Gobblegoks: Evolution by pighead10

[raw]
made by pighead10 for LD24 (COMPO)
FYI: A 'decent' score is over 10k, 'good' over 15k and 'pro' over 20k. If you are struggling to get over 10k, try watching the gameplay video for tips. My high score is 25440.

Ports to other OSs may be coming if I can work out how.

Overcome insurmountable enemies as Pog the Gobblegok by using your extraordinary powers of evolution.

Controls in the game menu. Don't press R when you're near the edges of you'll fall out (if you have energy).

==Tips==
-Use your medium form (E) for most of the fighting.
-Use your small form (Q) for escaping if you are in a bad position.
-Use your large form (R) for taking the damage from the small quick enemies - your big form has 2,000 health, small enemies do 20 damage.
-Don't use your big form for trying to take damage from bullets as you can just dodge them with your other forms.
-Don't swap to small form (Q) unless you have 5 or more energy, or you will not be able to evolve back and will be stuck in ghost form, which does little damage.
-The next wave does not wait for the current wave to die before moving on. Kill enemies quickly.

Ratings

Coolness 56% 3
Overall 3.00 357
Audio 1.95 508
Fun 2.80 367
Graphics 2.08 668
Humor 2.47 239
Innovation 2.48 532
Mood 2.47 452
Theme 2.60 487

Feedback

Geti
27. Aug 2012 · 01:46 UTC
was interesting but the controls were fairly obtuse :/ took quite a bit of running around to get used to and crashed on exit. Take some time to fix the bugs after deadline I guess ;)
agersant
27. Aug 2012 · 17:03 UTC
A bit clunky and very hard but I like the idea of changing character with just a keypress.
Ragzouken
27. Aug 2012 · 17:04 UTC
Starts off pretty slow, but good after a while :) Got overwhelmed pretty soon after the walls came though!
EinBernd
27. Aug 2012 · 17:06 UTC
The energy could spawn a bit faster, it seemed that a lot of times a bunch of enemies would follow me, and end up almost combining, and then I'd only get 1 energy for every few that I shot.
madpew
27. Aug 2012 · 17:07 UTC
Those small ones are fast and hard to hit. Made it above 10k. Sadly I didn't really use the morphing mechanic.
🎤 pighead10
27. Aug 2012 · 17:17 UTC
Einbernd: small enemies have a 1/4 chance of dropping 1 energy. You shouldn't need to use that much energy =p

madpew: how the hell did you get past 10k without evolving! :D
nosfer
27. Aug 2012 · 22:29 UTC
many different ideas, some lacks in presentation, quite challenging. I'm not 100% sure that all different characters add anything useful ("tank" just seems to be slow and fires slow missiles - maybe if it exploded on impact - or I haven't noticed it).
🎤 pighead10
28. Aug 2012 · 12:55 UTC
nosfer: "lacks in presentation" :D

When I say 'tank' I don't mean military tank, I mean gaming tank - used for absorbing damage. Added a "tips" section to the notes.
K1NET1K
28. Aug 2012 · 13:22 UTC
ahah the boss :)
X-0ut
28. Aug 2012 · 13:29 UTC
Controls are a little tricky at first.
Took me a few games before I realized mouse shoots.
I think a simple improvement would be to allow the player to shoot through the enemy projectiles.
Nimphious
28. Aug 2012 · 15:40 UTC
Nice one. The collision on the projectiles could be a little tighter, not being able to shoot aroung them easily is a bit of a pain, but once you get the hang of it it's not so bad.
Thurig
28. Aug 2012 · 17:20 UTC
Fun game play.
Richard Matey
28. Aug 2012 · 22:32 UTC
Fun game, thanks for the upload :) Would like to see the player evolve more in the minute to minute gameplay
shinD
29. Aug 2012 · 17:51 UTC
Nice one, my main gripe being the bullets colliding with each other which makes it really hard to deal with larger enemy groups. At least the big form's projectile seems like it should be able to overpower the smaller ones.
bvanschooten
29. Aug 2012 · 18:52 UTC
Quite a nice arena shooter. Haven't seen many of those, strangely. I like the different enemies and tiles. The idea of different sizes is interesting.
🎤 pighead10
29. Aug 2012 · 22:32 UTC
shinD: the big projectile moving through smaller ones was a good idea. Unfortunately it is not as easy as it may look because of the way I designed the collision detection - I had to use a very messy hack to make projectiles ignore powerups.
SteelRaven7
30. Aug 2012 · 22:34 UTC
Pretty nice gameplay, but I find it a bit annoying that projectiles collide with each other, it has a tendency of drawing out battles with ranged fire for a long time.

Really like that there is a bunch of strategy and different ways to tackle the game though, ups the replayability a whole bunch!

Good game!
Wampus
01. Sep 2012 · 00:43 UTC
That was really weird and actually quite fun.
DavidErosa
01. Sep 2012 · 13:53 UTC
I got confused with the controls, but I liked it. Maybe something easier for changing characters, as 1,2,3. I liked how the enemies moved and fought, cool AI.
PaulSB
03. Sep 2012 · 12:29 UTC
Fun game, those little enemies move fast! I didn't really master the usage of the different forms. But fun.
fr_automatik
03. Sep 2012 · 12:49 UTC
Score:8818
That's fun.
azurenimbus
06. Sep 2012 · 20:25 UTC
Enjoyed the challenge. Nice entry!
myachin
12. Sep 2012 · 23:09 UTC
cant run
🎤 pighead10
14. Sep 2012 · 21:20 UTC
myachin: what happens?