2 Tiny Gods by Tulrath

[raw]
made by Tulrath for LD23 (COMPO)
What if your ammunition decided it didn't like you?

What if your ammunition decided it no longer shared your beliefs and began following a different god than you?

What if your ammunition was also your power, your strength and your life?

The ancient gods are not pleased with your recent apotheosis and endeavor to bring about your Fall. They send wave after wave of evil beings to destroy you! But something doesn't add up. Their attacks are coordinated, and surprisingly effective -- the ancient gods are not usually this coordinated in their efforts.

Something is directing them. Will you survive long enough to uncover the truth?

Tiny Gods is my interpretation of the Tiny World theme for LD48. Tiny Gods is a 2D "Bullet Hell" game in the style of 1995-1998 SNES games. In Tiny Gods, you are a new demi-god, but your powers are not yet stable and are easily influenced by your followers on all the worlds you find throughout the universe. As a demi-god you can absorb worlds to give you ammunition to defeat your foes, or you can stay close to worlds that give you power. You must constantly balance staying in the proximity of worlds (to absorb their influence) and consuming worlds (to give you ammunition). But don't stay too close for too long -- the attacks of your foes will damage the worlds as well, changing them into Dead Worlds where the people follow the gods of the underworld -- Pluto and Proserpine.

Ratings

Coolness 28% 913
Overall 1.97 871
Audio 1.90 638
Fun 1.87 829
Graphics 1.80 866
Humor 1.95 573
Innovation 2.00 815
Mood 1.87 827
Theme 2.40 723

Feedback

RandomOutput
23. Apr 2012 路 05:42 UTC
crazy time
robcozzens
24. Apr 2012 路 06:05 UTC
Pretty cool, but it wasn't entirely clear what was going on.
derosa
24. Apr 2012 路 16:55 UTC
A little confusing, sometimes I had to pass over a planet several times before "capturing" it.
馃帳 Tulrath
25. Apr 2012 路 03:45 UTC
thanks for the feedback everyone
Zamando
26. Apr 2012 路 07:02 UTC
Didn't really get if any of your text actually applied on the game. The game itself seemed kinda random and I just shot things and collected worlds to progress
davisan
26. Apr 2012 路 14:07 UTC
Good idea. Just needed a little more polishing.
SidetrackGames
26. Apr 2012 路 21:46 UTC
Kinda cool, but a lil' confusing.
moonmagic
27. Apr 2012 路 03:42 UTC
I enjoyed the premise of this game, and I liked the weirdo mix of sprites. The fluctuation of powers is a neat idea, although I wasn't sure what was making them change at first. The collision detection for the worlds seemed uneven. I think I would have enjoyed "impact" sounds to give feedback that I was hitting the enemies and bumping into the worlds. I wanted a reason to shoot the little fellows, but there wasn't enough of a visual / aural reward for doing so.
DaveDobson
27. Apr 2012 路 14:15 UTC
It was fun to fly around and shoot, but I had no idea what the hell was going on. I think there was a cool mechanism under there, but I didn't get it - just watched my icons change from sun to water to moon, with no apparent effect. A mini-map showing the worlds' locations and the size of the play area would help navigate. Controls and shooting were very smooth and easy to use.
馃帳 Tulrath
27. Apr 2012 路 20:05 UTC
Thank you everyone for the feedback. I ran out of time for more directions and for the mini-map :/
Rybar
01. May 2012 路 01:25 UTC
Sometimes the player/planet overlap didn't work right? Also seemed vary sparse, not enough to do or shoot at, or maybe the playing space is too large? I didn't understand the significance of the sun/moon/raindrop icons either.
netmute
02. May 2012 路 11:46 UTC
What is going on?! :) Cool shot em up tho :)
馃帳 Tulrath
05. May 2012 路 16:21 UTC
The sun/moon/raindrop icons on the right are a meter to show what types of powers you have available to you. Each power also indicates what bullet type you will shoot as you cycle through your powers. Each time you shoot, the next power in the meter is automatically selected - so you are always shooting 1 bullet of each power type every 8 bullets.

Different powers have different qualities for the bullets they shoot - like Speed, Range, and Damage. The weakest power is the skull -- the skull bullets have the slowest speed, the shortest range, and the weakest damage.

You can change your powers by staying close to planets (without absorbing the planets whole). When you are close to a planet of a certain type (indicated by the icon above the planet), your powers will be altered to that type. For example, if you stay in proximity of a Sword planet, your powers will slowly change to all Sword powers (which create sword bullets) -- replacing any other powers you may have.

This allows you to mix-and-match your powers for more effective combinations. For example, having a combination of Fast bullets with some Very Slow bullets lets you create a perimeter around yourself with the slow bullets, and then destroy enemies from afar with the faster bullets. There are 16 different bullet types in the game - and you can "stack" your power meter with up to 8 different powers/bullet types... so that's 4,294,967,296 potential power combinations.

Your ammunition is also your health - run out of ammo, and you run out of health. When this happens, your God "Falls" back to the previous level. It's very common to repeat the first 2 levels several times each until you get used to combining powers most effectively. Unfortunately, just "button mashing" works too -- so, I need to make the effects of powers more pronounced to bring out the strategy elements more :)

If you completely overlap a planet, you'll absorb it and all of your followers on that planet -- which will refill your ammo/health bar. You'll have to be careful not to immediately absorb planets that provide more advanced powers. More often than not, you'll want to stay in proximity of more powerful planets longer before absorbing them, so you can upgrade your powers.

I hope this explanation helps -- and sorry again for not providing more detailed instructions (just ran out of time there). Please post if you have more questions.
tripleVisionGames
07. May 2012 路 19:07 UTC
Your write up sounds brilliant so there's clearly a good idea here! I found it quite difficult to work out what was going on but I can see the potential.
azurenimbus
10. May 2012 路 02:42 UTC
Wow, pretty crazy.
Johnicholas
12. May 2012 路 12:56 UTC
The big green walls to the universe were disconcerting. Is it possible to win/lose this game?
onehandclap
12. May 2012 路 13:20 UTC
A curious game to say the least! =)
JaJ
12. May 2012 路 17:41 UTC
The idea is very nice but it didn't really shine through in the game itself. There was also a mix of very different graphic styles that didn't work well together, but the game concept has more potential than a lot of games I have seen.
kato9
12. May 2012 路 23:28 UTC
This is a truly strange game. Doesn't seem like you can actually lose?