{"author_link":"\/author\/pknowles\/","author_name":"pknowles","author_uid":"16649","comments":[{"author_name":"Greg Power","author_uid":"21691","time":"Apr 29, 2013 @ 4:02am","epoch":1367207820,"text":"OES_texture_float is missing :( Sounds interesting though."},{"author_name":"voxel","author_uid":"1789","time":"Apr 29, 2013 @ 4:53am","epoch":1367210880,"text":"wooo lasers!\r<br\/>\r<br\/>Took me a minute to work out the GUI but the instructions are clear and concise. Amazing work, especially given the target platform"},{"author_name":"voxel","author_uid":"1789","time":"Apr 29, 2013 @ 4:57am","epoch":1367211120,"text":"does get very easy once you have missiles."},{"author_name":"pknowles","author_uid":"16649","time":"Apr 29, 2013 @ 1:49pm","epoch":1367243040,"text":"I finally got access to my high score php and swapped out the annoying alert()."},{"author_name":"DustyStylus","author_uid":"15902","time":"Apr 29, 2013 @ 3:00pm","epoch":1367247300,"text":"Delightfully abstract. Fascinated by the use of WebGL (runs well in Chrome on my 2010 Macbook), gonna bookmark this to have a peek at the source code later! :)"},{"author_name":"MTO","author_uid":"11361","time":"Apr 29, 2013 @ 3:02pm","epoch":1367247420,"text":"interesting little strategy game, +1 for webgl"},{"author_name":"vegard1992","author_uid":"20707","time":"Apr 29, 2013 @ 3:02pm","epoch":1367247420,"text":"looks like it has great potential, but its hard to understand. and things are abit arbitrary; no goal in mind\r<br\/>\r<br\/>very nice graphics, i like the concept too"},{"author_name":"Shigor","author_uid":"5242","time":"Apr 29, 2013 @ 3:06pm","epoch":1367247660,"text":"I think it needs some balance, I've just set the priorities and then just watched and watched.\r<br\/>\r<br\/>But very good idea for the minimalistic strategy"},{"author_name":"HybridMind","author_uid":"234","time":"Apr 30, 2013 @ 12:49am","epoch":1367282640,"text":"I tried but I just could not figure out how to read the UI. I read the instructions plenty and messed with the sliders but all those number readouts never made final sense to me.\r<br\/>\r<br\/>I enjoyed the sound of the lasers blowing up the falling cubes. I kind of wish the UI widget in the bottom left wasn't so huge and taking up so much of the screen so I can watch my orbiting cities more. :)"},{"author_name":"bytegrove","author_uid":"11939","time":"Apr 30, 2013 @ 5:27pm","epoch":1367342520,"text":"I had a hard time figuring out the UI, it felt very cluttered. I liked the idea of setting the different ratios, if that's what was intended, I'm not sure. I also believe som balancing and feedback from your actions could benefit this game, as the game ran pretty well on its own."},{"author_name":"Arkazon","author_uid":"6492","time":"Apr 30, 2013 @ 5:27pm","epoch":1367342520,"text":"Looks good although I don't know about objects casting shadows onto the sun - pretty sure it doesn't work that way!"},{"author_name":"metadept","author_uid":"15489","time":"Apr 30, 2013 @ 5:34pm","epoch":1367342940,"text":"I really like this one. The resource system is very cool, and reminds me of some ideas I've had for circular resource allocations (and makes me want to try some more!). The framerate got pretty bad after a little while (running in Chrome on OSX) but I thought your graphics and visual composition were very effective. My only suggestion is to add some clearer indication of how well you're doing, or what your strength in each of the categories is relative to the wave you're on. I can't tell whether I'm good at this or whether it's just easy? It's certainly fun, though. Great job!"},{"author_name":"metadept","author_uid":"15489","time":"Apr 30, 2013 @ 5:44pm","epoch":1367343540,"text":"...also, a way to toggle the sound would be nice, since I ended up 'setting and forgetting' this and just watching it run for awhile."},{"author_name":"pknowles","author_uid":"16649","time":"May 1, 2013 @ 12:12pm","epoch":1367410020,"text":"Thanks all for your feedback! Some very good points made. There are certainly some strategies to get a better score but I'll have to do some balancing to make your actions have more of an impact and certainly give better visual and GUI feedback. The GUI should really be always-visible linear sliders with popup info text. Military perks are all on a log scale which should be reflected in this.\r<br\/>\r<br\/>Perhaps not the most physically correct sun-like sphere. If only I had time to add some bloom and volumetric shadows :P One shadow map and a non-emissive sun material sold me on this one. Actually, surrounding the sun in particles was a last minute coincidence - all particles initially spawned at the origin and I liked the look.\r<br\/>\r<br\/>One last thing - pressing tilde &quot;~&quot; (at least on a US layout kb) gives you a little bit more information I neglected to show in the GUI."},{"author_name":"netmute","author_uid":"11213","time":"May 1, 2013 @ 8:59pm","epoch":1367441640,"text":"Looks pretty damn awesome, although I had no idea what was going on before reading all the descriptions ;)"},{"author_name":"ecool377","author_uid":"16979","time":"May 11, 2013 @ 6:18am","epoch":1368252780,"text":"cool game"},{"author_name":"domrein","author_uid":"12960","time":"May 16, 2013 @ 3:49am","epoch":1368675840,"text":"IHaveNoIdeaWhatImDoingDog.jpg"}],"images":["ld26\/16649-d52176ee372adbea091f090a28a90d6b.jpg"],"links":[{"url":"http:\/\/yallara.cs.rmit.edu.au\/~pknowles\/balls\/","text":"Web (webgl)"}],"metadata":{"g_key":"25541","g_author":"16649","g_event":"LD26","g_eventkey":"16","g_subevent":"COMPO","g_urlkey":"25571","g_title":"Balls!","g_status":"UCHK1","g_place":"1104","g_commentcount":"17","g_site2_node_id":"0","g_hide":"N","g_has_icon":"Y","g_rqueue":"0","g_random":"0"},"nds":[],"node":null,"orig_images":["http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/compo2\/\/233892\/16649-shot0.jpg-eq-900-500.jpg"],"text":"Note: Requires WebGL and OES_texture_float extension, implying a supporting graphics card. Apologies to those who can't run it. Tested in firefox, chrome, on an ATI 5850, NV 680 and NV 9600.\r\n\r\nThe game consists of three balls revolving around a sphere. Cubes are crashing into the balls and will destroy them unless you manipulate resource production to give better defences.\r\n\r\nThe only controls are sliding three arrows to direct resource flow (mouse over the HUD to see them). In general, more military (red) gives better defences short term but you'll need resources feeding back to survive longer.\r\n\r\nThe indirect and minimal interaction gameplay and simply lit white spheres and cubes was my take on minimalism, along with the r,g,b colour coding.\r\n\r\nAlso Note: My webserver died half way through :( so I lost all my high score code. I'll add this during the week but for now there's a rather unsatisfying alert().\r\nEDIT: fixed post-comp\r\n\r\nEnjoy :)<\/p>","title":"Balls!"}