LudumData

The Life Countdown by Toms

[raw]
made by Toms for LD27 (COMPO)
You play as little blue creature which has a lifespan of 10 seconds. So you have to collect orbs in order to survive and to reach the end of theses tunnels full of cells and bacteria.

The game has two modes :
The 'normal mode' where you have to beat 20 randomly generated level with a growing difficulty to reach a final scene. Or the 'endless mode' where you can travel randomly generated levels forever! and do the best score.

Controls :
Arrow keys to move and jump.

Gameplay :
You must collect at least an orb every ten seconds. Their quantity decrease with the levels.
You can collect hearts to increase your life counter.
Avoid spikes, "unidentified orange fluid" and "little red bad guys", they'll kill you without pity.

Resolution :
You can switch to fullscreen and/or edit your resolution in the file "config.yaml"

Timelapse :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouHqhUQ_34g

Stream replay :
You can watch the stream of the first day here : http://www.twitch.tv/teanan/b/450624867
Windows http://www.mediafire.com/download/0y7k101u2j0o6v2/ld27-the-life-countdown.zip
Source http://www.mediafire.com/download/071otwr0efib392/sources.zip
Stream Replay (day 1) http://www.twitch.tv/teanan/b/450624867
Timelapse http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouHqhUQ_34g
Original URL https://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-27/?action=preview&uid=16947

Ratings

Coolness 51% 3
Overall 3.17 435
Audio 2.77 419
Fun 2.93 550
Graphics 2.87 563
Humor 2.15 610
Innovation 2.53 867
Mood 2.72 559
Theme 3.03 686

Feedback

Falcon
26. Aug 2013 · 13:25 UTC
Very fun game, I could totally see this being a mobile app of some kind. The only thing that I thought was weird was that the music was waaay too somber for the cutsey art style. xD
doonay21
26. Aug 2013 · 13:40 UTC
Nice entry! Music somehow not fits the rest but still very playable :)
GreenyUk
26. Aug 2013 · 13:41 UTC
Pretty cool game :) Played for quite a few levels! I think a double-jump would have been helpful personally but nice job.
ratalaika
26. Aug 2013 · 13:41 UTC
I had a good time playing it, it's a really fun game
Flai
26. Aug 2013 · 13:45 UTC
It was okay, a bit boring and easy though. The character graphics were cute though :) If you smoothed the camera's movement a bit (so that the camera would be a bit "late"), it could "feel" a bit better.
mitkus
26. Aug 2013 · 14:01 UTC
I love the cute character and tight controls, but it was too easy for quite a while! Way too much food and way too much hearts. I don't think it needs that many levels - maybe have 7-10 and ramp up difficulty quicker?
FoxFiesta
26. Aug 2013 · 14:36 UTC
The game has potential, the graphics and the generation works well. The only problem is balancing : there is way too much hearts and orbs. So I tried the endless mode to see if I could find a real challenge but I found the same problem.
Next time, pay more attention to balancing, the rest of the game is cool ! :)
bvanschooten
26. Aug 2013 · 19:01 UTC
Nice finished-looking game, only way too easy, at least in the first 10 levels. There is so much food that there is no point to the time limit, and do I really need 27 lives? At around level 10 the game started slowing down and the sounds started looping and glitching (not sure if it's a bug in the game), so I stopped playing. It would also be nice to have more graphical variety in the levels, even if just different colours.
Linusson
26. Aug 2013 · 19:09 UTC
I liked the idea but found the game a bit too easy for quite some time. I would have liked if it ramped up the difficulty a bit faster. :)
ShellfishGames
27. Aug 2013 · 13:39 UTC
Got to level 7, but lost motivation then because the levels seemed a little too long, especially since I had to play each of them like 3-5 times until I finally made it to the end. :D
Fun game nontheless, I really like the character and his way of looking at you and panicking when the time goes down (which was very rarely the case by the way). Also, the small intro demonstrating the basic time-mechanic was great. The "show, don't tell" paradigm in action. Good work. :)
Crazi456
28. Aug 2013 · 08:51 UTC
Nice solid gameplay! Good job!
wally2069
28. Aug 2013 · 18:31 UTC
The first couple of levels had power-ups everywhere which made the time limit seem unimportant
VeloSpectre
30. Aug 2013 · 05:28 UTC
A fun collection based game.
jprogman
30. Aug 2013 · 05:33 UTC
I wish this game has more content as it got tedious after level 10. Otherwise, you got yourself a good platform engine and nice level generation. It just needs more stuff.
mutilator
30. Aug 2013 · 21:09 UTC
This is a very fun game. Good sound effects.