LudumData

(mental)fairy by 0x0961h

[raw]
made by 0x0961h for LD32 (COMPO)
We've all been here: Hatred, Anxiety, Solitude... These are our demons, that eat us alive. But not anymore. Secret unit of fairies called "(mental)fairies" are here to help us fight these dark emotions with the most unconventional weapons of all time: kindness, happiness and good intentions.

Controls are QWERTY/AZERTY/DVORAK friendly:
- Left Arrow/A/Q to move left
- Right Arrow/D/E to move right
- Space to shoot

Few notes:
- HTML5 version was tested on Chrome and it's highly recommended to use it to play web-version
- The winning condition: collect 9.000.000 points and don't run out of Emotion Cubes (on the left sidebar under the fairy avatar)
- Each unkilled Personal Demon (on the left sidebar at the bottom) will destroy one Emotion Cube
- Stand in the center after you got the spreading weapon upgrade -- it's the easiest way to win
- Have fun
- I mean, really, it's not a hardcore game
- Fly/stand and shoot
- That's it
- No strings attached
- Pew pew pew
Web http://0x0961h.itch.io/mental-fairy
Windows/OSX/Linux http://0x0961h.itch.io/mental-fairy
Source http://j.mp/1IuoVjQ
Original URL https://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-32/?action=preview&uid=21155

Ratings

Coolness 100% 1
Overall 3.06 658
Audio 3.12 326
Fun 2.80 770
Graphics 3.55 280
Innovation 2.39 988
Mood 2.95 533
Theme 2.50 1017

Feedback

Evgiz
20. Apr 2015 · 06:16 UTC
Good job! Nice to see someone else use LibGDX as well, that's what you used right? The gameplay is fun, graphics are decent. Love the music. Well executed, keep it up!
Jonathan Porta
20. Apr 2015 · 06:19 UTC
I love the art and I love the mentality.
kabutakogames
20. Apr 2015 · 06:20 UTC
I'm using Firefox, and I had trouble playing this entry - it seemed to slow down and crash when it started? I hope this helps
FireSlash
20. Apr 2015 · 06:23 UTC
After a certain point you can win by just sitting in the middle and holding down space. The weapon spreads cover all but the outermost rows, and enemies never spawned in a way that didn't swing them into the line of fire long enough to let them die.
tomdeal
20. Apr 2015 · 06:27 UTC
Nice game. I think the theme could be a bit more present, after all you shoot fireballs with another name, but this is just nitpicking :) I do have one complaint though: The game gets easier the further you get. After about 2m points, just stay in the middle and hold Space to win (with the exception of the two lane attack at the end). Firing at so many lanes at the same time while the enemies switch lanes often makes it very easy to hit them.
ShawnFeatherly
20. Apr 2015 · 06:27 UTC
Fun game. I liked discovering where I could just stand in the middle and hold down the fire button to kill the guys on both sides.
🎤 0x0961h
20. Apr 2015 · 06:30 UTC
@Evgiz, eeyup, it's libGDX. :)
@Jonathan Porta, hey thank you. Mental problems is, welp, one of the main problems I faced during making this. You know, all this "I'll drop it right now, it's a disaster, it'll be a failure" stuff...
@kabutakogames, haven't tested it on Firefox, only Chrome and PC. Thanks for testing, will add the note.
@FireSlash, yeah, I know. The main thought was "I won't make it hardcore and long, I'll make it short and fun instead!". Yay, rainbows and stuff. :D
Jadernak
20. Apr 2015 · 06:43 UTC
The pack of mobs reminded me of Enfo's WC3 custom maps. Anyway, nice low-poly art and it is fun. One room for improvement I see is less tunnel-vision weapon upgrades. Half of my gameplay I was standing in the middle holding Space.
local minimum
20. Apr 2015 · 07:22 UTC
Hi there! You made it through the ordeal too. Great to see. I agree with you that the game got a bit easy after a while. But just the face that I could just keep space pressed and not have to hammer on it did help a lot. One tweak would be to have the mental frailty cubes be much weaker so only one or two enemies gone by would destroy them. Some weapons upgrades could be replaced by downgrade/fatigue. Possibly tied to loosing a cube. Like down 3 steps in weapons coolness. Along the lies of crazy ideas. What if the enemies came from all directions and you had to use up and down keys to rotate the board? Shots should probably be using global space in that case.
resty
20. Apr 2015 · 07:55 UTC
It's cool, fancy graphics. Just too easy, but still a nice job!
mike1101
20. Apr 2015 · 09:32 UTC
Starts off very cool ...

Great graphics. Nice, innovative layout. A bit silly, though, the actual gameplay ... The sound of the gun, and the in-game audio, doesn't tie up with the cool, heavy song at the start ... A lot of great elements that don't tie together well ...
madjackmcmad
20. Apr 2015 · 09:35 UTC
Pew pew pew pew pew peww yessssssssssss I love shooting things. Good show. In the end I had enough spread where I could just hold down the button and stay in the middle of the map, but it was still very fun.
Jeasonfire
20. Apr 2015 · 09:42 UTC
Great game, if somewhat boring after a while.
pythong
20. Apr 2015 · 09:46 UTC
---> Stand in the center after you got the spreading weapon upgrade -- it's the easiest way to win

Yes, it was ;)
ndebruyn
20. Apr 2015 · 09:49 UTC
Good game if it didn't hang my browser.
Well done.
Malsanity
20. Apr 2015 · 09:51 UTC
Too easy :(
holgk
20. Apr 2015 · 09:59 UTC
Good game but easy to win.
YM
20. Apr 2015 · 10:05 UTC
Got art and sounds down, it all looks great.

The idea of personal demons was cool, though I couldn't tell which of the enemies was my personal demon because they're facing away and the portrait is facing you

The big area of improvement here would be how enemies spawn, they spawn and move slowly and very predictably, once you've got the 3-split weapon every single enemy will enter its path if you sit in the middle, and they're all slow enough that nothing will ever get beyond halfway with this stationary method.

Lots of potential
mokujin
20. Apr 2015 · 10:07 UTC
good game, pretty mental relaxing. Especially good music!
retr0verse
20. Apr 2015 · 10:07 UTC
cool game, but the audio was a little repetitive.

and it was easier in the later waves
Birke
20. Apr 2015 · 10:17 UTC
The game looks good but its quite boring you can just stand in the centre lane for most of the game. It would be better if the waves were designed so you would have to move around some more.
KedumeBits
20. Apr 2015 · 11:08 UTC
I like the graphics. It's easier than i thought. Completed de 9.000.000 points at the first play.
PaperBlurt
20. Apr 2015 · 13:14 UTC
Amazing design.
A bit psychadelic.
DragonXVI
20. Apr 2015 · 13:27 UTC
9.043.566! And not a cube lost :p

Interesting if simple shooter, the weapon upgrades get hilariously ridiculous but seem balanced enough. Interesting concept too!
texdata
20. Apr 2015 · 14:35 UTC
hardcore shooter! fun to play
DKoding
20. Apr 2015 · 15:00 UTC
10/10 best game ever, would play again. :-) A little more innovative weapon would be great. Please rate my game at http://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-32/?action=preview&uid=16225
ChronusZ
20. Apr 2015 · 15:47 UTC
Pretty fun! After a while, I became invincible and stopped having to even move because I had four rapid-fire death beams, though, which sort of ruined the difficulty :-)
Buko-Studios
20. Apr 2015 · 15:50 UTC
really nice game! go fairy agent! :)
gruhn
20. Apr 2015 · 16:02 UTC
It reminded me of old school games. A good job, just think that enemies could be a little more aggressive since the beginning. And could have a little more visual feedback.
Jerre
20. Apr 2015 · 17:04 UTC
Nice models, but although i like the upgrades visually it gets too easy in the end
Havacore
20. Apr 2015 · 17:14 UTC
Really cool, would've liked to see more variety in enemies. After a few upgrades I just sat in the middle holding space bar and drinking coffee with my other hand.

Graphics are nice, I'm a huge sucker for the voxel style. Music was really good and suiting to the game.
drakekin
20. Apr 2015 · 17:43 UTC
Really neat game, music was a bit repetitive but enjoyable. Would have been nice to have more enemy differentiation (which ones I can let through vs. which ones I really need to kill). At first I thought "9k to win? This is going to get boring" but now I've played it four or five times and I'm only stopping because I should really rate some more games. Thanks a lot :D
oskardevelopment
20. Apr 2015 · 17:57 UTC
Hi! This game is cool, it have great graphics, sound and is well made! Perhaps add some extra kind of weapons to the various characters?

Good luck!
LTPATS
20. Apr 2015 · 19:25 UTC
Cool game, I liked the art and music a lot. When I went back to the menu after winning it kept playing the in-game music along with the menu music. Also it got pretty laggy near the end of the game. Other than that it was pretty fun. It would be cool to see different upgrades or powerups of some kind, something to spice up the gameplay. Overall it was fun, good work!
Headmade
20. Apr 2015 · 20:03 UTC
Good job! I like the voxely look and it's always nice to see a fellow LibGdx dev.

However I would have liked a little bit more of a challenge, as it indeed is rather easy to win if you just stand still and keep shooting.
Maybe fewer enemies that move quicker but take less damage would do the trick?
ManicMiner
20. Apr 2015 · 20:06 UTC
I like it - cool voxel graphics, and its a blast just hosing everything down with bullets - seemed to have a bit of an inverted curve, in that the game gets a lot easier the further you get, but it does feel great when you get the full "wall of death" going :)
SuperMsp10
20. Apr 2015 · 20:27 UTC
Very cool, it would be cool if you could move forward and backwards
Matsuki
20. Apr 2015 · 21:13 UTC
Was fun for the first bit, but once i upgraded to the 4 shot weapon i literally got to sit in the middle and hold the space bar, good job overall though, loved the camera angle.
jordyadan
20. Apr 2015 · 21:14 UTC
Great art and gameplay. The enemies could be less tanky
Toby Pinder
20. Apr 2015 · 21:21 UTC
Interesting isomorphic perspective, and great (if short and eventually quite repetitive) loops! Feels solid but a little simple, as though the only real player choice is switching between "left" and "right". Without getting the cones of fire upgrades so early you could do some interesting things with enemy placement... Great art assets though, especially the 3d voxel stuff.
Tomcat94
21. Apr 2015 · 00:55 UTC
The game's voxel art looks great, the music and sound effects go well together, and the game starts out very fun. I played as the first character, then tried the second one and felt like it was more or less the same. Although you did warn that it wasn't hard, a little challenge or a mini-boss or some variation in weapons (different character having unique shots) would have given it a little more replayability.
fleegle2000
21. Apr 2015 · 01:25 UTC
The graphics are really nice though I found there wasn't a lot to the gameplay. Audio is good but there's some weirdness when you return to the main menu and the level music continues to play over the menu music. This has some real potential - keep up the good work!
cgmorton
21. Apr 2015 · 02:18 UTC
This game is pretty cool, I love the music and the graphics.

However it's also way too easy. I beat the first half of the game by just holding down fire and strafing back and forth randomly. Then, around 5.000.000 points, I got the 5-spread shooter, after which point I just held down fire and stood in the center lane until the game was over.
peterkirk
21. Apr 2015 · 02:40 UTC
I was able to win by just holding down the fire button; it took away all of the challenge. I liked the art style and music.
emmelineprufrock
21. Apr 2015 · 03:21 UTC
I like the art and sound design. Good work.
hypp
21. Apr 2015 · 04:26 UTC
Nice game. A little too easy perhaps.
TailyILoveYou
21. Apr 2015 · 04:37 UTC
Interesting little game. I found it rather easy though, once you have the double-shot, you can just sit in the middle row and kill pretty much everything. Maybe make the enemies shoot stuff that you have to dodge?
LukeZaz
21. Apr 2015 · 05:41 UTC
Decently fun, and the graphics are good, but it seems that as my weapon gets more upgraded I can basically just hold spacebar and sit in the middle to win.
Hatsome
21. Apr 2015 · 07:58 UTC
Nice game, but I found it repetitive after a while.
Tuism
21. Apr 2015 · 10:23 UTC
I was drawn in by the cool voxel graphics and the mysterious theme. It seemed interesting... I was expecting something calm and mental.

Then it's a shooter that's basically way too easy. Hold down space, alternate left/right every half second or so. Once you're halfway with your upgrades you don't even need to left/right anymore.

The music is pretty rad and the asymmetry, or what looked like asymmetry, is a great idea, but the gameplay as it is lacks big time, unfortunately.
jukimv1986
21. Apr 2015 · 10:24 UTC
Nice take on the space invaders mechanics. However on my laptop, an AMD A8, I experience very low framerates (4-5 FPS). The music is a bit repetitive but ok. Fun and easy to play, good work!
Deal With It
21. Apr 2015 · 10:54 UTC
Nice!
Mekuri
21. Apr 2015 · 12:10 UTC
The gameplay quickly got tedious, but I do like the alternative take on a "space shooter" game. Also I loved the graphics style, you did really good on that.
rgehan
21. Apr 2015 · 13:18 UTC
I really enjoyed the beginning of the game. But at some point, you find yourself waiting on the mid lane, holding space.

The difficulty should increase as the player abilities expand. Maybe you could speed up the mobs, or add more lanes, etc...

Good graphics, music, everything though :)
tripleVisionGames
21. Apr 2015 · 13:57 UTC
I love the concept behind this and I like the graphics. I found it a little easy as once I got to shooting down 4 lanes I could pretty much just hold fire and sit in the middle. Great starting point though, could easily be expanded into something awesome.
Nikteddy92
21. Apr 2015 · 14:00 UTC
Wooah! nice job! The background "story" is nice and immersive, but the game is a little too easy IMHO.
Nice graphic! Well done! :D
nov1kk
21. Apr 2015 · 14:14 UTC
love pixel art! nice work
Prowler
21. Apr 2015 · 15:04 UTC
Space invaders 2.5d with more than one twist ;)
The graphics are competently done and the music is very good. It's a space abr killer by the way :)

God job!
ftvs
21. Apr 2015 · 15:21 UTC
Weapon upgrades were cool. I stopped after realising that I had been mashing space for three minutes, heh.
DaveCarlile
21. Apr 2015 · 15:45 UTC
Decent game and concept. Easy to win (but you already know this ;).
Luke Nizik
21. Apr 2015 · 16:13 UTC
The art is great. I wonder if there is an ending.
grillaface
21. Apr 2015 · 16:33 UTC
Rad graphics and controls really well. Good job!
Drauthius
21. Apr 2015 · 18:04 UTC
I really like the character design. It would have been nice if it were harder/more engaging somehow though. Quite polished for a compo entry. :)
trappytrap92
21. Apr 2015 · 18:07 UTC
The graphics and the sound are cool, love that you made an HTML5 version. It's fun but i think that it's a little easy.
HotBoxGames
21. Apr 2015 · 18:39 UTC
Well, that's my share of human saving and dark emotion demon slaying done for today :)

Thought it was going to be slow, but after the first round it started getting pretty intense! Good job, decent menus, graphics and audio - all in just 48 hours? :D
fixitteam
21. Apr 2015 · 20:03 UTC
it has an interesting perspective.
well done :)
AdamW
21. Apr 2015 · 20:39 UTC
First game to actually make me want to continue to play for a long time! Great work!
steboots
21. Apr 2015 · 23:30 UTC
I enjoyed this game, I really did. It was simple, but still satisfying. I would love to see some animations to indicate I killed a demon, plus a mute button, but nice game.
Blobo
22. Apr 2015 · 00:11 UTC
Really great game. i felt rediculously overpowered and unbalanced when i had a infinitely fast firing 5 shot.
IamAcoconut
22. Apr 2015 · 01:16 UTC
I like this game, especially the music and the graphics! It's a little too easy though, especially when you just hold the space key down. I really like the concept though, great job overall!
defacid
22. Apr 2015 · 02:50 UTC
Great visual design and fantastic idea. The game was too easy (not too many challenges to moving back and forth until I got enough streams to stand still... But, overall I really like this!
Cheshyr
22. Apr 2015 · 03:56 UTC
interesting idea. a little difficult to lose. :-p nice graphics and sound; well done!
ploogle
22. Apr 2015 · 06:34 UTC
It was a bit easier than I expected, but still great. If the weapon had a tad less spread I'd have been forced to move around more. :) Art and music (and that moving background) were all so well polished.

Good job!
ElectroYak
22. Apr 2015 · 07:12 UTC
Good game, really cool art style
TheScragglyMan
22. Apr 2015 · 07:59 UTC
I really didnt expect to like this game, but at first i did, It was quite fun at first, simple effective, but eventually it got to the point where i could simply stand in one place and spam to victory, My final score was 9.003.395 and i got there by standing in the same place and shooting.

Would have been nice if some enemies shot back, forcing you to move position (i couldn't see if any did or not though).
maunovaha
22. Apr 2015 · 09:10 UTC
nicely executed. Nice usage of cubes in graphics. pretty easy, but maybe I am a pro ;)
Bensonance
22. Apr 2015 · 18:25 UTC
This game is simply fantastic. I loved the excellent art, frantic music and compelling game play (albeit much too easy). This is a lot of lay time for a weekends work, very well done.
Ossi
22. Apr 2015 · 19:15 UTC
I really like the graphics and the audio however it did get a bit too easy the further I got. Having a wall of bullets was pretty satisfying though. Amazing job!
DesignerNap
22. Apr 2015 · 22:07 UTC
Great visuals and mood! love the audio and feel of the power ups. but yes. a tad too easy ;)
esayitch
22. Apr 2015 · 22:24 UTC
Great graphics,great sound, and shooting feels good. My only suggestion would have been to make the theme feature not only in the description of the enemies and the player character, but in the actual gameplay behavior...
Also, after a certain point the game becomes just keeping the space button pressed down, since your bullets hit everything anyway xD

Aside from these two points, the game is very good :) Good luck!
Dreyan
22. Apr 2015 · 23:12 UTC
Smooth and gratifying gameplay, the difficulty curve dropped off slightly and made for quite an easy game but the mechanic, audio and graphics meld together really well. Enjoyed this one a lot :)
Mr. Jif
23. Apr 2015 · 03:05 UTC
Very nice! Love those voxels. Gameplay picked up to just the right amount then it got pretty easy. Had fun playing it though!
garygreen
23. Apr 2015 · 20:01 UTC
Nice graphics and music and an interesting twist on shoot em ups.
Octopus Melange
25. Apr 2015 · 05:48 UTC
The idea behind the game is intriguing, but I would like to see the mechanics have a physical difference when using 'kindness, happiness and good intentions' and for them to work in different ways to mix up gameplay.
6DownStudios
25. Apr 2015 · 06:40 UTC
Love the background effect, it really works with the semi-retro vibe of the voxel enemies and the music. Groovy.
rogueNoodle
25. Apr 2015 · 11:00 UTC
A great way to spend a few minutes shooting lots of stuff with lots of other stuff ;) There're a couple of really interesting ideas in here as well that you should explore a little further - I particularly like the demons that were hidden until highlighted by your beam.
davidB
26. Apr 2015 · 15:55 UTC
it works on Linux + Firefox. Nice auto-fire. GG
GAFBlizzard
27. Apr 2015 · 18:16 UTC
Emotions makes me think of the upcoming Pixar movie. I like the voxel graphics on the portrait.

9 million points might have been a little higher than necessary to win since gun upgrades seemed to mostly stop before that point.
Pinpickle
28. Apr 2015 · 09:19 UTC
This was really fun! The weapon upgrading mechanic was a great idea because it was the thing that kept me playing: "How ridiculous is my weapon going to become?"

The theme incorporation does seem like a little bit of a copout.
NightShadow0
28. Apr 2015 · 13:13 UTC
Cute game, but with the weapon upgrades and the enemies always converging in the center it quickly became pointless. I just stood in the center and weighted down the spacebar until the victory screen appeared.
Franklin's Ghost
29. Apr 2015 · 12:54 UTC
Great looking game. Did get a bit easy once you got really upgraded and could just stand in the middle holding shoot.