LudumData

Kanbran by DrPetter

[raw]
made by DrPetter for LD18 (COMPO)
Arrow keys to move and jump. Land on enemies, pull them around and force them into the ground to make them shoot each other.

Infinite arcade gameplay, try to get a high score before you perish.

Post mortem: For once I focused mainly on gameplay design. Graphics remained in the placeholder stage, and there was no complex technical code that distracted me. I did however do a bunch of other real-life things during the compo, so actual time spent was probably less than 10 hours. Sketched on various slightly different ideas before I really started working on this one. I'm fairly happy with it, though I somewhat regret not doing proper graphics. Remake perhaps?

Windows http://drpetter.se/dump/drpetter_ld18_kanbran.zip
Original URL https://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-18/?action=preview&uid=10

Ratings

Coolness 15% 40
Overall 3.60 16
Audio 2.68 52
Community 2.67 89
Fun 3.57 15
Graphics 3.50 37
Humor 1.33 152
Innovation 3.77 18
Theme 4.27 3

Feedback

Pokute
23. Aug 2010 · 01:18 UTC
Fun, Innovative and faithful to the theme. You did well!
Sparky
23. Aug 2010 · 02:14 UTC
Neat idea. This is pretty fun. I think it's probably a bit counterintuitive that steering them into the ground doesn't work unless the initial jump was timed right. I wonder if that could be remedied by making it clearer that they're countering our motion? This feels pretty polished given the time constraints. Nice work.
Darkhogg
23. Aug 2010 · 04:11 UTC
I love it, it's really original and fun!
Graphics are not so bad though, your placeholder graphics are better than my final ones -.-
devinmoore
23. Aug 2010 · 07:36 UTC
Great classic console feel, like a super contra-type game on the boss stage. I noticed what wasn't there because the game was so clean: text. Most games have some kinda other text on the screen identifying which is score, health, level, etc. It made sense once I started playing, but that's the one thing I noticed right away. Other than that, just adding 'intro' and 'game over' screens and this starts to really become a console game.
NiallM
23. Aug 2010 · 08:27 UTC
This is a really neat idea, and the graphics and music are great. Once I'd figured out the controls though, it felt like the difficulty curve was a little shallow?
madpew
23. Aug 2010 · 12:53 UTC
well done. even the placeholder gfx is good. nothing more to say.
HybridMind
23. Aug 2010 · 20:54 UTC
Seemed a little slow going but once I got to four enemies on screen it became more fun. I felt like I wanted a little bit more to be happening but it was a decent game. There was a nice tension when your health got low to dodging the enemy bullets so as to get the health drop.
ExciteMike
26. Aug 2010 · 17:54 UTC
A little frustratingly slow early on, but very fun once you get past that. Needs audio badly!
speciesUnknown
26. Aug 2010 · 18:04 UTC
This was pretty fun, the first entry which I might actually keep on my HD and play in the future. Pinning an enemy to the ground so that they shoot upwards and hit other enemies is a unique take on the theme.

I normally dont like faux-ega-style graphics, but the animation of the little dude was pretty good so I had to give you 4 for graphics. I hope he didnt take too much of your 10 hours.

Audio was just a single tune repeating over and over, so I cant give many stars there im afraid, but at least it was present.
eli
27. Aug 2010 · 22:45 UTC
Really nice mechanic. The steering part is one of my favorites. I can only guess the backstory here, but the simple artwork really alludes to something with an epic feel to it.
Codexus
28. Aug 2010 · 13:31 UTC
A very frustrating experience. Why are they so resistant? Normal fire seems to do nothing and even the vertical firing takes a painfully long time to kill them. Also the music would have really needed a longer loop or a way to turn it off ;)

Still for a 10 hours game it's a nice.
mwest
29. Aug 2010 · 15:16 UTC
Very nice game - even your placeholder graphics are 10 times better than mine! The game reminded me a lot of Contra, style-wise.

The only complaint I had is that it's a bit difficult to kill enemies when there are only 2 left (took me a while to figure out how to get out of level 1 due to that).
pekuja
03. Sep 2010 · 13:01 UTC
Scored 442500. This was a really cool game. A novel idea too. Slamming the enemies (goat heads?) to the ground was pretty satisfying. For a while the game seemed a bit easy, but I guess I did die in the end so I guess I can't say it's too easy.
Doches
05. Sep 2010 · 06:11 UTC
Great mechanic -- probably the most truly interesting take on the theme I've seen so far.
Jonathan Whiting
06. Sep 2010 · 15:33 UTC
Great cohesive feel and nice mechanics. Somewhat let down by the unpredictability of the enemies combining with the sluggishness of the ground stomp attack, it felt more like luck than judgement. Also, essentially replaying each previous stage after the new one got tedious. I'm nit picking on a very solid entry though, good job!