Cosmo Beat by Super Shark
A rhythm shooter with an original soundtrack! Beat enemies to the beat!
Controls
- move - WASD or arrow keys
- fire - spacebar and every key from Z to /
Let's jam!
When alien drones cause a power outage in her city, Cosmo and her best friend Barkley suit up and take aim at the invaders.
Shoot drones to keep Cosmo's suit powered up. Your foes are hardy, but they have a weakness - their shields drop in time with the music.
FAQ
We ran out of time for a tutorial, and we know the dialogue can be hard to read while you're focusing on the game, so check here if you're confused.
How do I gain/lose power?
You gain power by destroying enemies and collecting batteries. You lose power by touching enemies and missing shots. You also lose it naturally over time.
What do the blue/green enemies around me do?
These can be damaged at the moment they move in front of you. They enter from the bottom and stop next to you one beat before they're vulnerable. You don't have to worry about aligning your shot; their movement is relative to you. The blue ones are vulnerable on a half (or whole) beat, and the green ones are vulnerable on a quarter beat. They're timed to match up with the music, so keep an ear out for interesting rhythms.
How am I supposed to shoot that fast?
You can (and should!) use more than one fire key.
Credits
- programming - Evan "evbo" Andrews
- music - Julian "zorsy" Sanchez
- art - Rose "Super Shark" Hammer
Bugs fixed after first submission
- Resolution adjusted for upload to Newgrounds
- Colour restored to HUD border
- Missing battery added to final stage
- Enemy offsets fixed in final stage
Post jam version
| HTML5 (web) | https://www.dropbox.com/s/hvuvz0vj1vbv9fa/CosmoBeat-1.0.4.zip?dl=0 |
| Windows | https://www.dropbox.com/s/jwrbghksficlvoa/CosmoBeat-1.0.4-x86_64.zip?dl=0 |
| HTML5 (web) | |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/39/cosmo-beat |
Ratings
| Overall | 20th | 4.275⭐ | 42🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 19th | 4.125⭐ | 42🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 54th | 3.974⭐ | 41🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 125th | 3.975⭐ | 42🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 104th | 4.317⭐ | 43🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 3th | 4.59⭐ | 41🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 97th | 3.541⭐ | 39🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 70th | 4⭐ | 41🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 42🗳️ | 27🗨️ |
Only one concern: I saw Barkley talking on the right while I was playing, but was too focused on shooting people to read it. Maybe a tutorial or slower paced wave could give the player some time to read that first, but I understand that's hard to do in a limited amount of time, especially when there is so much attention to detail everywhere else.
Great work!
As mentioned by PolyWolf, we can't both play and look at the right panel. As we are focused on the bottom of the main (=left) panel, a simple improvment would be to put the energy bar at the bottom of the right panel, closer to the action.
Otherwise, it's very good, except I suck at it :'(
As others said, while playing you never look at the right panel so you miss most of the messages and it's hard to keep track of the remaining energy. It can make difficult to understand how to refill the energy bar, for example. A little tutorial at the beginning of the game would be a great solution for this issue, in my opinion.
Congratulations!
<3 <3 <3 to the team, I had a great time
"Perfect for sitting inside with the curtains drawn and playing some games"
XD
5 stars for humor!
Great, fun game! I really liked the strategy and focus involved.
I didn't find any bugs, and it was a really enjoyable game.
Great job!
level were both fast and complex and I wasn't quite ready for that combination, but the game had me tapping my foot the entire time. The little polished details were not lost on me. (Things like the reflections on the front of the downbeat ships when you miss and the overall responsiveness of the shots)
**Great presentation, great art, and great music.** If this didn't make the top twenty it'd only be because not enough people played it.
Beautiful art, wonderful music, with really unique mechanics. I couldn't focus on the banter on the side, but my friend sitting beside me says it's top notch. Really amazing that this game exists, let alone that it was made in 72 hours. Congratulations!
@rosypenguin Sorry to hear about the lag on the later stages. I have a few ideas for how to make things more efficient that I'll incorporate into a post-jam version if I get time.
@will-walters Glad you enjoyed the music! I'll pass your question on to @zorsy. We tried to keep the red enemies predictable and work in some rhythmic variety with the blue/green enemies. They each need to be hit at a specific point in time and should match rhythms that you can hear in the songs. We noticed a lot of people missed that so we added it to the FAQ.
Love pretty much everything about this. Music was fun and got me in the groove, characters were enjoyable with their banter, and the idea was just really innovative.
Small things were: my character moved really fast so sometimes it was hard to be precise, and could use more effects and animations to really sell things (like the window when enemies are vulnerable, your attack beam fadeaway or other attack animation, enemy deaths)
Thanks for making a fun game!
Thanks so much for the love on the tunes!!! I'm actually composing more tunes for the game (whether we extend on this further or not) and will be hoping to eventually release the soundtrack in due time :) i'd be happy to provide a couple of the tunes now if you email me @ Julian@theconsouls.com
When listening to the beat, I would always be a moment too late... I felt like I had to press the button just moments before the beat.
I don't know if it helps you in any way, but I remembered about this technical writeup about rhythm games, you should check it out: http://ludumdare.com/compo/2014/09/09/an-ld48-rhythm-game-part-2/
The soundtrack was amazing, I hope to see in a future the characters with color. Good Work!
Unfortunately there's nothing in that post that helps me with this particular problem, but it was nice to get some reassurance that a few of the other decisions I made along the way were correct. Sadly I don't seem to be able to play the browser version of his game, and the other links are dead, but it looks really cool in the video. Thanks for linking it!
It was very satisfying when you get into the rythm and shoot with the music :)
PS: It is really hard for me to read the dialog on the side while playing so I don't know what info I missed. (I think I missed some info about those metallic circles that appear a little bit later).
My main problem it that this game was too easy for me. I beat the first stage at third try, the second on second try and third on first try and I had no more reasons to play =C . The last stage was a little confusing for me.