Nietzsche
This game is from the old Ludum Dare platform. You can try viewing the original page on Web Archive
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(may not load correctly).
(It's a Flash game, but it's pretty old and I didn't know what I was doing, so it's a collection of files rather than properly compiled into a SWF. The "Windows version" linked above is really the "web version". You will need to drag & drop "main.swf" into a browser or get the Flash stand-alone player.)
Nietzsche started life as a first-year student project with the given theme of "love and hate". I chose to interpret that as opposing forces, but I didn't want to make yet another game about conflict. Instead, I wanted to make a sort of metaconflict, where the player was a negotiator rather than participant. I chose the name as a homage to all the German-sounding Japanese shmups out there, and because the player is "beyond good and evil." Yeah, that's pretty tenuous. :)
The game is pretty abstract, with no context or metaphor and features an avatar enclosed in a circle in the center of the screen, surrounded by orbiting black and white enemies. They fire at each other, and the player can switch colour to stop their bullets, catching them. The player can then fire them back at enemies to change their colours, with the goal of balancing the number of black and white enemies. If the player can maintain balance for a number of seconds, the enemies vanish and the player is rewarded a score.
You can charge enemies by shooting them with bullets of their own colour, which protects them from one hit. Three bullets of their own colour will convert their entire group to that colour, meaning there's a bit of nuance in the risk/reward loop, but it's pretty much buried under tepid execution.
The game originally featured 10 levels -- many of which were brutally difficult -- and was the first game I ever coded. I didn't know anything about programming and put together the game mostly from code snippets harvested online. It was woefully slow and quite buggy, but it worked. It's questionable whether it was actually any fun, but I thought the concept had some legs and I've been thinking about ways to improve it.
I guess this is my opportunity to do so. I want to make the following changes:
- Code it properly.
- Change the graphics, making them more inviting and characterful. The original game is rather dull and grey, without much character.
- Rather than trapping and limiting the player, I want the player to feel strong agency and ability to effect meaningful change. The old version doesn't really do that.
- Instead of enemies simply circling the player, I want their orbits to draw ever closer to the player unless their numbers are even. I want to create a sense of urgency, and that good feeling that all shmups manage to pull off: The narrow, miraculous escape.
- Instead of set enemy patterns, I want a spawning algorithm that scales the difficulty with the amount of time spent and points earned.
- I want a deeper scoring system to motivate repeat play.
- In the end, I'd like a better proof of concept than the one I initially developed. I'd love to see the concept turn into a fully-featured title, and this is a chance to see if it is worth the while.
Nietzsche started life as a first-year student project with the given theme of "love and hate". I chose to interpret that as opposing forces, but I didn't want to make yet another game about conflict. Instead, I wanted to make a sort of metaconflict, where the player was a negotiator rather than participant. I chose the name as a homage to all the German-sounding Japanese shmups out there, and because the player is "beyond good and evil." Yeah, that's pretty tenuous. :)
The game is pretty abstract, with no context or metaphor and features an avatar enclosed in a circle in the center of the screen, surrounded by orbiting black and white enemies. They fire at each other, and the player can switch colour to stop their bullets, catching them. The player can then fire them back at enemies to change their colours, with the goal of balancing the number of black and white enemies. If the player can maintain balance for a number of seconds, the enemies vanish and the player is rewarded a score.
You can charge enemies by shooting them with bullets of their own colour, which protects them from one hit. Three bullets of their own colour will convert their entire group to that colour, meaning there's a bit of nuance in the risk/reward loop, but it's pretty much buried under tepid execution.
The game originally featured 10 levels -- many of which were brutally difficult -- and was the first game I ever coded. I didn't know anything about programming and put together the game mostly from code snippets harvested online. It was woefully slow and quite buggy, but it worked. It's questionable whether it was actually any fun, but I thought the concept had some legs and I've been thinking about ways to improve it.
I guess this is my opportunity to do so. I want to make the following changes:
- Code it properly.
- Change the graphics, making them more inviting and characterful. The original game is rather dull and grey, without much character.
- Rather than trapping and limiting the player, I want the player to feel strong agency and ability to effect meaningful change. The old version doesn't really do that.
- Instead of enemies simply circling the player, I want their orbits to draw ever closer to the player unless their numbers are even. I want to create a sense of urgency, and that good feeling that all shmups manage to pull off: The narrow, miraculous escape.
- Instead of set enemy patterns, I want a spawning algorithm that scales the difficulty with the amount of time spent and points earned.
- I want a deeper scoring system to motivate repeat play.
- In the end, I'd like a better proof of concept than the one I initially developed. I'd love to see the concept turn into a fully-featured title, and this is a chance to see if it is worth the while.