Dragon Boss by Zanzlanz
Hey there! I'm Zanzlanz and this is my second Ludum Dare entry, "Dragon Boss." :D
__________________________________ TL;DR _________________________________
Read this if you don't feel like reading the rest:
Move with arrow keys, use shift to breath fire, and space to pick up animals. Avoid arrows. Collect items until you win. I had fun and loved talking to my live stream viewers. There are goats, and they are yummy.
__________________________________ INFO __________________________________
Wow you went passed the TL;DR. Thank you :)
So the whole game is based off of you being a dragon. You main goal is to become a boss. In order to become a boss, you can terrorize the giant village filled with archers, cows, and GOATS.
I created all music, graphics, (most of) the code (I submitted an ugly engine before it started), and sound effects in the allotted time of 48 hours. The art is actually made up of 13 colors, total, so I think that's a cool feature! My live stream adds up to over 17 hours of video.
________________________________ CONTROLS _______________________________
- WAD or arrow keys to move. Keep tapping up (or W) to fly.
- Shift: Hold down shift to breath fire. Fire can burn down houses or catch people/livestock on fire.
- Space: When there is a person or livestock under you, press space to pick it up. Press space again to drop it. If they take fall damage, they die and give you goodies.
______________________________ WIN CONDITION _____________________________
Simply, if you're completely leveled up, you win.
You can be leveled up in speed, flight, and flame. The highest level for each category is 10!
________________________________ ENTITIES _______________________________
All entities can be picked up and thrown on the ground. They all drop meat, hearts, and 2 experience orbs.
- Archers: They're the villagers. They all have bows and arrows because they are paranoid. They'll squat before they shoot an arrow at you. So watch out :D
- Cows and goats: They're just there because they're yummy.
____________________________ DRAGON PROPERTIES ___________________________
On the display is health, hunger, experience, and your power (speed, flight, and flame).
- Health: If it goes to 0, you die.
- Hunger: Decreases over time. Determines how fast your stamina replenishes.
- Stamina: It's how much energy you have to do things, such as fly and breath fire. It will automatically increase over time. It will decrease if you use up your strength.
- Exp: Every 200 exp, you gain power in one of the 3 categories (speed, flight, and flame).
_______________________________ TIME LAPSE _______________________________
I livestreamed this whole thing (including me write this D:), and I was able to make it into a timelapse! See the links at the top for the video.
I must give a huge shout out to the people who watched my live stream. There were awesome to chat with, and it was nice meeting new friends.
___________________________ POST-COMPO GAME ______________________________
I am working on finishing the game that will fix bugs, improve graphics, and add REALLY COOL features.
I'll post it on Ludum Dare when I'm done, of course. One of the new features is the dragon will grow over time. It works great and is cool too x)
__________________________________ TL;DR _________________________________
Read this if you don't feel like reading the rest:
Move with arrow keys, use shift to breath fire, and space to pick up animals. Avoid arrows. Collect items until you win. I had fun and loved talking to my live stream viewers. There are goats, and they are yummy.
__________________________________ INFO __________________________________
Wow you went passed the TL;DR. Thank you :)
So the whole game is based off of you being a dragon. You main goal is to become a boss. In order to become a boss, you can terrorize the giant village filled with archers, cows, and GOATS.
I created all music, graphics, (most of) the code (I submitted an ugly engine before it started), and sound effects in the allotted time of 48 hours. The art is actually made up of 13 colors, total, so I think that's a cool feature! My live stream adds up to over 17 hours of video.
________________________________ CONTROLS _______________________________
- WAD or arrow keys to move. Keep tapping up (or W) to fly.
- Shift: Hold down shift to breath fire. Fire can burn down houses or catch people/livestock on fire.
- Space: When there is a person or livestock under you, press space to pick it up. Press space again to drop it. If they take fall damage, they die and give you goodies.
______________________________ WIN CONDITION _____________________________
Simply, if you're completely leveled up, you win.
You can be leveled up in speed, flight, and flame. The highest level for each category is 10!
________________________________ ENTITIES _______________________________
All entities can be picked up and thrown on the ground. They all drop meat, hearts, and 2 experience orbs.
- Archers: They're the villagers. They all have bows and arrows because they are paranoid. They'll squat before they shoot an arrow at you. So watch out :D
- Cows and goats: They're just there because they're yummy.
____________________________ DRAGON PROPERTIES ___________________________
On the display is health, hunger, experience, and your power (speed, flight, and flame).
- Health: If it goes to 0, you die.
- Hunger: Decreases over time. Determines how fast your stamina replenishes.
- Stamina: It's how much energy you have to do things, such as fly and breath fire. It will automatically increase over time. It will decrease if you use up your strength.
- Exp: Every 200 exp, you gain power in one of the 3 categories (speed, flight, and flame).
_______________________________ TIME LAPSE _______________________________
I livestreamed this whole thing (including me write this D:), and I was able to make it into a timelapse! See the links at the top for the video.
I must give a huge shout out to the people who watched my live stream. There were awesome to chat with, and it was nice meeting new friends.
___________________________ POST-COMPO GAME ______________________________
I am working on finishing the game that will fix bugs, improve graphics, and add REALLY COOL features.
I'll post it on Ludum Dare when I'm done, of course. One of the new features is the dragon will grow over time. It works great and is cool too x)
Ratings
| Coolness | 66% | 3 |
| Overall | 3.24 | 233 |
| Audio | 2.64 | 288 |
| Fun | 3.31 | 148 |
| Graphics | 2.95 | 365 |
| Humor | 2.73 | 295 |
| Innovation | 3.09 | 260 |
| Mood | 3.03 | 236 |
| Theme | 3.86 | 86 |
Fire doesn't seem powerful until ~5-6, and it's a bit weird because the sprite sizes seem to change. Stamina just slows down the game awkwardly. Controls are very twitchy. It didn't feel like being a dragon.
The art style is consistent, which I like, and the sound is not distracting and provides a reasonable counterpoint to the gameplay.
Ix: I agree that it is kind of slow. I felt that no one would replay the game anyway (since I haven't added anything to come back for, such as achievements), so I just made it a bit longer. I'll have to fix that soon :)
Yogr: Thanks for getting the point! The game's more about the fact that you're the boss, and you can do whatever you want!
Aeveis: I was thinking about that while I was play-testing, but didn't act upon it. That'll be something to change. Thanks!
Gravity Games: I'm glad you enjoyed it! The stamina can be a bit annoying, I agree. It's something I can tweak to make it more fair :)
Edocentrique: My slogan for making games is that you can never have too many particles. ;D
I think if you dropped the stamina, or at least made it drain less quickly, or recover more quickly the game might feel a bit tighter.
All in all, nice job~
Would've been cool to implement a divebomb with the down arrow, and some physics adjustments.
I couldn't really figure out how to use flame properly. Just spray it in new areas and some things burn, then default to picking up and dropping.
At some point I glitched into a house I think, and then flew upward pretty quickly. I think it was a special glitchy house (it looked normal though -- it was 2 tiles tall and I could "land" on the bottom tile of it).
Well done.
Shugor: Thanks for your review! Buildings do give you a lot of goodies, and I was considering decreasing that. Either that, or increase the amount that other animals produce. The background music is quiet mainly because my last feature was making the game mutable. I'll raise the volume in the post-compo version.
dansludumdare: Thanks for commenting! Yes, I thought of many ways to make it feel more organic, but graphics took me too long already, and I decided to leave it out. I'm actually glad because it keeps it more polished, rather than having extra glitchy features. The glitch you found is actually just a non-generated tile made by the world generator (it's actually NEXT to the house, in an empty tile). I noticed it happen a few times while testing, yet I have NO idea why it occurs. I already fixed it post-compo. Thanks for letting me know anyway ;D
The physics could be improved. Try adding inertia to the dragon's x and y positions. That would feel more like you're a heavy dragon. BTW, have you played the old 8-bit game Thanatos, that was similar to this? Although in that game, the dragon was almost as big as the screen and the humans were tiny. Pretty fun to be a villain.
I'm not that fond of the music. I kept it on while writing this review, and it got pretty annoying.
But all in all, it's a pretty good game, as I kept on playing for a while. The connection to the theme is obvious.
The stamina meter was a bit annoying at the start.
Martin Vilcans: The pass was mentioned before - it's going to be improved post-compo. Having at least some inertia could be more realistic, I like that idea. :) Press M to mute the game. Thanks for the comment and ideas!
Someone: (I like your username) The broken block has been mentioned in my previous long-reply. Stamina will be tweaked as well. I'd rather not annoy the players like this x)
*Martin Vilcans: The progression will be improved post-compo.
I wish that falling object had an impact damage zone, it would have raise the rampaging level of your game ( which is already pretty high )
Luis Anton: Hm, it does look a little similar; I just looked Alley Cat up, haha. xD The funny thing is my live stream joked around that it was a cat with wings -_-
Eamon: Graphics wise, it is glitchy. Speaking in code, it works like a charm. I could be wrong however - there is probably a variable of ways to break the game :)
Jujule: Yay :3
I wanted to give you a chance and see what having lv10 everything was like, because on lv1 everything felt like crap. I still think, on lv10, people die too slow. I thought a few times "Maybe you can't damage humans?" early on, and then after I realised they were smoking I was like "Wait, what? I've been breathing fire into this one guy's face for 5 seconds and he still hasn't died yet". I think that was the main problem: things getting damaged slowly. Oh, and stamina not recharging fast enough. Other than this, it was an enjoyable experience -- I mean, I played until Boss, and saw the black wall on the other side, so it can't have been too bad.
Want to point out a glitch I saw. Not sure what caused it, but somewhere along the line I came across an invisible block. When standing next to it and jumping, you jumped really high.
Also, I liked the music. Overall, nice entry.
The people don't actually have health, unfortunately. They just instantly die after they've been on fire for a random amount of time. This will be improved upon in the full version. I know about the random invisible block and I fixed it too. Too bad I didn't have time to figure it out during the compo!
The pace of the game is slow. I actually cut it in half for the post-compo version (and it feels a lot better).
Thanks for your feedback!