Deck Shooter by Jimbly

made by Jimbly for LD 41 (COMPO)

It's a deck-building bullet-hell shooter, what more is there to say?

Links * HTML5(WebGL): dashingstrike.com/LudumDare/LD41 * Source Code: Jimbly/LD41-deck-shooter

Click to play cards. Between levels you can buy new cards and trash existing ones. If you fail a level, improve your deck and try again!

The only card which (I think) is not obvious is the "Auto-Guard", it's a Reaction card which, if in play, will cancel one incoming bullet if you're about to be hit (and then leave play to your discard pile). Every other card has a pretty immediate and obvious effect, so they should be self-explanatory.

Screenshot:

Post-compo change note: Though I had saving and recording of high scores to my server in before the end of the compo, it took me an extra 30 minutes to actually get the display of high scores in-game, so ignore the High Score screen for judging purposes (but do not ignore it for compete-against-your-friends purposes ;).

Tools Used * Custom Engine: GLOV.js * Mtn Dew * Some tiles in Piskel * Image postprocessing in Photoshop * Sound Effects in Bfxr

I constantly felt behind-schedule this Ludum Dare. I think it's because I had to implement the mechanics for two basically unrelated games (although I feel they came together pretty well in the end, they're pretty independent - I've got a shooter with keyboard controls disabled and cards which simulate pressing keyboard controls ^^). It mostly all came together in the end, though I was really lacking on time to polish the art, I only spent about 3 hours on sound and art and all the rest was systems implementation --.

I, of course, started with some programmer art of really hastily drawn ships in just a couple colors. When it came time to make the final sprites, and there was only 2 hours left in the competition, I decided I didn't have time to re-make all of them well, so I simply scaled my 32x32 programmer sprites down to 13x13 sprites, and the dithering and blending really made them come alive! Fix a couple stray pixels, and I have my final sprites, I think I only had to re-do one of them, because it just looked like a stupid face when scaled down ^_^. Wish I had spent time on the cards instead of just using my UI system's generic "panel" border though!

Also, if you're read this far, check out my other game on Steam!

HTML5 (web)	http://www.dashingstrike.com/LudumDare/LD41/
Original URL	https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/deck-shooter

Ratings

Overall	68^th	3.907⭐	45🧑‍⚖️
Fun	31^th	4.023⭐	45🧑‍⚖️
Innovation	94^th	3.86⭐	45🧑‍⚖️
Theme	62^th	4.198⭐	45🧑‍⚖️
Graphics	224^th	3.547⭐	45🧑‍⚖️
Audio	294^th	2.985⭐	35🧑‍⚖️
Humor	388^th	2.486⭐	38🧑‍⚖️
Mood	218^th	3.317⭐	43🧑‍⚖️
Given		43🗳️	48🗨️

Feedback

Bookworm31

23. Apr 2018 · 07:16 UTC

That was a really fun game! It really felt like one of those old-style arcade games and the deckbuilding portion (draw mechanics, buying new cards, etc) was really well done. There were some minor visual glitches (the +3 draw and too big of a deck could exceed some limits) but nothing major. Overall, really fun game!

🎤 Jimbly

23. Apr 2018 · 15:28 UTC

Yeah, if you have too many cards in your hand it goes off the side, but you're probably winning at that point and I didn't want to be resizing/moving cards or anything while you are trying to click on them. If your deck was too big in the shopping screen, then you should probably be trashing more cards - a good deck in any deckbuilding game is a lean deck, so I never actually tested that ;). I fixed the z-order so that the undo/continue buttons are on top of the deck overflow now though, as that was a trivial bug fix, so it'll at least feel less broken if someone decides to hoard lots of cards.

DarkAnice

23. Apr 2018 · 19:44 UTC

An amazing idea with an amazing execution, good job on making this game! Feels pretty satisfying to complete a level :D

niborious

23. Apr 2018 · 19:44 UTC

Cool idea! The way that the deckbuilding mixes with the shooter is really interesting

Gavin Camlin

23. Apr 2018 · 20:22 UTC

This game was really fun and all together a really cool idea! The retro feel is awesome as well! The sounds did start to bother me after awhile and I had to turn some music on but that's kinda expected with retro sounds. One thing that I think you should change balance wise is the draw 3 card. On it's own it's balanced but if you have 3 draw 3's and a kinda small deck you cycle through it instantly and can just spam 1 to cast everything super fast and clear out the field and making me invincible. I would just suggest making it so that they can only have 1 copy of that card.
Overall a great game man! I really enjoyed it thank you!

morphine

23. Apr 2018 · 20:42 UTC

Really enjoyed this great job. I didn't think I would like it as much as I did but it actually wasn't as annoying as I expected it to be. It took me a few mins to figure out that the "ghost ship" shows you where you will be after the move. One suggestion - when there is a single guy left, he doesn't move at all. It's really annoying and I have to wait to get the right arrows to do anything. It's something that I'm not sure what the solution is, but maybe just having the last guy move would solve it.

🎤 Jimbly

23. Apr 2018 · 20:48 UTC

Thanks for the feedback!

@Gavin-Camlin, yeah, Draw 3 combos ended up over-powered, I think I should have balanced the prices so that the cost of additional cards of the same kind got exponentially more expensive, so you could just not get more than 1-2 Draw 3s until the final level or so.

@morphine All enemies move, but the big ones move pretty slowly, so you just need to wait a bit. I ran into that a couple times myself, and it can be a bit annoying if you don't have the right cards to deal with it.

Gavin Camlin

23. Apr 2018 · 21:08 UTC

Yeah balancing the prices like that seems like a great idea!

tajamsoft

23. Apr 2018 · 23:52 UTC

Really good concept! Was a bit hard to aim with precision when there were few enemies left, but makes sense thinking the control is based on cards! The sounds got a bit repetitive, but the retro-feel is good. The graphics make it look like an arcade machine.

mshopf

23. Apr 2018 · 23:59 UTC

Awesome game, great execution, neat graphics! I love the highscore, and the fact that you allow updating your name *after* you actually played the game - I totally forgot to give me a reasonable nickname at first...

This game fits the theme so well it almost hurts :grinning:

nilstastic

24. Apr 2018 · 18:48 UTC

Nicely done! There has been quite a lot of card-based games but this is probably my favourite. Upgrades worked well and the lookahead system when moving worked as well. Good job!

ROBOWARRIOR1982

25. Apr 2018 · 16:31 UTC

Really a strange idea but that works pretty well! I like the graphics and the old-school sound! but it can be difficult depending on the cards that are drawn (as in fact actually ^ ^) so we turn his deck by doing actions sometimes useless and dangerous! Very good game!

🎤 Jimbly

25. Apr 2018 · 16:47 UTC

@ROBOWARRIOR1982 Thanks for the feedback, glad you liked it! Yeah, I considered adding a "discard" option, to cycle cards, but decided I really liked having to do something dangerous and hope for the best instead to get more cards =).

devinwilson

25. Apr 2018 · 21:59 UTC

I love the concept so much, and I look forward to playing more of it!

I do feel like there must be some way to have the hand and the "play field" easier to deal with simultaneously, though. Like, maybe even something as simple as having hotkeys for each kind of card? And then the keys just don't do anything if you don't have the card in your hand to use? I just found it slightly unpleasant how I had to dart my eyes between the two parts of the screen.

Sorry if that sounds overly critical or if that's unwelcome feedback; I really do love what's here already!

notgreat

25. Apr 2018 · 21:59 UTC

I really liked this game. There's a few balance issues (draw-3s are ridiculously OP, Beam is by far the best weapon) but it was a fine blend of the two generes in a very interesting way.

The sound effects got a bit repetitive though.

🎤 Jimbly

25. Apr 2018 · 22:33 UTC

@devinwilson Before my first playtester tried it, I had the hand off to the side, and it was even worse ^_^, I'm glad I sacrificed some vertical room for the hand as close to the player as I could get it. I considered adding hotkeys for kinds of cards, but then the obvious hotkeys would be, like, left arrow for move left, and right arrow for move right, and then I thought it would just feel like you were playing a shooter with really unresponsive controls that sometimes didn't do anything, and I think it might have been worse off. I did add hotkeys that are hand indexed, but I couldn't get used to them, I found it easier to visually search for the card I want and just click on it than to try to look at what hotkey number it was and hit it, so if you were trying to use the deck hotkeys, I'd say try just using the mouse, and see if that "feels" better. Maybe I should have removed those as soon as I realized I wasn't using them myself, and I usually *love* keyboard hotkeys for everything ;).

@notgreat Yeah, I wish I would have had more time to balance things more. Though I also found beam usually the best (especially when paired with an appropriate Move), a deck of Spreads and Shields (with no need for any Move cards) works pretty well too.

devinwilson

25. Apr 2018 · 22:51 UTC

I see what you mean.

Maybe if there were icons near the player's ship or something? I don't know. It's something you've already spent some time trying to figure out and by no means do I mean to suggest that there's a simple answer!

Regardless, the important thing I want to communicate is that I like the idea a ton. :)

devinwilson

26. Apr 2018 · 11:22 UTC

So I played more and finished, and the final two levels were nuts! Haha. What I was saying earlier barely applied because I was mostly only staring at my hand and trying to spam certain things and keep an eye on my health. I'm not saying that as a negative, either; it was frantic fun.

Really nice job. This is great stuff and I think if you spent time refining it and expanding it, you could have this appeal to a lot of people.

Alex13

26. Apr 2018 · 17:27 UTC

This game is broken connection between action and reaction. It is very strange experience :). Good luck

Semichaut

26. Apr 2018 · 19:26 UTC

My best game so far , simple but cool.
Imo the only bad thing is the sound which become quickly annoying

sh1rogane

26. Apr 2018 · 19:29 UTC

A very fun game. A bit frustrating not being able to position where you want to be. Good use of the theme and probably the best game so far to use the card mechanic that so many have chosen (me included :smile:) Great game!

Alex13

27. Apr 2018 · 19:02 UTC

There are a lot of "cooking" games. At least I have found first game that use poker mechanics! Nice job!

Zirrrus

28. Apr 2018 · 08:40 UTC

Generally I don't like Schmups but this was pretty good!

One thing: I got killed by a bullet after I had killed the boss of a level, that felt kinds lame. Maybe give the player invincibilty once the level's over?

🎤 Jimbly

28. Apr 2018 · 13:58 UTC

@zirrrus Glad you enjoyed it! I'm not really a fan of Schmups either, except Jamestown for it's great co-op design. Yeah, that's probably a good idea. I realized that could happen, and thought having to keep dodging and surviving until the level is clear seemed fair, but I'm sure it feels like you were cheated to have that happen, so invincibility at that point's a great idea.

mrnyarlathotep

28. Apr 2018 · 15:58 UTC

Really fun and solid compo entry - if you were going to continue work on this post jam, the biggest addition I'd like to see would be more 'patterns' in the cards (to expand on the zig zag move), and maybe finessing the move available (like a 'nugdge left/right' instead of big movements)

candlesan

29. Apr 2018 · 21:36 UTC

This was great! really fun game! Great use of the mechanics of two different genres together. Really liked the opportunity to customize my deck as I went on. High score leaderboard to boot! Nicely done.

dyoxyne

01. May 2018 · 09:36 UTC

I really like the game! The deck customization is a really nice idea.

LemurStudio

01. May 2018 · 15:21 UTC

This is incredibly well done :D so much fun and pretty challenging at first. Well done

LegionGames

02. May 2018 · 02:26 UTC

A really well-made game. Was really impressed at how nicely the cards fit into the overall gameplay. Even though there's no direct control over the spaceship I didn't feel like it was detrimental to the experience at all, I felt sufficiently in control of what was going on. Great job!

Chris Hall

02. May 2018 · 20:43 UTC

Tricky but really engaging!

Zinkler

02. May 2018 · 21:43 UTC

Oh boy, here goes one of those games where I can't stop playing until to the first place in the leaderboard. Well, second place here, by mere 40 points. This kind of interest I get every once is a while is something I treasure in game like this one. The ship controls don't feel too nice, and I ended up making a deck for a stable protected ship, but I like the customization of it anyway, I just don't believe that in such a bullet hell those movement cards will do any good. Great game, totally enjoyed playing it!

lautregars

02. May 2018 · 23:06 UTC

This games works really well.

+ fellow Piskel-User ! My compo game too is fully piskel-graphs filled ! :D

🎤 Jimbly

03. May 2018 · 00:07 UTC

@Zinkler Glad you enjoyed it so much! Yeah, beyond the first couple levels, movement to avoid bullets is not particularly useful, though movement for spreading Beam shots to all the enemies is useful. Shields and Spread is also a fun combo, which is perhaps the route you went =).

SimianLogic

04. May 2018 · 12:46 UTC

Really impressive amount of polish (8 levels, leaderboard), and it's fun! I don't think left/right have quite enough granularity to deal with the later bosses, but I also have a hard time with bullet hells with normal keyboard input. Simplifying the controls almost makes it more accessible, though typically you'd think the opposite when layering on deckbuilding. Great job!

fanakito

04. May 2018 · 20:00 UTC

The game was more fun than expected and I was really impresed that you actually implemented a working leaderboard. I think you did really well balancing the game with the right speed to be played with the cards, maybe the movement cards aren't as useful, but I think it would be worth trying adding some speed to the card, so the movements could be cycled faster, but that would make easier to get the right "attack" card :thinking:

hypp

05. May 2018 · 08:03 UTC

Well, done! It was much harder than I thought, but at the same time the game play worked really well.