LudumData

Empowered State by grizeldi

[raw]
made by grizeldi for LD 40 (JAM)

Screenshot_5.png

Description

Empowered state is a third person tower defense game about collecting crystals on an alien planet so you can fuel up your spaceship and leave. In the process you get attacked by flying space rabbits who figured out that stealing your crystals is easier than mining their own. The more crystals you have, the more rabbits come take them. The game would need some more work, but that's how far we could get it in 3 days.

Code by @grizeldi, art by @negdo, level design by @PickyDogFish. Only one person in the team had prior gamedev experience.

Video showcase and explanation https://youtu.be/ye58DI_Kxow

Instructions

WASD - move

1, 2, 3 - select turret type to place

Collect enough crystals to fuel up your ship and then press F to win. If your crystals go into negative, you lose. Each rabbit that comes to your ship steals 5 crystals.

In placement mode:

left click - place turret

right click - cancel placement

Turret descriptions:

Slot 1 - Miner - 5 crystals

Mines for crystals. Produces 1 crystal per 10 seconds when placed on a crystal or 1 crystal per 45 seconds if not placed on a crystal.

Slot 2 - Sentry - 15 crystals

Shoots any rabbits that come into range and then has 20 seconds long cooldown period.

Slot 3 - Bear Trap - 4 crystals

Lies on the ground until it detects a rabbit. Then it flies up into the sky and strikes from the above.

Installation

Just download the game for your platform, extract the downloaded zip and run the executable.

Screenshots

Screen Shot 12-04-17 at 07.59 PM.PNG

Screen Shot 12-04-17 at 08.00 PM.PNG

Screen Shot 12-04-17 at 08.01 PM.PNG

Screenshot_7.png

Windows https://negdo.itch.io/empowered-state
Linux https://negdo.itch.io/empowered-state
Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/40/empowed-state

Ratings

Overall 881th 3.1⭐ 32🧑‍⚖️
Fun 833th 2.983⭐ 32🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 866th 2.833⭐ 32🧑‍⚖️
Theme 982th 2.817⭐ 32🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 757th 3.15⭐ 32🧑‍⚖️
Humor 884th 2.196⭐ 30🧑‍⚖️
Mood 838th 2.931⭐ 31🧑‍⚖️
Given 45🗳️ 7🗨️

Feedback

SpaceMonkey
05. Dec 2017 · 11:21 UTC
I had to read the instructions on your submission page to understand what I had to do and what each turret is for, but then it was very intuitive so good job on the controls ! I like your environment and the miner animation. Also the game concept if very fitting with the theme !
I know how it feels posting a game that your think still has some flaws, but look at what has been done ! Congratulations and I'm looking forward for your next game. Good job guys !
Dudum Lare
05. Dec 2017 · 12:01 UTC
Hey! Great game!

Concerning the graphics, it felt old-school. And I love old-school art so that’s a positive thing!

Concerning the audio it helped to set the mood, it suited well with the graphics. And I think the mood is the thing you guys succeeded with the most.

Overall I enjoyed this game very much and had an amazing time playing it. Thank you so much for this experience and good luck in the future!
Have an awesome day, and I hope to see you in the next jam!

// Isak from @liquidbrain
MachoCodes
05. Dec 2017 · 15:51 UTC
Great graphics for a game made in 72 hours
tgiant
05. Dec 2017 · 15:52 UTC
The idea of the game was solid and I can see a lot of potential with this game.
I do noticed that it needs a lot of finishing touches.
For a team with 1 third development experience you did good.
🎤 grizeldi
05. Dec 2017 · 17:44 UTC
@tgiant thanks, the game needs a lot of fixing before I would consider it finished, but that's how far we could get it with only one coder in 72 hours minus sleeping.
notpresident35
06. Dec 2017 · 15:28 UTC
It's pretty good, but needs some optimization and some fixes. For example, if you have a lot of bear traps, and one bunny comes, all of them fire at the one bunny, leaving you with no traps. Also, you can just place a ton of miners on one crystal, so it gets dull because you can just camp around the base. Also, the game starts to lag hard after you place like 20 or 30 turrets total. Good idea though!
Pixel Maniacs
06. Dec 2017 · 15:46 UTC
a bit buggy but the concept is quite good
BobbyTables
06. Dec 2017 · 16:00 UTC
This game looked like a lot of fun! I think I was hitting a bug because I never saw rabbits, but would die seemingly at random. Maybe the rabbits weren't rendering? I was running this on Windows 10.
🎤 grizeldi
06. Dec 2017 · 16:16 UTC
@notpresident35 For that target locking we'd have to implement some flagging system for which there just wasnt enough time sadly. Same goes for turrets which shoot the same target. The problem with tons of miners on one crystals was actually the next one on the todo list to fix but then we ran out of time. Level redesign to not have crystals around base was planned too. Oh well. Regarding preformance, we did no optimizations whatsoever and given that our 3D artist was doing game art for the first time, he wasn't exactly saving with the resources ;)

@pixel-mainiacs Thanks, man! Bugs are indeed very much present, but with only one coder, we were able to fix only the most critical bugs.

@bobbytables Did you hear the blink-ish sound? That's when rabbits take your crystals. Rabbits can spawn anywhere on the map, including behind, and sadly, even inside the ship. If we developed this game further, this would have to be fixed.
Traak
06. Dec 2017 · 16:48 UTC
Hey, I didn't really understand how you collect crystals, but Anyway. Music is good, and it is respectable to make a 3D game in a Jam
SG Alin
06. Dec 2017 · 16:56 UTC
Great game! good job
🎤 grizeldi
06. Dec 2017 · 16:59 UTC
@traak Then you didn't read the description ;)
Turret in slot 1 is the miner you're looking for ;)
pcmaster
06. Dec 2017 · 17:12 UTC
A very nice game! After I figured out how the turrets work, it became fun! :) Sounds were good, models were nice, particle effects too. Bunnies rule! I stopped playing after I had 100 crystals. Nicely put together a very good job for a team with minimum experience! Please make more game guys :)
Frozedon
09. Dec 2017 · 07:00 UTC
![WhatIsThis.png](///raw/92a/d/z/e592.png)

I really tried to play this. But, I couldn't tell if my turrets were actually doing anything. They would look at the rabbit and the rabbit would still steal my crystals. I came up with a strat for getting rabbits stuck on miners on cliffs.

Good job on making a 3d game with java though. Also, the rabbit model was cool. I would say it needed more feedback, like enemy health bar or possibly the range of the turrets. And I'm not sure how many crystals I need to win.

Oh and the music is pretty good, has a nice beat to it.
🎤 grizeldi
11. Dec 2017 · 19:01 UTC
@frozedon, yes the turrets would definitely need some visual feedback on what they're doing. What was most likely that was happening was that the turrets were on cooldown (after every shot, 20 seconds of cooldown). Also congratz for finding the barrier strategy :smile:, we found that one while playtesting and didn't bother to come up with a plan to counter it. You require 130 crystals to win and at that point rabbit amounts get pretty insane.
IllaBom
12. Dec 2017 · 01:33 UTC
Nice game you have here. SUPER WELL DONE!

Come check out my game if you like!
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/40/virus-detected
furet
12. Dec 2017 · 04:08 UTC
It took a few tries to mine enough to afford a sentry before losing, but once past that hurdle it became pretty fun. It felt truly strategic, how I had to make a solid sentry grid before mining more, then reinforce the grid. The environment looked nice, and placing the turrets went smoothly. I liked how the sentries sprayed the rabbits with space stuff rather than bullets or something, and they had some personality by looking around. Overall cool game, seems like a solid basis for a full game too.