{"author_link":"\/author\/roguenoodle\/","author_name":"rogueNoodle","author_uid":"21449","comments":[{"author_name":"unclejunkie","author_uid":"23044","time":"Apr 29, 2013 @ 9:14am","epoch":1367226540,"text":"That 8bit isometric feel! Awesome smooth game indeed! The gameplay is simple and fun, well done!"},{"author_name":"Joritan Cety","author_uid":"21420","time":"Apr 29, 2013 @ 10:38am","epoch":1367231580,"text":"This is sooo cool! Well done!"},{"author_name":"muton","author_uid":"20877","time":"Apr 29, 2013 @ 10:40am","epoch":1367231700,"text":"Sound gets very choppy during gameplay... Firefox, Windows 7, modern computer (not slow)."},{"author_name":"Chman","author_uid":"17883","time":"Apr 29, 2013 @ 10:41am","epoch":1367231760,"text":"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 !"},{"author_name":"rogueNoodle","author_uid":"21449","time":"Apr 29, 2013 @ 11:14am","epoch":1367233740,"text":"Thanks everyone!\r\r@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."},{"author_name":"tinytouchtales","author_uid":"18608","time":"Apr 29, 2013 @ 12:21pm","epoch":1367237760,"text":"oh, cool one! like the wrapping bullets part!"},{"author_name":"raincole","author_uid":"17708","time":"Apr 29, 2013 @ 1:20pm","epoch":1367241300,"text":"The arrows work in different directions than I expected. Overall it's fun"},{"author_name":"Aksami0","author_uid":"17892","time":"Apr 29, 2013 @ 2:08pm","epoch":1367244180,"text":"It was great game."},{"author_name":"MaxguN","author_uid":"21322","time":"Apr 29, 2013 @ 2:10pm","epoch":1367244300,"text":"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°."},{"author_name":"kannas","author_uid":"18332","time":"Apr 29, 2013 @ 2:11pm","epoch":1367244360,"text":"I like the graphics a lot. I can't say the same for the commands though xD"},{"author_name":"spacechase0","author_uid":"10574","time":"Apr 29, 2013 @ 2:12pm","epoch":1367244420,"text":"It's a little hard to aim for the powerups. I wish they were 3x3.\r\rIt's really fun though, but I only managed to get 14,000. :P"},{"author_name":"wonderwhy-er","author_uid":"232","time":"Apr 29, 2013 @ 2:13pm","epoch":1367244480,"text":"Controls are confusing me too but otherwise great game, fun, sounds, minimalistic, graphics. All great! :)"},{"author_name":"JaJ","author_uid":"5496","time":"Apr 29, 2013 @ 3:21pm","epoch":1367248560,"text":"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."},{"author_name":"aquilicoco","author_uid":"22746","time":"Apr 29, 2013 @ 3:29pm","epoch":1367249040,"text":"Good work. I think the controls are no clear :)"},{"author_name":"danielcmessias","author_uid":"17950","time":"Apr 29, 2013 @ 4:32pm","epoch":1367252820,"text":"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!"},{"author_name":"Detocroix","author_uid":"4679","time":"Apr 29, 2013 @ 5:04pm","epoch":1367254740,"text":"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 :)"},{"author_name":"rogueNoodle","author_uid":"21449","time":"Apr 29, 2013 @ 5:18pm","epoch":1367255580,"text":"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?\r\r@Detocroix - great idea to use the diagonal numbers on the keypad. I will definitely use that idea in the future!"},{"author_name":"comrad_gremlin","author_uid":"18465","time":"Apr 29, 2013 @ 6:16pm","epoch":1367259060,"text":"Quite intense :) Liked your realization."},{"author_name":"Kvisle","author_uid":"3818","time":"Apr 29, 2013 @ 6:32pm","epoch":1367260020,"text":"I like the concept, the style and the sound a lot.\r\rBut 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."},{"author_name":"rogueNoodle","author_uid":"21449","time":"Apr 29, 2013 @ 6:36pm","epoch":1367260260,"text":"@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."},{"author_name":"whiteravens","author_uid":"23106","time":"Apr 29, 2013 @ 7:31pm","epoch":1367263560,"text":"Great and wonderful game! My only issue would be on the audio, but the rest is well done!"},{"author_name":"JohnnySix","author_uid":"20903","time":"Apr 29, 2013 @ 8:07pm","epoch":1367265720,"text":"Love the style, you really captured the theme of the competition. Very polished and clever design."},{"author_name":"finefin","author_uid":"16498","time":"Apr 29, 2013 @ 8:22pm","epoch":1367266620,"text":"very nice game. awesome music :D"},{"author_name":"Yann","author_uid":"5046","time":"Apr 29, 2013 @ 10:11pm","epoch":1367273160,"text":"Hey pretty neat graphics, I like the subtle reflection on the floor.\r\rAs 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.\rI would have probably settled for frontal iso. But yeah it's less graphically interesting (:\r\rAnyway that's a pretty well done game o\/"},{"author_name":"onzephyr","author_uid":"5478","time":"Apr 29, 2013 @ 10:42pm","epoch":1367275020,"text":"great visuals fits the theme perfect. subtle things like the reflection and death animations are really nice."},{"author_name":"YM","author_uid":"11344","time":"Apr 29, 2013 @ 11:38pm","epoch":1367278380,"text":"Beautiful"},{"author_name":"Puzzlem00n","author_uid":"11003","time":"Apr 30, 2013 @ 1:02am","epoch":1367283420,"text":"Wow! This is pretty nice. I love the visuals."},{"author_name":"CloudiestNights","author_uid":"20248","time":"Apr 30, 2013 @ 3:09am","epoch":1367291040,"text":"Loved the bullet wrapping around the level (reminded me of Forget-Me-Not on iOS) and found the gameplay quite challenging."},{"author_name":"EdoMiyamoto","author_uid":"18304","time":"Apr 30, 2013 @ 12:47pm","epoch":1367325720,"text":"Very nice game !"},{"author_name":"doobdargent","author_uid":"20893","time":"Apr 30, 2013 @ 12:49pm","epoch":1367325840,"text":"Could be fun but my firefox (nightly) crash after 20seconds of play time. :("},{"author_name":"RobKat","author_uid":"14195","time":"Apr 30, 2013 @ 12:51pm","epoch":1367325960,"text":"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!"},{"author_name":"_Rilem","author_uid":"18340","time":"Apr 30, 2013 @ 1:18pm","epoch":1367327580,"text":"Cool and simple style, i like it alot. \rGameplay wise, it's pretty brutal, or I just suck at it. xD\r\rWASD + 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). \r\rFor 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.\r\rLoveley graphics, animations and audio. Great job! ;)"},{"author_name":"kddekadenz","author_uid":"10000","time":"Apr 30, 2013 @ 1:48pm","epoch":1367329380,"text":"This is confusing.. and feels a bit like snake."},{"author_name":"tonbery","author_uid":"22691","time":"Apr 30, 2013 @ 2:28pm","epoch":1367331780,"text":"Great visuals, really smooth game!\r\rjust get killed too fast, but balancing would be a good idea! ;)"},{"author_name":"Xaychru04","author_uid":"16472","time":"Apr 30, 2013 @ 3:03pm","epoch":1367333880,"text":"Cool game! I love the mood created by the music :D"},{"author_name":"multitude","author_uid":"21762","time":"Apr 30, 2013 @ 3:03pm","epoch":1367333880,"text":"REALLY ENJOYED THIS. Got to play it later with my game pad - on the big screen :D"},{"author_name":"Richard Matey","author_uid":"16170","time":"Apr 30, 2013 @ 3:04pm","epoch":1367333940,"text":"Love the design of the UI and putting it around the Arena."},{"author_name":"zatyka","author_uid":"14357","time":"Apr 30, 2013 @ 3:15pm","epoch":1367334600,"text":"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!"},{"author_name":"Fervir","author_uid":"20857","time":"Apr 30, 2013 @ 3:20pm","epoch":1367334900,"text":"Definitely needs an option to have pressing up move you up right."},{"author_name":"cadin","author_uid":"7233","time":"Apr 30, 2013 @ 3:56pm","epoch":1367337060,"text":"Really nice work. The design looks really good.\r\rSound wasn't working for me in Safari, then I read your note to use Chrome and it worked.\rArrow keys for isometric movement has always felt 'wrong' to me, but that's not really specific to your game.\r\rReally impressive. Great job!"},{"author_name":"Beldarak","author_uid":"20772","time":"Apr 30, 2013 @ 10:08pm","epoch":1367359380,"text":"An option to change the keys would be nice, otherwise the game is insanely fun"},{"author_name":"Metamist","author_uid":"21031","time":"May 1, 2013 @ 1:02pm","epoch":1367413020,"text":"Wow, most difficult game I have played here on ludum dare, but it looks amazing so i'll forgive you. Great job on this!"},{"author_name":"rujo","author_uid":"12028","time":"May 2, 2013 @ 2:52pm","epoch":1367506020,"text":"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!"},{"author_name":"ethankennerly","author_uid":"3040","time":"May 3, 2013 @ 5:08am","epoch":1367557380,"text":"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."},{"author_name":"Pokemonsta","author_uid":"23925","time":"May 3, 2013 @ 11:54am","epoch":1367581740,"text":"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)"},{"author_name":"Pokemonsta","author_uid":"23925","time":"May 3, 2013 @ 11:55am","epoch":1367581800,"text":"do I need to participate?"},{"author_name":"Dir3kt","author_uid":"12434","time":"May 3, 2013 @ 12:02pm","epoch":1367582220,"text":"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."},{"author_name":"Christian S.","author_uid":"12945","time":"May 3, 2013 @ 1:23pm","epoch":1367587080,"text":"Very polished, nice work!"},{"author_name":"SecondDimension","author_uid":"14838","time":"May 3, 2013 @ 1:44pm","epoch":1367588340,"text":"A little hard to control at first but fun once you get the hang of it."},{"author_name":"rogueNoodle","author_uid":"21449","time":"May 3, 2013 @ 2:10pm","epoch":1367589900,"text":"Thanks to everyone for the comments and feedback :)\r@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\/"},{"author_name":"MinionStudios","author_uid":"22273","time":"May 3, 2013 @ 6:17pm","epoch":1367604720,"text":"Great animations and simple fluid controls make this one a great game! Love the art!"},{"author_name":"Bernhard","author_uid":"20775","time":"May 4, 2013 @ 6:13am","epoch":1367647680,"text":"Very cool style look and sounds.\rDodging my own bullets was a bit annoying but the controls were easy to get used to."},{"author_name":"SecondDimension","author_uid":"14838","time":"May 5, 2013 @ 9:47pm","epoch":1367790120,"text":"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"},{"author_name":"8BitPimp","author_uid":"20953","time":"May 6, 2013 @ 9:54pm","epoch":1367876940,"text":"Nice visuals. Me like."},{"author_name":"nicso","author_uid":"8002","time":"May 7, 2013 @ 6:49pm","epoch":1367952240,"text":"great game, but like some people here, i expected the ither direction for arrows."},{"author_name":"Dietrich Epp","author_uid":"7606","time":"May 12, 2013 @ 7:20pm","epoch":1368386100,"text":"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."},{"author_name":"Beerman","author_uid":"5206","time":"May 13, 2013 @ 6:26pm","epoch":1368469260,"text":"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 ;)"},{"author_name":"lorancou","author_uid":"8588","time":"May 14, 2013 @ 6:48pm","epoch":1368556980,"text":"42690"},{"author_name":"xandy","author_uid":"15304","time":"May 16, 2013 @ 11:23pm","epoch":1368746280,"text":"sound controls would be nice :\/"},{"author_name":"mildmojo","author_uid":"6748","time":"May 17, 2013 @ 6:04am","epoch":1368770340,"text":"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.\r\rIn 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."},{"author_name":"ilo","author_uid":"12377","time":"May 17, 2013 @ 7:11pm","epoch":1368817560,"text":"My head is permanently stuck at a 60 degree angle - I hope it was worth it, rogueNoodle! :p \r\rSeriously 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."},{"author_name":"maloki","author_uid":"3790","time":"May 19, 2013 @ 3:48am","epoch":1368934980,"text":"I love the mechanics in the game. Simple, yet effective...especially wrapping bullets.\r\rControls can be quite difficult to grasp though, but I guess most isometric games with a similar control scheme has the same problem."}],"images":["ld26\/21449-75603fb406d1c8546ea0862ad30b0ff9.jpg","ld26\/21449-3e003d783ac36733b5ffd8c871b3c9d9.jpg"],"links":[{"url":"http:\/\/roguenoodle.com\/Arena\/arena-windows.zip","text":"Windows"},{"url":"http:\/\/roguenoodle.com\/Arena\/","text":"Web"},{"url":"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/2013\/04\/30\/arena-post-mortem\/","text":"Post-mortem"},{"url":"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/2013\/05\/03\/arena-timelapse-videos\/","text":"Timelapse"},{"url":"http:\/\/roguenoodle.com\/Arena\/arena-final-source.zip","text":"Source"}],"metadata":{"g_key":"25998","g_author":"21449","g_event":"LD26","g_eventkey":"16","g_subevent":"COMPO","g_urlkey":"26028","g_title":"Arena","g_status":"UCHK1","g_place":"77","g_commentcount":"62","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\/21449-shot0.png-eq-900-500.jpg","http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/compo2\/\/233892\/21449-shot1.png-eq-900-500.jpg"],"text":"A short, hectic arena shooter. \r\n\r\nControls:\r\nArrow keys, WASD or gamepad d-pad to change directions. \r\n\r\nObjectives:\r\nShoot 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.\r\nCollect 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!\r\n\r\nWatch the gameplay video below for an example :)\r\nhttp:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=jABTCI4Lpg8&feature=youtu.be\r\n\r\nUpdate: The web version runs best in Chrome - there seems to be some sound bugs in other browsers.\r\n<\/p>","title":"Arena"}