Double Hydra by CosmicAdventureSquad

[raw]
made by CosmicAdventureSquad for LD26 (JAM)
Description
==========
A simple game in a minimal art style composed of circles and components of circles. You control a two-headed dragon protecting his hoard of treasure from the heroes.

Controls
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Up/Down or W/S: move
Left/Right or A/D: directional shooting
Space: flip

Credits
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Vu (Stregawolf): Art
Rose (Rosypenguin): Programming
Johan (Tenlki): Music

This is our fourth LD together, and we decided to swap roles a bit as an added learning challenge.

Ratings

Coolness 55% 3
Overall(Jam) 3.71 64
Audio(Jam) 3.46 115
Fun(Jam) 3.38 105
Graphics(Jam) 4.14 56
Humor(Jam) 2.03 299
Innovation(Jam) 3.51 102
Mood(Jam) 3.07 236
Theme(Jam) 3.52 184

Feedback

cacciatc
30. Apr 2013 · 03:32 UTC
Nicely polished. That is one good looking Hydra!
Sestren
30. Apr 2013 · 03:39 UTC
I love the art style you chose and the core mechanic seems good. I wish the game could have progressed a bit faster, though.
Hayawi
30. Apr 2013 · 03:47 UTC
Very nice looking and professional. My one problem with it is that the difficulty stays the same and that makes it get very boring after a while.
Jacic
30. Apr 2013 · 03:48 UTC
Very, VERY polished! Easy contender for best Jam game! :)

My only complaint is that the difficulty doesn't scale (haha, pun) up fast enough.
olkeencole
30. Apr 2013 · 03:58 UTC
Games like these remind me just how simple they can be and still be fun, nice to look at and profound. I tend to make things too complicated all the time. Very polished game. The difficulty or pacing is an issue. One suggestion might be to break up the gameplay into levels. The first levels are getting the player comfortable with the gameplay and the other levels start adding difficulty. It would help to keep the player interest methinks. Overall, a great looking game!
ilo
30. Apr 2013 · 04:01 UTC
Lovely art style! As others have said the difficulty doesn't increase fast enough.
MinionStudios
30. Apr 2013 · 04:06 UTC
Strange game! Those graphics are very nice and quite iconic! Love the sound design.
🎤 CosmicAdventureSquad
30. Apr 2013 · 04:10 UTC
Ack, we realized that we screwed up some numbers on the difficulty timing and we just pushed up a quick bugfix. Thanks for the comments!
Gungnir
30. Apr 2013 · 04:25 UTC
Excellent visual design, with a great central mechanic. You even managed multiple enemy types! Top work - and clever reflecting switched dev roles in the game.
Luxorix
30. Apr 2013 · 04:36 UTC
"+" : Interesting and high quality.
"-" : The difficulty is not increased.
bleatingheart
30. Apr 2013 · 04:42 UTC
Really addictive and unique idea!
VDOgamez
30. Apr 2013 · 04:46 UTC
From a very simple core idea you've managed to make a rather frantic and fun game. I really like the art style, and the music is nice too. After a bit of a slow start the difficulty began to ramp up quickly and I was soon overwhelmed by enemies too great in number to hit accurately. The flipping mechanic really adds to the game and makes it require a lot more skill. The only complaint I have is that the hydra takes two rows worth of space but is only vulnerable on the top one. While this makes sense mechanically, it caused me a bit of confusion in trying to dodge and aim.
dremelofdeath
30. Apr 2013 · 05:13 UTC
very cool! I really like the art style and the progression of enemies introduced throughout the game
axcho
30. Apr 2013 · 05:30 UTC
Wow, I love the art style! It's so cool to styles that have formal constraints along the lines of pixel art but aren't actually pixel art - maybe I should try it sometime. :) I also really appreciate the simplicity of the gameplay system - it feels like something I could have programming on my graphing calculator back when I was in middle school (nostalgia!).
kidevil
30. Apr 2013 · 09:37 UTC
Very nice work! Good variety of enemies and fun gameplay.
xdegtyarev
30. Apr 2013 · 13:42 UTC
Interesting concept. Some sort of tutorial would be nice. Really liked graphics and sound design.
dissonance
30. Apr 2013 · 13:47 UTC
Very clean and polished. Was fun, even though it was confusing the hell out of my hand when switching. Good job!
mildmojo
30. Apr 2013 · 20:41 UTC
Cool mechanic, like a minimal medieval Ikaruga. The circle-based vector art is lovely; kudos on the style.

At some point I got down to about four stacks of gold clumped at the bottom of the screen, and at that point it wasn't too difficult to defend them and disregard all the activity at the top of the screen. It feels like maybe you're limiting the total number of enemies on the screen?

The dragon's tail initially made it hard to tell where my hitbox was and where I'd be spitting fireballs. It might be helpful if the tail was shorter or transparent.
Shugor
01. May 2013 · 07:12 UTC
Very nice game! Simple but effective use of the switching heads mechanic make this game really smooth to play
GFM
01. May 2013 · 14:07 UTC
Nice game.

I just think that enemies should also only damage the hydra half with the same color.
Captain_Genial
01. May 2013 · 14:29 UTC
Great job !
I like it !
GreenPixelDev
01. May 2013 · 14:58 UTC
Awesome concept! Simple yet challenging enough to keep you thinking :D Great art style and I was happy to see different enemy unit types! Great job!
kill0u
01. May 2013 · 17:16 UTC
Nice art & concept :)
LTyrosine
02. May 2013 · 03:48 UTC
Unique idea well applied on fun gameplay. Very nice, really liked it.
jwolf
02. May 2013 · 04:06 UTC
Very neat and stylish. It could use a few difficulty tweaks (felt two easy if you get down to two adjacent gold piles) and maybe a later enemy type that switches lanes if it gets to the center. Other than that, well done!
Husky
02. May 2013 · 10:07 UTC
I like the graphic style and music!
Great work!:D
aeveis
03. May 2013 · 21:44 UTC
It gets quite hard for me (Maybe I just get confused with controls as there are more people) so I think the difficulty might be where you want it. Very nice art!
sboerwinkle
03. May 2013 · 21:53 UTC
Neat idea, and the graphics were great. A way to get hearts back would be nice, but other than that I think I just need practice.
Jod
03. May 2013 · 22:58 UTC
Looks good, love the styling, very cool. Immediatly recognized the knights and wizards and everything.
ilovepixel
04. May 2013 · 04:14 UTC
Nice game. Really liked the medieval art style and music. The mechanics were nice too.
brxtr
04. May 2013 · 05:14 UTC
Nice idea and a pretty elegant design with a decent amount of variety for its short development time. The audio is fitting, although the lack of a sound effect for any type of death felt weird and I don't think the audio builds up a suitable amount of tension for when the player is nearing death. I think the visuals (cool graphics style) could be more polished, for example, a more fitting typeface for the score and perhaps more gradual movement for Hydra, rather than moving in noticeable steps.
shawn42
07. May 2013 · 20:04 UTC
Very cool. The controls almost have a QWOP feel to them. I could never quite dial in my muscle memory, I think that's what makes the game challenging. Nice work.
hamster_mk_4
11. May 2013 · 04:45 UTC
This was a very solid game. I never played a game quite like it so I am giving you full points for innovation.
HD408
12. May 2013 · 14:07 UTC
Every aspect of this game was great for me. Excellent teamwork.