SImple Shift by CasualCat

[raw]
made by CasualCat for LD35 (COMPO)
You control a little square that can move to 9 different points in a grid. Your little square can also shape shift to stretch/flatten in the X and Y axis. Lasers will come beaming through the screen along the grid! But worry not, as there will be warnings before they come. Use your skillful keyboard pressing and hardcore gamer reflexes to avoid the lasers and survive as long as possible.

Controls:

Arrow Keys will move the square around the grid. The square will auto-snap to the center when no keys are pressed.

W or S to stretch horizontally
A or D to stretch vertically

Objective:
Avoid incoming lasers by being attentive to warnings ("red lines"), and moving/stretching your square accordingly.


Note:
This is not an excuse for poor quality but I restarted after about 20 hours and my computer crashed and pretty much died when there was about 10 hours left. But nonetheless I am highly satisfied with what I ended up with. I'm proud to have this game as my first Ludum Dare submission.

**Note**:
A few people have mentioned that the wasd controls for the shapeshifting felt reversed. Here's a suggestion try to only use A & S. This will eliminate the association of horizontal and vertical with wasd. Just think of it as A is stretching vertically and S is horizontally.

I'm really sorry about that. I think my shortage of time made not realize that mistake. I'm honestly quite astonished the game isn't unplayably broken!

Ratings

Coolness 74% 3
Overall 3.26 428
Audio 3.22 234
Fun 3.38 288
Graphics 3.16 407
Humor 1.83 585
Innovation 3.28 353
Mood 3.09 337
Theme 3.51 369

Feedback

Tharky
18. Apr 2016 · 13:29 UTC
Couldn't run! :(
Asturk
18. Apr 2016 · 14:50 UTC
well i still couldn't run the web version here somehow! =[
I think you should make able a windows version, to facilitate things, so i can rate your game!
Rscar
18. Apr 2016 · 15:24 UTC
Super fun! Took a minute to get used to to the controls, but wow I really enjoyed it! 43s was my best time, started getting hit with the bidirectional lasers and couldn't handle it haha
Charzendat
18. Apr 2016 · 15:47 UTC
Cool puzzle game. Only thing that frustrated me was I felt W/S and A/D should be reversed for the stretching. Might just be me though. But I like the idea and this could make a good addictive mobile game.
Autovelop
18. Apr 2016 · 15:51 UTC
Very nice! Enjoyed the concept. Not a big fan of the reflexes games but to each his own. I only got to 10 seconds. So try introduce the challenges gradually so players get use to the controls. If it is to easy for pro players with good reflexes, then try introduce a difficulty level. Music was also well done. Thanks for your submission.
Elemental Zeal Games Studios
18. Apr 2016 · 17:11 UTC
This was neat and pretty challenging. Good job!
nintendoeats
18. Apr 2016 · 19:07 UTC
That's cute and it looks pretty slick. The music also suits it well. I don't have anything close to the reflexes required. Just processing
nintendoeats
18. Apr 2016 · 19:07 UTC
That's cute and it looks pretty slick. The music also suits it well. I don't have anything close to the reflexes required. Just processing whether or not I need to stretch takes longer than the time I have.
Daukan
19. Apr 2016 · 12:47 UTC
The minimalistic graphics worked well with this type of game. I liked the music too.
Ayawaska
19. Apr 2016 · 12:49 UTC
Nicely done! And tricky.
Wan
19. Apr 2016 · 13:04 UTC
Wow that was much harder than I thought at first! I reached 30s twice but I could not handle what has coming next :P

The idea is intersting and its implementation pretty polished (fitting graphics and audio, no bugs found...), especially for a first entry made in a day it seems. So nice job!

If it were me I would have made the difficulty ramp up more slowly by having hints displayed 2 beats rather than 1 beat before, at least for the first minute or something.

But even as it is, the game is fun to play, and quite addictive in a masochist way like Super Hexagon was :)
virtual_void
19. Apr 2016 · 13:45 UTC
Loved the mechanics and artstyle
Asturk
20. Apr 2016 · 00:33 UTC
Oh oks, now the game is running here, so i am back now! Great job with this quick thinking mechanic, it is fun and has some good progression, though i think you could make just a little easier at the start of the game, so the player can get a little more used to keys and mechanic! But great job, its very addicting this one!
Cosine
20. Apr 2016 · 05:20 UTC
Cool game. Loved the art, the game overall felt very pleasing and juicy. Don't know if this was intentional, but the reversed WSAD was excruciating. It kept getting me pretty bad. Really well timed, and well refined. I found it quite frustratingly addicting.
M2tias
20. Apr 2016 · 08:10 UTC
Nice clean graphics, good music and an original idea. Good job!
Auroratide
20. Apr 2016 · 11:35 UTC
I guess I don't have the reflexes it takes! Cool little game, with graphics and auto that suit the minimalistic feel. Perhaps if started off easier and progressively became faster, it would be even better.
samlo
20. Apr 2016 · 12:31 UTC
Made it to 30:789! Great twitch-based endless runner. I do wish the difficulty ramped up a bit more gently - it took me about 5-6 tries before I really got how it worked. Nice entry!
TeamScripta
20. Apr 2016 · 14:12 UTC
That was fun! After figuring out what was going on, it became really fun and challenging. The easing on the square's motion is really pleasant and the background music is cool!
tentacode
20. Apr 2016 · 15:18 UTC
Really challenging, I'm too bad at this XD
Aurel Bílý
20. Apr 2016 · 20:35 UTC
Simple, but enjoyable. I also though that ws / ad should have been reversed, but I can see you've responded to that already :) The music is just a drum loop, but I thought it was somewhat annoying that it always had to restart after dying – it could just play non-stop in this game. Also, the restart delay and the before-the-timer-starts delay were upsettingly long. With an endurance / reflex game like this, you can assume people are gonna lose a lot, especially when they're just figuring it out. So the restart should be instantaneous. Maybe make the difficulty curve slightly less steep? The signals before the lasers could be longer at first.
But despite all that, it is a very nice, addictive score attack game, especially for such a short amount of time. Good job :)
teamross
20. Apr 2016 · 22:32 UTC
This is reeally challenging, i like it!
Smooth movements/animations(UI included), simple and clean art, and nice music too.
Polished game overal (I like the UI a lot).
kabel
20. Apr 2016 · 22:54 UTC
Way too difficult.
Chaserbrown
20. Apr 2016 · 23:34 UTC
Good job!
omarhuseynov011
21. Apr 2016 · 16:20 UTC
Loved it. A bit challenging, but that style is really on point
Kep
23. Apr 2016 · 16:07 UTC
I really like the concept and the mechanics, but I didn't get very far.
csanyk
30. Apr 2016 · 04:30 UTC
Very difficult to get used to the split-second decision making between shifting and stretching. My mind couldn't get used to it to the point where I was instinctive enough to last more than a couple seconds. Some kind of surround-sound audio cue in addition to the flash warning would maybe help.