Path O' Invasion by ratboy2713

[raw]
made by ratboy2713 for LD23 (COMPO)
Only one virus can reign supreme!

You are the leader of a troop of pathogens. Take over nearby cells to strengthen your platoon, but watch out for the cells defenders, antibodies, or even worse, the dreaded rogue phages.

EDIT: Thanks everybody for your feedback.

I've gotten really excited about this project and plan to release a post compo version, so any further criticisms and suggestions are most appreciated. I'm already working on multi-unit selection and fixing the AI.

Ratings

Coolness 100% 1
Overall 2.73 583
Audio 1.90 638
Fun 2.56 578
Graphics 2.40 682
Humor 2.72 216
Innovation 2.96 419
Mood 2.33 644
Theme 3.13 384

Feedback

Rectifier
24. Apr 2012 · 06:28 UTC
It was amusing, but I wasn't a huge fan of the game mechanics. It went from completely static, with no opponents, to dodging the wrath of an almost unbeatable opponent.

It looked like the antibodies could be defeated, but only with more overwhelming force than the level usually provided.
Ryusui
24. Apr 2012 · 07:23 UTC
A bit rough around the edges, but it shows promise. More sound effects would probably be helpful - like perhaps some combat sounds rather than just the "slurp" of victory. Also, I think it would be more fun if it played a bit faster: smaller playfield/bigger units.

I love the mechanic where you infect cells and turn them into your own units - it's a common "special" ability in RTS games, but it's interesting to see it turned into the main feature!
nilstastic
24. Apr 2012 · 09:14 UTC
Didnt manage to get very far, but i liked what i saw! =)
Good: RTS! To many platformers in LD =)
Bad: Graphics was a bit lacking (some good, then some bad) =)
MarekkPie
24. Apr 2012 · 17:23 UTC
Not a platformer! Fun little mechanic, but its hard to actually understand what is going on. I don't even know why I lost on a level.
pbackx
24. Apr 2012 · 17:23 UTC
I get a 404 when I try to download or run the game. Did you move it to another folder?
john_conder9
24. Apr 2012 · 17:28 UTC
Yeah same issue as pbackx, looks interesting though!
edg3
24. Apr 2012 · 17:32 UTC
the enemies need some balancing, they are fairly hardcore for when they are first introduced, otherwise an amazing concept. I like the strategic elements.
orgarus
24. Apr 2012 · 17:33 UTC
Hi ratboy!
The way that the viruses and the cells look is pretty good, and the movement animation is well achieved.
I missed some information during the game play about the enemy because I'm attacking and I don't know why with some units I quickly win and with other they kick my ass.
Cheers!
Mesene
24. Apr 2012 · 17:37 UTC
links doesnt work my friend :/
Lucas Tiridath
24. Apr 2012 · 18:08 UTC
Very innovative and interesting game mechanic. Has a lot of potential! Sometimes a little tricky to see because the units were small but that wasn't a major problem. Having some kind of multiple unit select would have been great though. Still, very nice little game. Well done.
jrasmussen24
24. Apr 2012 · 18:21 UTC
The inputs made it difficult to control your units, especially when you have a small army to move. If you could select multiple units at once using a left click drag, that would be marvelous. The addition of some background music (like a simple snare drum cadence) would be great!
Alink
24. Apr 2012 · 19:01 UTC
Cool innovative RTS mechanics and the look is good. The micromanagement is a bit messy and I think I lose because of that. Nice job
🎤 ratboy2713
24. Apr 2012 · 20:37 UTC
Thanks everybody for playing! After three days I already have about as many ratings as I did all of last competition.

I fixed the link for the jar download.

I've gotten really excited about this project and plan to release a post compo version, so any further criticisms and suggestions are most appreciated. I'm already working on multi-unit selection and fixing the AI.
netmute
24. Apr 2012 · 21:16 UTC
Cool idea. The little slimy guys and their animations were gorgeous.
hulahulahest
25. Apr 2012 · 16:25 UTC
Fun, but confusing. I was never really sure why I conquered - or why I failed to conquer - a cell. I still don't understand how the powerup cells work. Very small, hard to play properly on a high resolution screen.
Jeffalisk
25. Apr 2012 · 16:44 UTC
Wasn't entirely sure what was going on, TBH, but lol'd at the level win screen :)
Permanent7
25. Apr 2012 · 17:11 UTC
I liked the converting mechanic. Like said above it appears in a lot of rts games but its interesting when its the main mechanic. I definitely think it could be nurtured into something more. It was quite hard when the antibodies came in, maybe introduce them in a bit easier level. They destroyed me at first. Also once my strategy breaks down and I start losing I feel as if there is no way to get control back. Typically once I made a mistake I just waited until the level restarted. Not really sure how to fix that. But cool game! I like it. :)
VDOgamez
25. Apr 2012 · 17:14 UTC
It's quite difficult and a bit rough, but a nice concept. It feels like it needs a lot more polish, though. I can't see a unit's health if it has an ability, and it is hard to tell who's unit something is if it's partly captured. The battles tend to be a lot of micromanaging of moving microbes away as soon as they're about to die, and there seems like there's a lack of balance on the strong-attack enemy. A bit of tweaking and balancing, and some more accessible graphical indications of what's going on, and no ms paint girl throwing up, and the game could be pretty good.
Arkazon
25. Apr 2012 · 17:21 UTC
A nice idea overall, managed to get to the level where there's a red enemy trying to capture everything (the one after the antibodies). Was a little tricky to control - would be nice if there was a drag select.
Milo
25. Apr 2012 · 22:15 UTC
It's a cool concept, but it becomes harder than I can handle after the enemies start showing up, since it's hard to quickly make moves.
Shadow
26. Apr 2012 · 00:37 UTC
Interesting. It's nice how you managed to make a mini RTS in just 48h. Graphics are not what I would call consistent; some don't fit together with the rest. I didn't know where to click at first because and since the clickable area is quite tight. When I first "clicked" the green unit (perhaps missed by a bit) the game didn't do a thing, so I assumed that I had to click somewhere else. I had to try a random stage to discover what my units were supposed to be. I like the whole "infect the rest" mechanics.
jeffreybiles
26. Apr 2012 · 01:59 UTC
There's not a whole lot to add to the above comments. To summarize: 1) Sweet concept! 2) It gets really hard really quick 3) I rarely know what's going on.

I did like the mechanic where the antibodies only move when you're attacking. If the controls had been a little better, that could have led to some awesome moments.
demonpants
26. Apr 2012 · 17:20 UTC
This seems to have a lot of depth and cool things happening but I just couldn't fully grasp what was happening. I'd move and attack things and then things would happen. Did my cell die? Did I take over the other? What? And where is the challenge?
Catman
26. Apr 2012 · 17:23 UTC
I really liked the mechanics, it was both funny and fun to play!! Good job!
dray
26. Apr 2012 · 20:41 UTC
Good Idea, nice little RTS, beeing quick in the selecting/moving can be difficult
invaderJim
27. Apr 2012 · 02:20 UTC
Nice game! Love the victory and defeat screens :D
SusanTheCat
27. Apr 2012 · 23:30 UTC
This is sooooooo cute!
artefon
28. Apr 2012 · 02:36 UTC
Cool game. I think it is original and fun.

Great entry.
schizofunky
28. Apr 2012 · 12:19 UTC
Nice mechanics!
refreshcreations
29. Apr 2012 · 13:27 UTC
Couldn't get the web version but the windows download ran a-okay. Nice mechanic, good way of indicating battle progress via the colour of the unit. Needs a bit of balancing, or I could just be a bit rusty since my days of playing RA2,etc. Had a chcuckle at the level complete screen, very nice!
JaJ
02. May 2012 · 15:15 UTC
The controls wern't the most convenient, and I didn't really get enough feedback on when a cell was taken over, but it does have potential.
AdventureIslands
02. May 2012 · 17:49 UTC
cool concept! Pretty hard though, because the enemies have no problem steamrolling over your troops, I also wasn't fan of the controls, but otherwise it's pretty well done and the idea is great.
samoojamies
03. May 2012 · 17:56 UTC
Fun game with some humor and interesting gameplay. Shame that couldn't multi select units.
KevinWorkman
04. May 2012 · 21:24 UTC
I really liked this game. It took me a while to figure it out, but I did manage to finish the tutorial levels and beat a few randomly generated ones.

The ability to select multiple guys at once, for example by drawing a box around them, is an absolute must, and it would be a good idea to make it more obvious what's going on- the bouncing animations made it hard to tell what was going on in the middle of a big pile fight.

Also, some shameless self promotion, but you might consider using the free Java game hosting I offer at http://StaticVoidGames.com. If nothing else, it beats dropbox.
MadGnomeGamer
05. May 2012 · 04:13 UTC
Pretty cool! Stands out among the other entries.
There's always something satisfying about strategic infection games, too!
I didn't get very far, but I enjoyed it. Graphics didn't look that bad to me. I liked the Slurp of Victory!. ;)
MadGnomeGamer
05. May 2012 · 04:22 UTC
Now I got a little farther! Pretty cool.
oddgoo
05. May 2012 · 04:51 UTC
I found this very fun! I was thinking that perhaps the battle stats could have a sort of Rock-Paper-Scissors system. They way it stands right now sword trumps over everything!
kibertoad
05. May 2012 · 18:02 UTC
Good idea, wish it was more polished. Objects are too small, mass-select is missed a lot.
robcozzens
06. May 2012 · 01:52 UTC
Pretty cool idea. It could use some fine-tuning, but most 48 hour games could use some fine-tuning.
Th3dz
06. May 2012 · 14:35 UTC
Kind of fun. Nice to see how much you could cram in there in 48h.
Hume
07. May 2012 · 12:42 UTC
Definitely a good game in progress here.

You mention a higher zoom level in your post-mortem. Perhaps that would have helped with my issue, which was determining ownership of a cell.

I hope you polish it up after the compo, because I had a lot of fun with your game and I bet other people would too.
Datamosh
07. May 2012 · 13:13 UTC
Some graphics didn't blend "in" together, like they belong to different styles. But overall, I liked it. Good work!
Several
09. May 2012 · 00:02 UTC
Pretty thoughtful start!

To the earlier requests/suggestions, I'd add:
- some sort of time controls, to stop/slow/speed up movement/action. The first couple of levels felt too slow, and later levels too fast. Being able to pause & consider strategy would certainly help with the difficulty.
- some additional ownership indicators. Mousing over, for example, to see a list of % (e.g. 20% neutral, 50% player, 30% rogue), and a constant visual element (maybe outline color? or another badge?) to indicate who currently controls the unit. For units that had special icons (the sword, for example), I definitely had a hard time determining affiliation, especially mid-battle.
azurenimbus
10. May 2012 · 15:18 UTC
I don't think I've seen this concept executed like this: you start with one guy, and you transform other guys, but you have to be careful they don't transform you. I didn't quite understand the mechanic behind why some guys were easy to conquer while others conquered me, but I had fun. Good job!
Canard Sauvage
11. May 2012 · 19:42 UTC
What I really liked was the description under the game, this is a really good idea, I should also do it the next time :) The next great thing: Java! xD

It was quite hard to move all the units, as you can't select all. As for the speed: The game was overall quite fast, it was hard to move all units. I couldn't really use the 'items', as there was no time to decide which units I should use. And I would like to have a higher zoom level :)
Canard Sauvage
11. May 2012 · 19:49 UTC
Oh, and what I see now: You don't have any source, there are only the class-files.

As for the rules and same treatment of all entrys, please upload the real source.
PabloAM
13. May 2012 · 18:34 UTC
haha, nice game but WTF is that princess when you win?