ReTurtle by Metatheos

[raw]
made by Metatheos for LD27 (COMPO)
Simple game about taking a boss down in 10 seconds. Unfortunately you don't have the power to do it by yourself. You might do it if you help yourself, but it gets much easier with the help of you, you and you -- or does it? Just try not to shoot yourself, have fun, post your times and sorry for no sound.

Update: Now with post-mortem ( http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/2013/09/03/294584-returtle-postmortem/ ) and post-compo-version.
Update 2: The changes for the post-compo-version explained: http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/2013/09/13/returtle-revised/

To start click a pod, more are unlocked after starting through the previous ones.

Controls:
WSAD to move
Left Mouse Button to shoot (Hint: not shooting makes the next shot stronger, the red ring shows charging state)
Right Mouse Button to pull up shield (Hint: some projectiles bounce off the shield depending on angle, bouncing increases their power)

HINTS:
* You can restart the current round by pressing r. I suggest to use this if you get hit really early in the fight. If you did considerable damage and don't understand the rules yet, just let the 10 seconds run out.
* The charged shot (wait one second after a shot to let the ring around the controlled player align again) does significantly more damage, try to use only that.

Ratings

Coolness 100% 1
Overall 2.78 820
Audio 1.36 954
Fun 2.33 997
Graphics 3.06 446
Humor 1.17 980
Innovation 3.15 418
Mood 1.72 1060
Theme 2.90 792

Feedback

JAH2488
26. Aug 2013 路 05:21 UTC
Looks great. Really hard though.
Jishenaz
26. Aug 2013 路 05:24 UTC
Once I got in the hang of it, it was fun. I didn't understand the purpose of the different spools at first, but I figured it out.
laserbeam
26. Aug 2013 路 06:03 UTC
I don't get it, sorry, I just don't. I get you play more then once to take out the boss, but why do those previous attempts I had keep dying? Am I shooting them down? No... that's not it, but why? Also there's very little feedback provided to the player, bullets don't seem to have an impact, you die to easy, you have to manually restart the game when you die. The idea is ok, but you could have executed it much better :).
馃帳 Metatheos
26. Aug 2013 路 12:06 UTC
In fact your guys can be killed by friendly fire. For previous incarnations it also can be a grenade you are drawing somewhere they will move to.
You're right about the lack of feedback, there are quite a few things I had to cut in that regard (obviously sound, visual feedback on hit/block/reflect/projectile-strength, battle-timer/boss-hp, intro/outro, a proper main menu,...).
About having to restart manually: if you mean restarting the current round with r after you get hit, the motivation is that three guys hitting the maximum amount of fully charged shots should be able to take the boss down (two might be enough with some reflect-magic). So if you're at 98% progress after four guys, you can still easily win by landing a few shots, getting hit in the first five seconds and watching as the others finish the job. If you mean clearing progress, that's part of cutting most of the menu, sorry about that.
Thanks for the feedback though everyone, really appreciated. I might add a post-compo-version over the next few days, fixing a few of the things from the top of that list.
andwhatnot
26. Aug 2013 路 14:34 UTC
Yup. Super hard. There are some interesting ideas in here.
Yaguar
26. Aug 2013 路 15:00 UTC
Gets its fun factor from its difficulty and it has a lot of that.
noom
26. Aug 2013 路 22:43 UTC
awwww I can't get the unity web player to work so I cant test this, looks so fun.
DanHayesGamer
27. Aug 2013 路 00:30 UTC
I agree this is pretty damn hard, but the pattern based movement of the enemy makes the game interesting
Feysoura
27. Aug 2013 路 00:30 UTC
Didn't know what the hell was going on lol
BradleySmith
27. Aug 2013 路 00:38 UTC
Really nice 3D art. :)
gene-z
27. Aug 2013 路 21:28 UTC
Too hard, but great
Vasileiadis
27. Aug 2013 路 21:32 UTC
Nice motion on the boss / AI but the game could really use an intro tutorial / or as others pointed out a bit of feedback - a healthbar on the boss would be enough :)
deepnight
27. Aug 2013 路 21:32 UTC
The idea seems really good and the art is good too. But I couldn't actually beat the very first boss :)
Two problems:
- missing feedback for boss damages, I actually can't tell when I hit him or not,

- when I die, it would be really good to simply go back to menu immediately, no need to force the 10s delay each time. In fact, for my first 2 tries, I was instantly killed by the boss, so the ship disappeared, and I was stucked for 10s each time. Really looked like a bug.
flavio
27. Aug 2013 路 21:34 UTC
Waow, the first round was hard !
It took me some time to get the mecanics
Nice job !
DuduSAr
27. Aug 2013 路 21:40 UTC
Took some time and patience to understand. I like the idea, really nice. But lacks information on the mechanics. I was not understanding why I had to watch all the boss animation after dead on the pod 1.
馃帳 Metatheos
27. Aug 2013 路 23:18 UTC
Thanks for all the feedback everyone! It's scary how much all those things I had to cut seem to negatively affect the experience. For now I reformulated the description a bit to give some hints on the mechanics. I also made the hint that you can restart a round by pressing 'r' a separate point in an attempt to make it more visible (should have added that as an in-game hint though). I'll really have to find some time to make a post-compo-version.
zillix
29. Aug 2013 路 06:35 UTC
really unique idea! the bosses patterns were well made, and the models were great.
futuristteletex
29. Aug 2013 路 07:35 UTC
hard but got the hang of it.. looks great!
Jeremias
29. Aug 2013 路 14:34 UTC
Nice concept but very hard to beat the first boss! I would add more feedback of damaging the boss as well as health bars for both.
Diptoman
31. Aug 2013 路 16:26 UTC
I think the difficulty screwed up the fun factor. Really needed a better learning curve. Visuals are nice though!
XaiZil
01. Sep 2013 路 13:54 UTC
I totally didn't understand what was going on, nice visual style though
dkilford
01. Sep 2013 路 13:59 UTC
Great idea, execution felt a little awkward. Most of the rounds my clones just ended up dying in the first few seconds of the round. Art looks really good, controls felt good. Overall good job!
superfoonly
03. Sep 2013 路 14:47 UTC
I couldn't figure it out. At the beginning there were no ships for me to control, when I did get a ship I couldn't move it
馃帳 Metatheos
03. Sep 2013 路 14:54 UTC
This sounds strange, I think you might have accidentally found the 'replay'-function (clicking the title just replays the current state of the fight). Maybe I should have disabled it in the compo-build.
Reyn
03. Sep 2013 路 15:05 UTC
It got too crowded at about 30% through. Looks good and plays well.
Atmospherium
03. Sep 2013 路 16:52 UTC
I really like this concept, I just wish it wasn't so difficult (friendly fire is pretty punishing). I haven't once been able to beat the boss, but it's been fun nonetheless. I'm definitely glad you're continuing development on this.
Sestren
03. Sep 2013 路 22:52 UTC
Cool concept. A bit hard to manage once there are several of your ships on the screen, though.
Fervir
04. Sep 2013 路 03:05 UTC
Really fun and challenging.
Very well done difficulty.
Didn't really use the shield as much as I probably should have
CosmicAdventureSquad
04. Sep 2013 路 03:06 UTC
Looks great, and I like how much polish you were able to get in for the post-jam! It was a little hard to get the hang of it and understand just what was going on, but I eventually got it.
ratalaika
04. Sep 2013 路 16:51 UTC
! Great job :).
NiceAlexanderAS
04. Sep 2013 路 23:38 UTC
Cool idea, very fun! what? hard?? well a little ... xD great job bro!!! n.n
Sh1rogane
05. Sep 2013 路 16:39 UTC
That was a hard game and fun too :D
I liked the idea/mechanic.
I just wish there was some sounds.
JonathanG
05. Sep 2013 路 20:11 UTC
It's a really interesting idea, but very difficult to see what's going on! If you don't move straight away at the start of the first boss, you'll die almost immediately. Also I frequently died with no idea why
patrickgh3
05. Sep 2013 路 20:12 UTC
Interesting concept, way too hard for me though. The boss pattern was cool!
Almax27
07. Sep 2013 路 21:21 UTC
Very nice concept but a bit hard, if the shoot was faster that would make things a bit easier. :)
馃帳 Metatheos
07. Sep 2013 路 22:45 UTC
Thank you all for the feedback. I noticed that people probably use rapid-fire way more than I'd want them to, bad communication on my part here. I added a hint to the description explaining that it's best to let the shot recharge fully.

@Fervir: In the compo-version it's really hard to get any use out of the shield and even in the post-compo-version it's something you'd only use to optimize time, it's mostly there for depth.

@CosmicAdventureSquad: Nice to read some feedback on the post-compo-version, thanks for trying that out too.

@JonathanG: You're right, that you're getting hit by the first batch of bullets is a really stupid quirk of the compo-version, makes a really bad first impression, doesn't it? The thing hitting you randomly might be the grenades the enemy launches at two points in the battle.

@Almax27: Good job on noticing that. You're right, the ratio between player-projectile-speed and boss-movement-speed is really awful in the compo-version. I indeed bumped the projectile speed on the player up a bit and lowered enemy-motion-speed significantly for the post-compo-version.
Colapsydo
10. Sep 2013 路 13:57 UTC
Really fun concept.
Without your tip of using only the charged shot, I guess I would have never defeat the enemy. The post-compo is definitely clearer regarding the rules but the gameplay is already present and challenging in you entry.
I also like you graphics, colors are a bit cartoon, when design is more serious.
Martin_Monosys
13. Sep 2013 路 12:47 UTC
Strange game, but a rather cool idea (if I understand it correctly...). Needs some sound, however...! ;)
GFM
13. Sep 2013 路 14:46 UTC
Wow, this game is awesome! That was a great idea!

I'm a fan of shooters, so this was a game that I would easily like. But you took it a step further! The controls are great and having to pay attention not only to the boss's bullets but your (previous) ones, made this something really unique.

It would be great if you made more bosses. :D
(and sounds... this greatly enhances a game)