LudumData

Planet ZOOB by Pacifist Games

[raw]
made by Pacifist Games for LD23 (COMPO)
Planet ZOOB is a dizzying musical auto-shooter set on a tiny world! The artwork and name are inspired by my childhood drawings. I went for a minimalist design, so the game features almost no text or instructions, you should be able to figure out the rules. Press Esc to quit when you're done. I hope you enjoy playing it as much as I've enjoyed making it, this is my first ever Ludum Dare! Post your best score in the comments and I'll put the top ten scores in the description! :)

Developer's High Score: 254

High Scores:
189 - chambers
106 - bitbof
105 - Jezzamon
98 - MadGnomeGamer
97 - demonpants
92 - YMM
85 - Werxzy
56 - SonnyBone
51 - Catman
18 - Riccardo Stucchi

Tools Used:
Game Maker 8.1 Pro
LateralGM
GM4Mac
MS Paint
LittleSound DJ
Audacity
sfxr

Check out my website at www.pacifistgames.com
my twitter at twitter.com/pacifistgames
and my facebook at facebook.com/pacifistgames
Mobile version coming soon!

Windows http://www.pacifistgames.com/files/Planet%20ZOOB.zip
OS/X http://www.pacifistgames.com/files/Planet%20ZOOB.app.zip
Source http://www.pacifistgames.com/files/Planet%20ZOOB%20Source.zip
Original URL https://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-23/?action=preview&uid=10510

Ratings

Coolness 100% 1
Overall 3.75 65
Audio 3.75 34
Fun 3.68 50
Graphics 3.58 157
Humor 2.84 176
Innovation 3.43 199
Mood 3.57 56
Theme 3.98 37

Feedback

Werxzy
23. Apr 2012 路 05:05 UTC
My highest score was 85. I definitely liked how you kept everything simple.
Monomer
23. Apr 2012 路 05:16 UTC
A simple but really well executed design. I loved the audio, I'm a sucker for any kind of adaptive music system and this one worked well and fit the mood of the game. Very solid effort.
cirolve
23. Apr 2012 路 05:17 UTC
overall, this was a fun little cute game, I liked it. the sounds the asteroids made was a nice little touch as well :) good job!
Daniel
23. Apr 2012 路 05:34 UTC
I like musicality of this game :)
馃帳 Pacifist Games
23. Apr 2012 路 05:50 UTC
Thanks for the great feedback guys, I'm glad you're enjoying it. :)
If you score over 150 points I would consider you an expert player.
Daniel
23. Apr 2012 路 08:33 UTC
This is really well done; nailed the ambiance! The planet looks so happy to have a friend :D
mikelovesrobots3
23. Apr 2012 路 16:04 UTC
Nice work on the details! I loved the little stuff, like the eyes following the player, the death animation ending in him holding a sign with your score, and the little puffs of dust when the asteroids come down.
YMM
23. Apr 2012 路 21:02 UTC
Really charming and complete, I got 92 :) If you keep working on it, change the bullet color to something that contrasts more with the background! Love the circular black borders on the play area.
jami
23. Apr 2012 路 21:22 UTC
Simple but addictive... well done!
MadGnomeGamer
23. Apr 2012 路 22:33 UTC
I love it! It really stands out. It's addictive the controls are simple and make sense, and I love the way you make a song by playing the game. And it's cute, too!
I really like how instead of expecting you to stop ALL rocks from getting on the planet, the game simply makes it stick in the planet as an obstacle.

Simple, innovative, addictive--just what a LD game should be!

PS Highscore is 50.
rvmook
24. Apr 2012 路 12:00 UTC
I just kept playing it, loved it
jeroenimooo
24. Apr 2012 路 12:32 UTC
Aiming is hard, i couldn't get past 16 :s
schizofunky
24. Apr 2012 路 12:36 UTC
I love a game that takes me two seconds to understand the controls and aim without descriptions! Nice job and very good for the theme! :)
bitbof
24. Apr 2012 路 12:55 UTC
Really nice and friendly game. I like how the music is linked to the gameplay.

My current highscore is 106 http://i.imgur.com/fMcCn.jpg
GranaDa
24. Apr 2012 路 18:55 UTC
Beautiful, well executed! Thanks for this game!
derosa
24. Apr 2012 路 19:29 UTC
Wow, the musical notes took me by surprise! Sounds really good :)
My only con is about the controls. It took me a while to shot down my first asteroid :) Maybe an "straight up" shoot would be better?
robcozzens
24. Apr 2012 路 20:25 UTC
Pretty cool. I love the concept. I really wish he shot straight up though, it was frustrating trying to aim just a little to the side and all of the sudden be shooting in a completely different direction. Of course there might have been a button to let me do that and I just didn't know about it.
馃帳 Pacifist Games
24. Apr 2012 路 23:49 UTC
Thanks again for all the great feedback guys!

Derosa and robcozzens, I actually had the player character shooting straight up for the whole first day of development, but then I realized that getting trapped between two meteors would render you unkillable and totally break the game. So I tried making the player shoot straight ahead of him, which was absolutely dreadful, and at 45 degrees, which is what I ended up sticking with. :)

Also, bitbof, awesome score!
LFleck
25. Apr 2012 路 11:24 UTC
Cool game, kind hard but i had fun!
=D
The-Force
25. Apr 2012 路 18:26 UTC
I loved it :D. It has some similitudes with mine, like cute graphics, little planet and meteorites as enemies ^^. One of my favourites. good job!
Riccardo Stucchi
25. Apr 2012 路 18:39 UTC
Good game! The sound is very nice and the planet are so cute :D
I got a measly score: 18 :/
free_napalm
25. Apr 2012 路 20:06 UTC
Had a lot of fun, this could be a popular Smartphone game :) so simple and yet quite fun. Incorperating the actions in the music worked really good.
Great small game!
Catman
25. Apr 2012 路 20:07 UTC
51 points! This is good, simple yet nice graphics and I liked how you used the sound! Good work! :)
evilseanbot
25. Apr 2012 路 20:40 UTC
Very fun, simple game. I felt like it got pretty easy by the third play through though (The other times I tried too hard to defend the moon from rocks. Look at the poor little moon!)
Oye Beto
25. Apr 2012 路 23:20 UTC
- Looks cute :)
- A backing track would make it more musical but I like the idea of asteroids making sounds.
- It's simple and intuitive.
MadGnomeGamer
26. Apr 2012 路 01:32 UTC
New highscore! 98!! :D WOOT
Orni
26. Apr 2012 路 06:04 UTC
wow - best audio I've seen so far. the graphics are well rounded and everything just 'works'

easily one of my favorites
SonnyBone
27. Apr 2012 路 01:48 UTC
I got to 56. I really dig the unique elements here... the angled shots, the musical impacts, and the auto fire rate. With some more polish, this could be SUPER popular, especially on mobile devices. GET TO WORK AND MAKE SOME MONEY!
demonpants
27. Apr 2012 路 17:48 UTC
I got 97. All the yellow asteroids were on the other side. :'-( I think you did an excellent job keeping things simple. My biggest issue is that the large size of the planet quickly felt redundant - after like 20 points I had maybe 1/10 of the planet under my control and that was just fine. A super high score also feels rather luck oriented because the yellow asteroids become so important, and they seem random.
馃帳 Pacifist Games
27. Apr 2012 路 19:06 UTC
@SonnyBone Thanks for the advice, after I finish my current mobile project I'll be porting this game to mobile devices. :)

@demonpants Excellent feedback! There's definitely a certain amount of luck involved in getting a high score. When I continue working on this I'm going to try to make it a bit more fair. The skill part is staying alive long enough for a yellow meteor to spawn near you. The yellow asteroids occur about 4% of the time, so in the later game where there are a lot more asteroids on screen there are also a lot more yellow ones.
Awennor
28. Apr 2012 路 06:29 UTC
I liked this, it feels really well polished, the whole composition of the game. The controls feel kinda awkward though and that's part of the challenge, of course, but it doesn't have a good feeling to me as a player.
CoffeeOnimal
28. Apr 2012 路 13:14 UTC
This is fantastic. I love how destroying the asteroids creates the music. And the planet shedding a tear for his li'l alien buddy is a great touch. Very well done.
Jezzamon
29. Apr 2012 路 02:38 UTC
Woo! I got 105!

Very polished game.
Moth
29. Apr 2012 路 04:15 UTC
This is a really cute game! The way the music synchronized to the gameplay was great. The characters and graphics are really cute, great style! I think this has a great concept and makes for a great arcadey game.

Great design and execution! I really enjoyed it, and top-notch presentation. The minimalistic aesthetics and the fact you explain everything without words is really nice and accessible.
ehtd
29. Apr 2012 路 16:09 UTC
Quite simple but entertaining.
asfdfdfd
06. May 2012 路 21:00 UTC
Good concept. Nice graphics.
danlthemanl
06. May 2012 路 21:47 UTC
Nice work, It's pretty hard!
Dan C
06. May 2012 路 22:02 UTC
This is lovely :)
Vilborg
06. May 2012 路 22:02 UTC
Very nicely done on the audio component.
Hume
07. May 2012 路 02:30 UTC
Simplicity as art. I played quite a bit of this. I love the harmonic tones for each asteroid.
chambers
07. May 2012 路 09:05 UTC
Aaaw, 87. Will try for a better score later. It sucks how I usually die accidentally trying to shoot a meteor from a short distance and not because I was trapped.

This is one of the games I found the most fun so far. Congratulations!
ghRibacki
08. May 2012 路 22:19 UTC
Nice game! A little bit hard to coordinate, but I guess that's part of the game's charm, right? Graphics are smooth and the audio factor really adds to the gameplay.
Congratulations on your first LD! =)

(sorry for not posting my high score, I'm ashamed of it)
yoklov
11. May 2012 路 02:10 UTC
Nice game, If you could figure out how to adapt to the control paradigm, I could imagine playing this on a phone or tablet.
voxel
12. May 2012 路 04:15 UTC
Thought it was a bit gimmicky, but then after I realised I was still playing after ten minutes humming along to the resonating exploding moonlets I decided it was really rather good :)
chambers
13. May 2012 路 00:04 UTC
189! I'm addicted to your game D=
jfroco
13. May 2012 路 05:21 UTC
Nice gfx, excellent gameplay, nice mouse. Congrats.
馃帳 Pacifist Games
13. May 2012 路 05:30 UTC
@chambers Wow, great job! Working on a mobile version so you can be an addict on the go!

@jfroco Mouse?
noddy2006
13. May 2012 路 13:37 UTC
Really great game, the procedurally generated music really made it for me. I found the fact that you were shooting on an angle a bit frustrating, but I can see why you had to do it that way (wouldn't have been very challenging if you automatically hit everything which was coming towards you!).

Great job!

(My high score was 64, by the way :P)