Drempt by WetDesertRock
Drempt is a top down shooting game where you try to understand the behaviors of two different manifestations. I also have anon stat collecting script running to tell me more about what computers I'm designing for, and good my difficulty curve is. More on this at the bottom. What follows is the instructions for the game. Read them!
Drempt is a game about when the external world connects with your dream world that takes place throughout five dream cycles. Each dream cycle ends when you fall prey to the manifestations.
There are two different kinds of manifestations: The Visitors are external manifestations in your dreams, and the Glimmers are manifestations of the dream itself. As the observer in your dream, you need to figure out what is a Visitor and what is a Glimmer.
Your goal is to discern between these two manifestations by throwing Observances at them. Observances dispatch the power the manifestations have. Left click will throw an Observance made for the Visitors, right click will throw an Observance made for the Glimmers. If you match it up right you will gain points, if you don't you will lose points.
You can discern between the two manifestations by the presence of an aura on a Glimmer, but the aura will fade as you move deeper into the Dream Cycles eventually disappearing altogether. The two manifestations also move differently. The Visitors move faster and are more responsive to the player. The Glimmers move slower and more gracefully.
At the end of each Dream Cycle you can use the points to bolster yourself. Remember that your points carry over into the next cycle so you could lose them if you don't spend them. Your final score is based off of how many points you have at the end of the final cycle.
To get used to these different behaviors, you can try out the free play mode.
Statistics that are collected:
Game version
Display's resolution
Operating System
Potato Salad
If love is fused or not
Debug mode on/off
Various graphic feature support
And Game statistics (time playing specific cycle, things bought, score, yadayadayada).
Drempt is a game about when the external world connects with your dream world that takes place throughout five dream cycles. Each dream cycle ends when you fall prey to the manifestations.
There are two different kinds of manifestations: The Visitors are external manifestations in your dreams, and the Glimmers are manifestations of the dream itself. As the observer in your dream, you need to figure out what is a Visitor and what is a Glimmer.
Your goal is to discern between these two manifestations by throwing Observances at them. Observances dispatch the power the manifestations have. Left click will throw an Observance made for the Visitors, right click will throw an Observance made for the Glimmers. If you match it up right you will gain points, if you don't you will lose points.
You can discern between the two manifestations by the presence of an aura on a Glimmer, but the aura will fade as you move deeper into the Dream Cycles eventually disappearing altogether. The two manifestations also move differently. The Visitors move faster and are more responsive to the player. The Glimmers move slower and more gracefully.
At the end of each Dream Cycle you can use the points to bolster yourself. Remember that your points carry over into the next cycle so you could lose them if you don't spend them. Your final score is based off of how many points you have at the end of the final cycle.
To get used to these different behaviors, you can try out the free play mode.
Statistics that are collected:
Game version
Display's resolution
Operating System
Potato Salad
If love is fused or not
Debug mode on/off
Various graphic feature support
And Game statistics (time playing specific cycle, things bought, score, yadayadayada).
Ratings
| Coolness | 49% | 1204 |
| Overall | 3.32 | 438 |
| Audio | 3.84 | 42 |
| Fun | 3.15 | 456 |
| Graphics | 3.37 | 385 |
| Innovation | 3.32 | 428 |
| Mood | 3.54 | 149 |
| Theme | 2.77 | 853 |
I like the music a lot. I matches the theme of your game perfectly and the game has a great mood.
For the rest graphics and sound are really great, even the background. i have some issues with the movement of the "ship", the "move always" is a great idea (who fit well with your story) but you could maybe add a slowing action even temporary to make the trajectory more controllable.
The upgrading menu is really well but i'm surprised because it is really not in the same "dream mood" of the story and the game : it makes it easy to use/understand, but is quite weird between the dream cycle.
Theme used, good idea simple who could bring more.
Good game.
I loved the music very much and the art was good.
The gameplay was nice but as I played for longer time I felt it was getting boring as it was the same exact thing. I think around dream 3 I felt almost invincible with my upgrades so I decided to kill myself to see how the game ends.
Generally it was a very good game and I liked. It felt that there might be some morale or some end story to it. Some kind of finale but turned to be just a score game. That may not be bad in of itself but felt kind of like disappointed as I was waiting for something like that (specially when the deep description gave me that feel).
Well done game :D
Game was too difficult at first with the initially slow movement, then after a few upgrades, spamming shots in a spiral got me quite a decent amount of points (700+) with no thinking required.
On the other hand, the bizarrely abstract graphics are really nice, the sounds quite good, and the background music is something else. Probably the best track I've heard this LD so far. Easily 5/5 for audio and mood.
The menu and upgrade screen are both nice and overall the whole thing feels quite polished. The game is extremely relaxing, and I don't mind saying it again, the music is just beautiful.
There's way, way too much text to read! And really, it's all just window-dressing for the innovation of two enemy / weapon types. Which is an innovation I like by the way!
Utlimately this game is fun and very good overall, but only after you've invested the time to really understand what's going on. Once you do understand the way the game works, it actually goes from overwhelming to boring pretty fast. So, it would be cool if there were more gameplay elements that were introduced over time. I see that you kind of did that with the upgrade system, but the problem is the upgrades make the game easier faster than the vanishing auras made it harder. While I'm on the subject, that was also an innovative and cool idea but the ships did not move distinctively enough IMHO.
On the second play through, I got about 4000 points but got bored around the 4th stage. I think it kept me playing for about an hour, so good job!
I agree that the different behaviors didn't really stand out and I had a hard time discerning what I was supposed to do.