tkap121 Apr 2026, 12:43
Could be longer
N.O.X
N.O.X21 Apr 2026, 18:47
It’s really easy to understand and get the hang of. The blood splatter from the enemies really makes a difference. Very fun. Congrats :)
LDJam user 243193
LDJam user 24319322 Apr 2026, 11:25
I wish enemies could be more controlled in size. But I've completed the game nonetheless and it's good start.
Itero Proto22 Apr 2026, 17:28
a juice effect is here and cool realy, but where is the goal!?
LDJam user 42864622 Apr 2026, 17:30
This was pretty fun. Some more work on the audio really would've brought this to life though. Even just adding some randomness to the pitch of the shooting sound would've helped a lot.
Wizard22 Apr 2026, 17:34
Really dig the classic run and gun style. First time I screwed around just killing enemies. got overrun really easily doing that. Once I knuckled down and actually went for the objective it was pretty easy to get to grips with. Well done, really fun.
Pavlo0422 Apr 2026, 17:35
The game itself is pretty cool, but I couldn't finish it because I didn't figure out how to give the signal. It's a lot of fun, though.
Caelestial24 Apr 2026, 10:31
Good finished game, I got some vibes from and old game called "Alien Shooter"
Scottyartt24 Apr 2026, 11:09
Simple idea, didn't about signal theme honestly
ValentinWB
ValentinWB24 Apr 2026, 12:06
Maaaan I wish I was as cool as Joe...
Eric Nguyen24 Apr 2026, 17:19
Nice arcade horde shooter vibe. Really impressive that this was done with just SDL, I've always wanted to try going without an engine for a Ludum Dare but it seems intimidating! Nice submission
Garaptic24 Apr 2026, 17:31
Nice little game, I'm surprised it was even made with, I liked it! :D
noneegy
noneegy24 Apr 2026, 18:52
It is a nice little game, it wasn't too hard, which isn't a bad thing. My only problem was that the shooting sound was too loud. Good job!
loafchan25 Apr 2026, 08:15
A nice, short and sweet game. Easy to understand
Culf25 Apr 2026, 08:25
Fun, simple and easy to understand. Could have been more fun with more features (different enemies, weapons, etc.) and a more thought through story and tie to the theme, but without an engine and with the time constraint, it is a pretty good result.
Constance
Constance25 Apr 2026, 08:26
Interesting little game, and the fact it was code in C without a game engine is really impressive on it own! The only thing that bothered me the most was the shooting sound was really loud and a bit annoying. But other than that, you did an amazing job completing this in time of the jam!
LDJam user 42432625 Apr 2026, 13:25
It turned out pretty well.
It would be nice to add a replay button after losing.
Masikano25 Apr 2026, 15:43
Cool game
It's fun and simple
But it was unexpected to bump into an invisible wall. It would be nice to add a visual restriction too.
And it's amazing to me that you made it without using an engine, in the C.
conduit.games26 Apr 2026, 03:40
This works. It's short, clear tutorial, has sounds, controls make sense, plays pretty well.

A few things would make this better - the ability to restart and some volume controls. Otherwise, this is indeed a quick, fun, small game. Cheers!
clymm
clymm1 May 2026, 21:49
Enjoyed walking around, and it was straight forward. Had to refresh a couple of times because I forot the controls and thought it was Space not Shift - oops! user error :dizzy_face:
Love that you used C and SDL, have you tried raylib at all? Good job :clap:
aruseusauthor2 May 2026, 00:10
@clymm thanks :) Funny that you had that experience with the key binding. I was going to use Space, but the way I coded the input, charging a tower with Space would've also skipped the two text popups that appear afterwards if you hold it down for too long, so I worked around that by using a different key. Unfortunate.

I'm only using SDL for input, creating a GL context, and opening an audio device. raylib seems to have a couple other nice things and it seems easy to use, but I kinda like handling everything myself, so I've never tried it. With just C, SDL, and OpenGL it's also easy to just compile it for the web. I think raylib only just got an emscripten backend for the web last month actually.
Found a bug?
Tell us on Discord