Pond: The Strider by Ni

[raw]
made by Ni for LD23 (COMPO)
Play as a water strider in this abstract arena shooter!
Left mouse button: start game/shoot
Right mouse button: glide

You can glide from anywhere to anywhere else on the screen. Look out for the pond scum! Also, the yellow eggs and larva are too strong for your projectiles. You can push them out of the way, though. You'll have to kill them when they hatch.

Feedback

brenthamel
23. Apr 2012 · 07:07 UTC
I don't know what the f__k this game is about, but it sure is fun :D
Argadonian
25. Apr 2012 · 18:35 UTC
Wow, this game is fun and pretty challenging. Great job!
vilya
25. Apr 2012 · 23:27 UTC
When I downloaded this, Chrome gave me a warning saying "this appears to be malicious". Tried it out anyway after running virus scans and everything and... it's really nice! Love the look, the music, the gameplay - the tension between controlling and shooting is great. The only downsides: it's a bit hard to control and it was a bit confusing trying to figure out what was happening when I died. Overall, great job!
summaky
28. Apr 2012 · 11:27 UTC
Fun, fun, fun! :-D I don't seem to respawn automatically when I lose (and I do it a lot of times...)

Also, Chrome gave me a warning that the game could be malware!!
Gunmonkey
04. May 2012 · 07:45 UTC
lots of fun
tomhunt
14. May 2012 · 00:45 UTC
Fun, if a bit on the hard side. I'd add a quick way of respawn or restarting the level when the player dies, which in my case was "frequently".
Gjarble
14. May 2012 · 00:59 UTC
Love the idea, and a water strider is a perfect choice for the movement system you came up with (or vice versa, I don't know which idea came first). My only complaint is with the green squares (are they the pond scum?)- it's a bit steep of a difficulty curve when they first appear, transitioning the player from being under a mild threat to being under constant threat (by a rather large homing enemy at that). Also, the fact that they are abstract enemies, and that the majority of the other enemies (the bugs and arguably the eggs/larvae) are representational, can lead to some confusion regarding what is and isn't an enemy. The first time I died by the green squares, I wasn't sure whether or not they were in the background. Also, it was very useful to figure out that the small, unmoving fadey circles were not just more background but actually denoting enemy spawn points- you may want to put it somewhere in the instructions.
Gjarble
14. May 2012 · 01:01 UTC
Things I forgot:
- I'm playing this on a Mac under WINE, and I never got to view the F1 info screen (probably due to the way Macbook function keys work), so apologies if that information IS in the instructions.
- The music is awesome.