Arena by rogueNoodle

[raw]
made by rogueNoodle for LD26 (COMPO)
A short, hectic arena shooter.

Controls:
Arrow keys, WASD or gamepad d-pad to change directions.

Objectives:
Shoot the pink blocks while avoiding them and your own bullets. Build up your combo with every kill. Your combo resets when hit by your own bullet.
Collect the power ups to extend time, restore health, build combo and increase score. Moving off of one edge will wrap you to the opposite edge, but be careful - your bullets do the same!

Watch the gameplay video below for an example :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jABTCI4Lpg8&feature=youtu.be

Update: The web version runs best in Chrome - there seems to be some sound bugs in other browsers.

Ratings

Coolness 88% 2
Overall 3.83 77
Audio 3.43 149
Fun 3.51 156
Graphics 4.15 49
Humor 2.19 580
Innovation 3.12 560
Mood 3.24 266
Theme 3.90 224

Feedback

unclejunkie
29. Apr 2013 路 09:09 UTC
That 8bit isometric feel! Awesome smooth game indeed! The gameplay is simple and fun, well done!
Joritan Cety
29. Apr 2013 路 10:33 UTC
This is sooo cool! Well done!
muton
29. Apr 2013 路 10:35 UTC
Sound gets very choppy during gameplay... Firefox, Windows 7, modern computer (not slow).
Chman
29. Apr 2013 路 10:36 UTC
Really cool game. Hard to control at first, but once you get it it's quite fun. Graphics & sounds are very good as well. Nice work !
馃帳 rogueNoodle
29. Apr 2013 路 11:09 UTC
Thanks everyone!

@Muton - thanks letting me know. I hadn't tested it in Firefox, unfortunately. Or Safari for that matter (in Safari on a Mac the sound effects plain don't work apparently). If I ever update this for my own purposes, I'll be reworking the sound for sure.
tinytouchtales
29. Apr 2013 路 12:16 UTC
oh, cool one! like the wrapping bullets part!
raincole
29. Apr 2013 路 13:15 UTC
The arrows work in different directions than I expected. Overall it's fun
Aksami0
29. Apr 2013 路 14:03 UTC
It was great game.
MaxguN
29. Apr 2013 路 14:05 UTC
Nice, good looking, runs well and well done. Except the controls aren't easy to master, i'd rather have seen them rotated by 90掳.
kannas
29. Apr 2013 路 14:06 UTC
I like the graphics a lot. I can't say the same for the commands though xD
spacechase0
29. Apr 2013 路 14:07 UTC
It's a little hard to aim for the powerups. I wish they were 3x3.

It's really fun though, but I only managed to get 14,000. :P
wonderwhy-er
29. Apr 2013 路 14:08 UTC
Controls are confusing me too but otherwise great game, fun, sounds, minimalistic, graphics. All great! :)
JaJ
29. Apr 2013 路 15:16 UTC
Best graphics I've seen so far (and I've seen some good looking games already) It feels smooth too. I'm really bad at isometric controls, so it was a bit hard to play for me, but if I was better I bet it would have been a lot more fun, so that's my problem.
aquilicoco
29. Apr 2013 路 15:24 UTC
Good work. I think the controls are no clear :)
danielcmessias
29. Apr 2013 路 16:27 UTC
Oh those graphics! Such a great entry, really impressive for 48 hours. My only criticism would be to make the left and right arrows rotate your direction, instead of switching to fixed direction. It seems more intuitive to want to rotate left when you hit left, rather than face isometric left. Otherwise, amazing!
Detocroix
29. Apr 2013 路 16:59 UTC
Really nice visual style and nice mechanics too! Very polished style. The controls really confused me and much of the difficulty to me comes from pressing wrong direction. It could be a good idea to make alternative controls set for keypad? Then you could use 1,3,7 and 9 for more accurate directions :)
馃帳 rogueNoodle
29. Apr 2013 路 17:13 UTC
Thanks again to everyone for the comments - I really appreciate it! Obviously the controls are the biggest problem, and I had hoped to have time to put some alternate control scheme options in there but what can you do, right?

@Detocroix - great idea to use the diagonal numbers on the keypad. I will definitely use that idea in the future!
comrad_gremlin
29. Apr 2013 路 18:11 UTC
Quite intense :) Liked your realization.
Kvisle
29. Apr 2013 路 18:27 UTC
I like the concept, the style and the sound a lot.

But I have difficulties controlling the box due to the isometric view, so I don't know if there were more levels or anything - I kept dieing pretty fast.
馃帳 rogueNoodle
29. Apr 2013 路 18:31 UTC
@Kvisle - Thanks for playing and for the comments. There aren't any additional levels so you're not missing anything by dying quickly. To be honest, I die pretty fast in it too ;) It's mostly a survive-for-as-long-as-you-can-and-get-a-high-score type of game.
whiteravens
29. Apr 2013 路 19:26 UTC
Great and wonderful game! My only issue would be on the audio, but the rest is well done!
JohnnySix
29. Apr 2013 路 20:02 UTC
Love the style, you really captured the theme of the competition. Very polished and clever design.
finefin
29. Apr 2013 路 20:17 UTC
very nice game. awesome music :D
Yann
29. Apr 2013 路 22:06 UTC
Hey pretty neat graphics, I like the subtle reflection on the floor.

As everyone else said, controls are indeed a problem and I've never really came across a good solution for isometric control. So I usually refrain from using isometric representation when controls are so important.
I would have probably settled for frontal iso. But yeah it's less graphically interesting (:

Anyway that's a pretty well done game o/
onzephyr
29. Apr 2013 路 22:37 UTC
great visuals fits the theme perfect. subtle things like the reflection and death animations are really nice.
YM
29. Apr 2013 路 23:33 UTC
Beautiful
Puzzlem00n
30. Apr 2013 路 00:57 UTC
Wow! This is pretty nice. I love the visuals.
CloudiestNights
30. Apr 2013 路 03:04 UTC
Loved the bullet wrapping around the level (reminded me of Forget-Me-Not on iOS) and found the gameplay quite challenging.
EdoMiyamoto
30. Apr 2013 路 12:42 UTC
Very nice game !
doobdargent
30. Apr 2013 路 12:44 UTC
Could be fun but my firefox (nightly) crash after 20seconds of play time. :(
RobKat
30. Apr 2013 路 12:46 UTC
This is awesome, having never played an iso game before the movement learning curve is quite steep but once you get there is a totally awesome game!
_Rilem
30. Apr 2013 路 13:13 UTC
Cool and simple style, i like it alot.
Gameplay wise, it's pretty brutal, or I just suck at it. xD

WASD + an isometric grid takes some time to get used to. And the grid might have a bit too many blocks for me, I take the wrong turns all the time (just before or after the one I was supposed to take).

For a non gamejam game it might be nice to let the player start out on a small grid, or to slow everything down a bit.

Loveley graphics, animations and audio. Great job! ;)
kddekadenz
30. Apr 2013 路 13:43 UTC
This is confusing.. and feels a bit like snake.
tonbery
30. Apr 2013 路 14:23 UTC
Great visuals, really smooth game!

just get killed too fast, but balancing would be a good idea! ;)
Xaychru04
30. Apr 2013 路 14:58 UTC
Cool game! I love the mood created by the music :D
multitude
30. Apr 2013 路 14:58 UTC
REALLY ENJOYED THIS. Got to play it later with my game pad - on the big screen :D
Richard Matey
30. Apr 2013 路 14:59 UTC
Love the design of the UI and putting it around the Arena.
zatyka
30. Apr 2013 路 15:10 UTC
Very simple, but very cool. I loved the style of just about everything. It took me a little while to get acclimated to the controls, but that didn't take away from my enjoyment of the game. My only complaint is the sound rubbed me a wrong way, but overall, excellent job!
Fervir
30. Apr 2013 路 15:15 UTC
Definitely needs an option to have pressing up move you up right.
cadin
30. Apr 2013 路 15:51 UTC
Really nice work. The design looks really good.

Sound wasn't working for me in Safari, then I read your note to use Chrome and it worked.
Arrow keys for isometric movement has always felt 'wrong' to me, but that's not really specific to your game.

Really impressive. Great job!
Beldarak
30. Apr 2013 路 22:03 UTC
An option to change the keys would be nice, otherwise the game is insanely fun
Metamist
01. May 2013 路 12:57 UTC
Wow, most difficult game I have played here on ludum dare, but it looks amazing so i'll forgive you. Great job on this!
rujo
02. May 2013 路 14:47 UTC
very nice one! a little bit difficult to get used to isometric controls but the game is fun to play and the style is perfect!
ethankennerly
03. May 2013 路 05:03 UTC
The sharp graphics, animation, sounds and music impressed me! If you continue to develop this, I had trouble remembering which arrow key mapped to which diagonal direction.
Pokemonsta
03. May 2013 路 11:49 UTC
how do you actually play it (I'm very very new. 10 seconds is how long my account has lasted.11, 12, 13... you get the point)
Pokemonsta
03. May 2013 路 11:50 UTC
do I need to participate?
Dir3kt
03. May 2013 路 11:57 UTC
I really like the graphical style of this one. Audio is cool as well, it fits perfectly. Gameplay wise it was a bit difficult to get used to the movement. But as we say, practice makes perfect.
Christian S.
03. May 2013 路 13:18 UTC
Very polished, nice work!
SecondDimension
03. May 2013 路 13:39 UTC
A little hard to control at first but fun once you get the hang of it.
馃帳 rogueNoodle
03. May 2013 路 14:05 UTC
Thanks to everyone for the comments and feedback :)
@Pokemonsta - I believe in order to see the entries, you had to participate in the event. Here's a direct link though: http://roguenoodle.com/Arena/
MinionStudios
03. May 2013 路 18:12 UTC
Great animations and simple fluid controls make this one a great game! Love the art!
Bernhard
04. May 2013 路 06:08 UTC
Very cool style look and sounds.
Dodging my own bullets was a bit annoying but the controls were easy to get used to.
SecondDimension
05. May 2013 路 21:42 UTC
My team member already commented above, but I wanted to add that I really enjoyed this as well. I think the graphics are a perfect example of how to do minimalism well
8BitPimp
06. May 2013 路 21:49 UTC
Nice visuals. Me like.
nicso
07. May 2013 路 18:44 UTC
great game, but like some people here, i expected the ither direction for arrows.
Dietrich Epp
12. May 2013 路 19:15 UTC
It would make a big difference to me if the controls were QWAS. I can never get used to the arrow keys being rotated 45 degrees.
Beerman
13. May 2013 路 18:21 UTC
An isometric arena shooter with a bleepy 8-bit soundtrack? It's like you made a game out of all of my favourite things. Except beer. Put some beer in there and it'd be perfect ;)
lorancou
14. May 2013 路 18:43 UTC
42690
xandy
16. May 2013 路 23:18 UTC
sound controls would be nice :/
mildmojo
17. May 2013 路 05:59 UTC
Nicely realized! Very polished art style and animation. I had a hard time mastering the isometric orientation mapped to the arrow keys, but that might come with more play time.

In your input handler javascript, you need to call .stopPropagation() and .preventDefault() on key events that you're handling to keep them from bubbling up to the browser and triggering other functions. WASD were triggering my typeahead find, which takes away focus and eats all further keystrokes.
ilo
17. May 2013 路 19:06 UTC
My head is permanently stuck at a 60 degree angle - I hope it was worth it, rogueNoodle! :p

Seriously though, there are some really good ideas here but, as slick as the presentation style is, I'm not sure it justifies the confounding control scheme.
maloki
19. May 2013 路 03:43 UTC
I love the mechanics in the game. Simple, yet effective...especially wrapping bullets.

Controls can be quite difficult to grasp though, but I guess most isometric games with a similar control scheme has the same problem.