[0-Evo] by Krobill

[raw]
made by Krobill for LD24 (COMPO)
My first attempt at LD though not my first game jam. Definitely thrilled by the do it-all-by-yourself concept !

In [0-Evo] you must keep in check the evolution of a growing cell culture to maintain a satisfactory level of pureness. Simply blast any cell with your laser by clicking on it.

Tip : you have to keep a pure group of cells but you can chose any type of cell as your target group.

Done in Flash / AS3 with Flash develop, a small open source blitting lib I've created with my work partner serveral years ago. All sounds were create with sfxr and modified with Audacity.

Ratings

Coolness 53% 3
Overall 3.49 122
Audio 3.10 151
Fun 3.06 235
Graphics 4.17 36
Humor 1.62 536
Innovation 3.50 122
Mood 2.95 218
Theme 3.96 34

Feedback

csanyk
27. Aug 2012 路 03:54 UTC
Graphics and sound were especially well done, and I liked the mood and how you fit the theme. Visually this is a very consistent game and I like the blur effects and the overall visual design.

I liked this, as a game, too, but I found an easy way to beat levels by spamclicking. Once the population was high enough, it didn't matter if I could see what I was clicking on, I just clicked fast enough and got the purity up to where it needed to be.
ncannasse
27. Aug 2012 路 09:29 UTC
Nicely made !
馃帳 Krobill
27. Aug 2012 路 11:08 UTC
@csanyk : thanks ! Yeah I know about the possible workarounds to win some levels but I didn't have enough juice left to make the necessary tests and balancing to avoid this. Moreover, if you want to achieve the best overall time, this is definitely not the optimal way ^^

@ncannasse : thanks nicolas ^^
Ragzouken
27. Aug 2012 路 11:10 UTC
I like the graphics, especially the visual effects for killing cells :) I didn't really understand what the difference was on the aptly named "but they look the same" level :p
馃帳 Krobill
27. Aug 2012 路 11:43 UTC
If they look the same, they may not 'behave' the same : for example, if 2 cells do not move at the same speed, they are not from the same strand.
Oreganik
27. Aug 2012 路 16:57 UTC
You got your hooks in me in level 3! I felt overwhelmed, so I started blasting everything -- loved the "overheat" visuals -- then got smart and started "sweeping away" cells with the mouse to accurately hit slow movers. Great presentation, too.
cadin
27. Aug 2012 路 17:46 UTC
I like this. The graphics are really great. The gameplay is deceptively simple, but gets pretty hard in the later levels. Really well done!
Gyrfalco
27. Aug 2012 路 19:08 UTC
518!
MattTyson
27. Aug 2012 路 21:32 UTC
Nice Game ! Really !

Great graphics, great idea, complete, well done !
jijaweb
28. Aug 2012 路 06:38 UTC
This is one of my top games. Nice graphics and gameplay! Well done.
eyehawk
28. Aug 2012 路 11:47 UTC
Cool graphics! Looks just like you're looking down a microscope! I wasn't entirely sure about the gameplay though - wasn't entirely clear what teh objective was...
馃帳 Krobill
28. Aug 2012 路 11:50 UTC
@eyehawk : you need to let the cells multiply to reach the required number. But cells tend to evolve and spawn mutants. Your goal is to eliminate mutant (or non-mutant) to create a pure colonny which is large enough and pure enough.
kyyrma
28. Aug 2012 路 21:39 UTC
Fun little game with neat visuals. Felt very polished!
aare
28. Aug 2012 路 21:40 UTC
Amazing visuals, and perfect fit to the theme. I really enjoyed it.
michax
28. Aug 2012 路 21:40 UTC
Nice graphics and sound effects.
pjchardt
28. Aug 2012 路 21:48 UTC
Really like this one. At first I was lukewarm about it, but as I played I realized it is much deeper than I thought. It think the art, sound, presentation is all really nice and fits well together.
tastive
29. Aug 2012 路 00:15 UTC
Really neat. Great visuals, sfx, and use of the theme!

If you have a sec, come check us out again. We fixed the critical bug and ikaruga fans such as yourself are the folks we made this for!
dr_soda
29. Aug 2012 路 00:28 UTC
What a great execution! I really like the way you built a disincentive for button-mashing into the game by making the screen blur as do. The game is simple but really well done all the same. Great job!
Mach60KAS
29. Aug 2012 路 13:34 UTC
I really liked the idea behind this, and it was well supported by the excellent graphics. The sounds were very nice and organic, fitting the game very well. If I had to suggest anything, I'd ask that the difference between the two opposing cells could be made clearer - they're pretty easy to differentiate, but since the colours are quite close by it could present a problem for some players. Still, you've done a great job here. :)
馃帳 Krobill
29. Aug 2012 路 14:28 UTC
You're right. I realized afterwards than choosing 2 colors that were so close was a stupid idea ^^ It's not necessary, nearly no hindrance for the average guy and just a show stopper for anyone just slightly color blind.
Jamin
30. Aug 2012 路 19:38 UTC
Fun game. Different. I really like that it's open to the player to choose which cells to go with.

Kinda wish there was a break-down of how I did on all of the stages at the end of the game.

I also really wish there was a time limit... or maybe a cell limit that would trigger a game-over. If the player makes poor choices, it can be much quicker to restart the entire game than to try and switch strategies.

Very impressed with the variety of cell behaviors. For how time-limited this competition was, you still managed to make each behavior work very well.
馃帳 Krobill
31. Aug 2012 路 07:39 UTC
Thanks for the feedback. I've tried time limits and game over conditions but in the small amount of time that I had reserved for game balancing, I didn't manage to come up with something. It felt either way too easy or for far too punishing. The random nature of some behaviors made it also difficult to select a time limit on short levels and I wanted short levels...
Jamin
31. Aug 2012 路 13:46 UTC
That makes a lot of sense.

I can think of one more game mechanic that could be useful for squeezing gameplay into a tight development time schedule. "Hold X to restart level." If you've ever played Osmos, this is the mechanic they used if you're likely too small to continue. By leaving it as an option, it lifts the burden of worrying about whether or not your conditions are too stringent.
馃帳 Krobill
31. Aug 2012 路 14:28 UTC
I'll admit that I skipped the restart level feature by a pure act of lazyness. Had plenty of time to do that one and some more but I had reached my it-feels-more-like-work-than-fun-to-do limit ^^

I guess I'll try to use this game as a personal training for touch interfaces for which I have little experience. I'll be sure to add all the interesting feedback, I got here!
Threef
02. Sep 2012 路 14:08 UTC
Great game!
yosh
03. Sep 2012 路 02:15 UTC
Excellent game! Would made a wonderful mobile app... (I wasn't really efficient with my touchpad here :D)
Teknik
09. Sep 2012 路 15:14 UTC
i didn't like when you spammed to much you couldn't see anything. in the green green green level i got over run and not amount of clicking would help me it seemed. so a reset button would be nice. otherwise awesome game all around. loved the graphics and the gameplay a lot!!.
saint11
12. Sep 2012 路 03:03 UTC
Great game man! Awesome graphics and overall idea.
SimianLogic
12. Sep 2012 路 03:21 UTC
graphics/sound/mood/theme are all spot on. on most of the "special critter" levels I just killed the "normal" guys and let the mutants breed like crazy.

it seems a little slow at first but ramps up pretty quickly... maybe have a toggle between kill and split? start out by splitting them manually just to get the ball rolling.
Arc
12. Sep 2012 路 10:29 UTC
Nice. Graphics and sound excellent.
jefrsilva
16. Sep 2012 路 14:50 UTC
Nice game, smooth gameplay, great sound and graphics. Would be nice to see more variety like if some cells were defective and you had to eliminate them quickly (or maybe this is in the game and I didn't see it ).
Orni
16. Sep 2012 路 17:58 UTC
very cool idea and the visuals looked great!
well done