BIRTH by grayhaze

[raw]
made by grayhaze for LD27 (COMPO)
"Somewhere on this globe, every ten seconds, there is a woman giving birth to a child. She must be found and stopped." - Sam Levenson

Use the arrow keys to move and space to drop a bomb.
Destroy all spore mothers to advance.
Don't let them reach 100% population!
Spawns start out at every 10 seconds, then get quicker as you advance...

Created using HaxeFlixel and OpenFL.

Notes:
1) When you kill all mothers on a globe, you advance to the next level. Often this is obvious as the planet changes to another random colour, but other times it's less obvious. Just keep flying and bombing!
2) If you want to rack up a big score, at a slow pace, stay on the early levels and let the spores grow. If you want a challenge, bomb everything as quick as you can to move through the levels. Each new level starts with a single mother and a quicker spawn time.
3) I really regret not having time to add some sounds. I have a version with sound, but I'll wait until voting has finished to post it to let everyone vote without bias.

I intend to continue developing this idea and hopefully release a more complete game (including sound effects, proper level transitions and a greater initial challenge) on Android and possibly iOS. Thanks to everyone for playing and please leave some comments about your experience!

Follow me on Twitter @grayhaze for more news on development.

Have fun! - Kevin Purcell

Ratings

Coolness 62% 3
Overall 2.56 994
Fun 2.36 978
Graphics 2.08 1026
Humor 2.04 677
Innovation 2.77 702
Mood 1.97 1016
Theme 2.21 1116

Feedback

Alex Shestakov
26. Aug 2013 路 19:36 UTC
Good core mechanic, I enjoyed flying around the planet!
KeithE.
26. Aug 2013 路 19:40 UTC
Dig the concept and the visual of circling the planet looks great. I was a little confused on what I needed to do to win. I liked being able to fly up away from the planet. It would be neat if there were other planets with spores you could fly to. Good job!
dekart
26. Aug 2013 路 19:40 UTC
Flight control is good, but not sure how to progress. Some sounds could improve the experience too.
ZeppelinCaptain
26. Aug 2013 路 19:43 UTC
Nice base mechanic, but the game was a bit too easy I think.
It took a long time before it started being challenging.

Nice fluid controls though, and I enjoyed soaring through the sky and bombing red "mothers" :D
馃帳 grayhaze
26. Aug 2013 路 20:04 UTC
Thanks for the comments everyone. Unfortunately I ran out of time and was rapidly falling asleep! When you kill the last mother on a globe, you actually move on to the next level - easier to spot when the random planet colour actually changes. Each level has a slightly quicker spawn time than the last. Once you get up to level eight, it starts to get very difficult to kill all the mothers before they spawn.
Tinard
26. Aug 2013 路 20:05 UTC
God Job!
Daisuke909
26. Aug 2013 路 20:07 UTC
The gameplay is neat and involves lots of strategy, although it may be just a bit to simple.
Exergy
26. Aug 2013 路 20:10 UTC
Nice with the flying around the planet!
fferro234
26. Aug 2013 路 20:11 UTC
I liked the quote at the beginning, it was a nice way to set up the game and gave a nice connection to the theme.
voltorben
26. Aug 2013 路 20:12 UTC
Fucked up idea :D haha
Took a little too long for the game to pick up pace, but when it did it was quite challenging! Also flying around felt nice :)
A shame you didn't include any sound! Could have upped the experience.
Quite a fun play!
Xgor
26. Aug 2013 路 20:14 UTC
Cool concept although quite repetitive. Also really need more feedback with sound and something that shows that the level as changed.
klianc09
27. Aug 2013 路 20:30 UTC
Was very easy at first, and then it suddenly was too hard to even avoid all the small spheres flying around.
I somehow like the clean artstyle. ;)
01010111
28. Aug 2013 路 02:03 UTC
I loved flying around the planet, it took me a second to realize what was going on, and it got hard pretty quickly after that, but I still enjoyed carpet bombing all the moms. The simple graphics really lent themselves to the game, I feel like simplifying the "mothers" would make the game even more visually striking. Great work!
AdamHarte
28. Aug 2013 路 04:50 UTC
Solid game with an interesting way of moving around the planet
flavio
28. Aug 2013 路 21:33 UTC
Interesting use of that quote to get the game
Working smoothly, but to easy at the beginning
Getting challenging after a while
Nice :)
zillix
29. Aug 2013 路 07:13 UTC
it felt really awesome to speed around the planet!
SneManden
29. Aug 2013 路 08:54 UTC
Very nice idea, and the graphics are simple, yet fitting. However, it was quite confusing when you hit a birth (the red ones) and you are suddenly on another planet? But the circling around the planet was really nice, I see potential.
馃帳 grayhaze
29. Aug 2013 路 09:18 UTC
Thanks SneManden. Proper level transitions are on the to-do list for the final version. I ran out of time after losing the first day to a failed idea, so my main focus was to get the game engine and mechanic working to the point where it was playable.
udo
29. Aug 2013 路 15:11 UTC
Overall I had a lot of fun playing this. A little more to do, especially at the beginning, would have been good. Minimal sound effects would have made this even better. Great concept, well executed considering the time constraint. Excellent! :)
mrspeaker
29. Aug 2013 路 15:18 UTC
Sounds would have made it awesome: never forget them ;)
Colapsydo
05. Sep 2013 路 07:43 UTC
I like the circular vision you chose, and also the design of the spore mothers.
It could have been interesting to have some indications on the position of the nearest mother, like an arrow on the side of the screen.
manuq
06. Sep 2013 路 15:46 UTC
Took me a bit to figure out, and then I came back here for the instructions. I think in-game instructions are a must, but just my opinion. I like the rotating world.
Alink
10. Sep 2013 路 12:34 UTC
Interesting flying mechanic.
DuFF
14. Sep 2013 路 20:15 UTC
I like the circling planet mechanic, I think it would have been more fun with a lot more action. It was too easy.