Cellvolution by thewiseguy99
Devolve today with Cellvolution!
A simple but engaging action/strategy game where you must navigate your cell to avoid and consume other devolved cells. As you progress through the infinite amount of levels evolution gets progressively harder as the cells grow in size. Only forward thinking and luck will get you through to the next level of evolution.
The premise is straight forward, your cell randomly changes color and this color tells you the other cells you can pair with or need to avoid. You have limited health and time but must consume a growing number of matching cells to level up. Don't worry, you will have power ups like speed boost, or health refills to help you in your evolution. Be careful, one power up provides you the ability to evolve quickly but with it comes greater difficulty, you will see.
CONTROLS:
The controls are simple, "WASD" or Left-Right-Up-Down will allow you to navigate between crowded cell filled areas or avoid unfriendly cells coming after you. Collect power ups and matching cells but avoid the other colored cells. The mouse is not used.
WHERE TO PLAY:
http://bobthegoblin.com:8081/LD48/index.html
TIMELAPSE:
http://youtu.be/2Dro3DkLgNQ
I used a tool called gawker and it really made small screens that skewed on YouTube. That was the best I could do :(
GAMEPLAY VIDEO:
http://youtu.be/t31ARPDDzEU
TECHNICAL DETAILS:
Made using Cocos2d-x HTML5 Alpha and the code is 100% Javascript with no other frameworks.
http://www.cocos2d-x.org/projects/cocos2d-x/wiki/Html5
This is a browser game so there is no install but you need a newwer brower with HTML5 support.
A simple but engaging action/strategy game where you must navigate your cell to avoid and consume other devolved cells. As you progress through the infinite amount of levels evolution gets progressively harder as the cells grow in size. Only forward thinking and luck will get you through to the next level of evolution.
The premise is straight forward, your cell randomly changes color and this color tells you the other cells you can pair with or need to avoid. You have limited health and time but must consume a growing number of matching cells to level up. Don't worry, you will have power ups like speed boost, or health refills to help you in your evolution. Be careful, one power up provides you the ability to evolve quickly but with it comes greater difficulty, you will see.
CONTROLS:
The controls are simple, "WASD" or Left-Right-Up-Down will allow you to navigate between crowded cell filled areas or avoid unfriendly cells coming after you. Collect power ups and matching cells but avoid the other colored cells. The mouse is not used.
WHERE TO PLAY:
http://bobthegoblin.com:8081/LD48/index.html
TIMELAPSE:
http://youtu.be/2Dro3DkLgNQ
I used a tool called gawker and it really made small screens that skewed on YouTube. That was the best I could do :(
GAMEPLAY VIDEO:
http://youtu.be/t31ARPDDzEU
TECHNICAL DETAILS:
Made using Cocos2d-x HTML5 Alpha and the code is 100% Javascript with no other frameworks.
http://www.cocos2d-x.org/projects/cocos2d-x/wiki/Html5
This is a browser game so there is no install but you need a newwer brower with HTML5 support.
| Web | http://bobthegoblin.com:8081/LD48/index.html |
| Timelapse - YouTube | http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Dro3DkLgNQ |
| Source - zip | http://bobthegoblin.com:8081/LD48.zip |
| Gameplay - YouTube | http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t31ARPDDzEU |
| Web - compo | http://bobthegoblin.com:8081/LD482/index.html |
| Original URL | https://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-24/?action=preview&uid=14421 |
Ratings
| Coolness | 100% | 1 |
| Overall | 2.93 | 399 |
| Audio | 2.66 | 285 |
| Fun | 2.71 | 412 |
| Graphics | 2.72 | 437 |
| Humor | 1.74 | 502 |
| Innovation | 2.47 | 536 |
| Mood | 2.74 | 313 |
| Theme | 2.91 | 371 |
I found was the keyboard dispatcher threw exceptions periodically and required a full reload of the page in FF.
if you see the game but no reaction to the keys then ctrl+R on MAC. :(
Also, getting the health restoring powerup sound is a little odd...
[~]$ chromium-browser --version
Chromium 18.0.1025.151 Ubuntu 11.04
[~]$ firefox --version
Mozilla Firefox 11.0
[~]$ cat /etc/issue
Ubuntu 11.04 \n \l
Nice game
Good gameplay, just wish the baseline speed were a little faster.
I like that the objects fly at you all the time - makes it difficult.
At some point I had to adapt my strategy - when you know color will change soon, you can stop chasing your current color and focus on either of the upcoming: anyway a nice feeling that it's not too simple.
I had bigger plans, in that other levels would be more advanced creatures and projectiles but ran out of time.
The background music is amazing, and the gameplay is fun too.
I know that some cells spawn out of reach, it was on the bug list but I pushed it low down and couldn't get to it after time ran down. I think it's something that is tolerable.
@Charlie Hadden
What, I have colours in it :)
@kirill
So for the noise, I created it in Audacity with low pass filter, low tempo and reverb effects. It turned out creepy
Yah, I'd like to keep on this game some more.
@Maxium
Sucks but not much I can do since I host it on an old computer at home using mediocre internet speeds.
Ok the power ups are as follows:
- Wrench, restores your health back to 10
- Lightning, doubles your speed for ~9 seconds
- $, is kinda strange...it gives you more points but in return more points mean you evolve quicker. IE, everything grows in size.
I'm thinking maybe you have a non-HTML5 browser. I tested this in older browsers and this will be all you see.
I originally planned this to be more of a shmup but as I developed it it took a life of its own. I'm now thinking this will port well to a tablet since the controls really seem to suit a touch screen device.
Yes this game is not the run and gun of many games, more of a calm zen feel. I am happy with the outcome none the less.
The game is a bit to easy/predictable though.
Nice work anyway!
yup, that is a necessary strategy sometimes. I have no double hitting so if you eat the wrong color you blink for a couple seconds allowing you to clear out more blocking colors without taking damage again.
Also you have to think ahead for example, if you hang out in a corner too long all the bad cells are drawn to you and can pen you in.
keep developing it!
Don't really know how you evolve as you go along since I didn't during the first few levels, but even so a good demonstration of a core mechanic :)
Overall, great job!
hummm, anything is possible.
@Rex @pbdiode and the rest...
Thanks a lot all you guys for just giving it a play.
Thanks. Had a play of yours and like it a lot.
Going to now take time to give everyone a review back since you took the time to review me. Much appreciated!
firefox working good.)
Nice job
like the timelapse too
There were also some problems occasionally with cells appearing on top of one another, which injured me when I couldn't see the danger.
It gets insanely hard on the higher levels ;)
Had fun with it. Could have used some sound thought.
Mayne a work on appearence should be enough.
In a rush, with sound off --> boring.
What I like in this game is the feedback the user gets on what he is doing, which can be hard to find in some html5 games I saw in the compo.
It is also weird how some of the most addicting games have an element that the player can not control, an element of "just bear with it" as well as an element of "you must do it right now." Your game has potential, but you should make it somehow more interesting, add more variety, and something to keep the player thinking that what he is doing is bringing him somewhere. Make evolution give the player new capabilities, like sucking up the cells, or maybe zapping them in a line. Maybe giving a power-up that makes the player capable of eating all kinds of cells for a short amount of time.
Thanks for the ideas on the power-ups, I think a couple would be really cool.
I spent this weekend porting the game to C++ and was successful running it natively on my iPad tonight. I now want to start thinking of some enhancements to the game, for one the idea of devouring other cells for a short time is appealing. Thanks for that!
As for hosting, yes it is sitting on an old computer in my basement that is connected to the internet. I have some space on my MS Azure node and it would be a lot better off there but I hadn't time by the end of the competition. Anyway this is where I first deployed it and really had no other option at the time... I guess I'll just leave it there.
It fits the theme...
Because these things are so huge and they spawn on top of each other and you can't see them properly and die....
Still was a fun game. Would have liked the extra traits to spawn more often though. Especially the speedups ... or maybe when evolving become a bit faster, as it was really slow later on.
Nice game, good work. Liked it a lot.
Good sense of theme and well rounded game.