LudumData

Evolution VS 1000 kittens by Citiral

[raw]
made by Citiral for LD24 (COMPO)
PLEASE PLAY THE POST-COMPO VERSION. IT REMOVES THE GRIND FROM THE GAME BY MAKING EVERYTHING CHEAPER. (It's genuinely fun now, I swear!)

My first Ludum Dare entry.

You control a race of dinosaurs, who are constantly attacked by the "Thousand Kittens". It's time to evolve and kill them once and for all, the save your race from extinction by to evil "Thousand Kittens".

WASD/ZQSD/Arrow keys to move, LMB or space to shoot. In control scheme 1, use the mouse to aim, in control scheme 2, use the K/L keys to rotate. Eat the dead kittens to gain their DNA in order to upgrade yourself.
Press enter/escape/P to return to the upgrade screen when playing.

I hope you have fun playing it! :)

Web https://dl.dropbox.com/u/44145179/EvolutionVSKittensCOMP.swf
Source https://dl.dropbox.com/u/44145179/EvolutionVSKittens.7z
Web POST COMP http://www.kongregate.com/games/wxcvbn999/evolution-vs-1000-kittens
Original URL https://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-24/?action=preview&uid=6637

Ratings

Coolness 47% 601
Overall 3.33 188
Audio 2.81 230
Fun 3.00 255
Graphics 2.59 488
Humor 3.54 43
Innovation 2.78 399
Mood 3.00 183
Theme 3.94 37

Feedback

Bemmu
26. Aug 2012 · 16:23 UTC
Best LD game so far. At first the controls were confusing. Awesome that you managed to get a "tech tree" included, I kept playing longer than I intended just to see the effects of the different upgrades.
surreal_whale
26. Aug 2012 · 21:47 UTC
Quite fun, although I never worked out where the dinosaurs hitbox was. I approve of the use of 1000 kittens :)
panzermancer
27. Aug 2012 · 01:43 UTC
After a while it would lag from all the kittens, somehow. I could only get to about 600 before I stopped. It was pretty fun while it lasted, though.
ethankennerly
27. Aug 2012 · 01:50 UTC
I like the upgrade menu a lot. At first the keyboard control map confused me.
danlthemanl
27. Aug 2012 · 02:26 UTC
Pretty fun, I was quite confused with the hole stat tree stuff though.
toteus
27. Aug 2012 · 02:36 UTC
good game i liked it
BenW
27. Aug 2012 · 03:52 UTC
Neat game. I couldn't bring myself to kill all 1000 kittens but I did make it about half way.
MasterBaldwin
27. Aug 2012 · 04:31 UTC
Loved every bloody kitty death :) And I voted for 1000 Kittens lol
bytegrove
27. Aug 2012 · 11:56 UTC
I think the game starts out a little too slow, but rapidly becomes overwhelming. It's not as much fun when it takes so much dna to upgrade your dino, it feels like you're progressing much slower than the kittens. Maybe add intermediate upgrade stages, and make the current ones more powerful? I also didn't get what implications the reproduce/generations functionality had? It felt more like a way to just escape a hairy situation. It was also a little hard to reach the P-button while playing.
I liked the upgrade menu, nice with tech trees. The tune was pretty catchy, nice work!
Wan
27. Aug 2012 · 13:47 UTC
Pretty amusing! It starts pretty slow, but the evolution trees are clever and the gameplay cool enough to keep the player entertained.
bluefoxgs
27. Aug 2012 · 14:12 UTC
haha, I had this idea for 1000 kittens but when evolution came up I didn't think of this :) well done. The controls confused the hell out of me but once I got them down it was a really fun game.
atla
27. Aug 2012 · 14:30 UTC
Well looks like a nice game. But as far as i can remember i've seen screenshots of THIS game the day before the contest started?
🎤 Citiral
27. Aug 2012 · 14:36 UTC
@Atla, that would be impossible, because I made this game during the competition. It has some generic colors though, maybe you saw something that used kind of the same color palette?
atla
27. Aug 2012 · 15:13 UTC
No i saw someone posting a screenshot of a dinosaur and a kitten. And it had the exact same colors and graphics. And i'm pretty sure it was the evening (german time) before the competition started and the final theme was announced. That's why i wondered.
🎤 Citiral
27. Aug 2012 · 16:40 UTC
Strange.. I swear I made this game, and the graphics, myself. Do they keep IRC logs, maybe someone could try and find that screenshot? (also, dinosaurs usually have the same color, you don't see a pink dinosaur running around that often, :p.)
kato9
27. Aug 2012 · 17:54 UTC
Really clever game design in theory, but I have to say the gameplay gets very repetitive after just a short time. Not especially strong on the visual front (that lime green color is blinding) but the music is pretty good. Overall, good effort but could use some refinement.
thecowfactory
27. Aug 2012 · 18:47 UTC
I killed about 800 before i got bored...
CdrJameson
27. Aug 2012 · 20:19 UTC
Once the odd controls were understood I rather enjoyed it. Upgrades come too slowly (and fire rate is too slow), but nice Robotron/Infinity Blade cross idea. Bit cheeky with the kittens! Getting an upgrade tree in there was a bit of a coup.
pardue
27. Aug 2012 · 21:00 UTC
Interesting use of the theme... I like the dark humor. :)
gbellgames
27. Aug 2012 · 21:20 UTC
I liked the use of the theme, but the game is too slow to be any fun. It takes toooooo long to be able to evolute, and in the beginning when you get overwhelmed by the kittens, you don't have much to do.

The controls work very well, the scheme with wasd+mouse is pretty good.
MadGnomeGamer
27. Aug 2012 · 22:38 UTC
Awesome in-joke idea! :D

Takes way too long to evolve though. I lost the fun before i got my second mutation.
Timster Studios
28. Aug 2012 · 19:48 UTC
Really enjoyed playing this one. It reminded me a bit of Infinity Blade, with the generations and stuff. Very good game overall.
X-0ut
28. Aug 2012 · 21:07 UTC
Easy selection of evolution, a little slow paced in the shooting department but I still went on to destroy 1000 kittens :D
Maxzilla60
29. Aug 2012 · 14:48 UTC
Ollie, you and your game rocks! ;D
pighead10
29. Aug 2012 · 23:05 UTC
Quite fun, although it was a little slow paced.
tumoxep
31. Aug 2012 · 18:09 UTC
Awesome, but controls are bit confusing.
Thanks for review.
timtipgames
01. Sep 2012 · 13:30 UTC
I liked the tech tree. Played the compo version for rating. I understand why you made things cheaper in the post-compo version :) Overall I think its a good game.
Zabot
03. Sep 2012 · 02:46 UTC
Good job squeezing in the kittens. Much approve.
moonmagic
15. Sep 2012 · 07:12 UTC
I loved the mechanics and menus (!) of this game, and the slew of kittens that happened (ha). I wish it was a little faster? I just want to stack them kittens up.