My Life is Cactus by Aqshay

[raw]
made by Aqshay for LD 44 (JAM)

GOAL : Plant your own cactus and upgrade them to survive from the zombies.

3 primary upgrades of cactus :

  • Heal : to regenerate your character.

  • Attack : to shoot zombies.

  • Collect : to give more heal when collecting.

Controls :

  • MOVE : WASD, ZQSD or left joystick.

  • Plant or Collect : left clic or left trigger.

  • Upgrade : right clic or right trigger.

  • Choose upgrade : WASD, ZQSD or ABXY.

Credits :

Jules Persch (Aqshay) : Game Programmer.

Axel Denjean (MrBrooms) : Game Designer.

Corentin Lange : Musician & Sound Designer.

Game make with Unreal Engine 4. We don't make the art, we used free assets given by Epic Games and Zombie of Mixamo.

Update is here !!! 05/01/2019.

Patch note:

fix the time score at the end of a game, fix the cactus cost bug that remove too much life, 'A' now move the player to the left, fix harvest stock and time update​, fix some UI and translation, !balance the game!

Ratings

Given 37🗳️ 34🗨️

Feedback

shrinjoy_fox
30. Apr 2019 · 11:59 UTC
neat attempt man,almost like plant vs zombies,do check our game here(https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/44/life-a-coin) we would love to hear your opinion
KreGames
30. Apr 2019 · 12:04 UTC
The music is awesome. The game is fun, but I guess something went wrong, because I only can move to the right. Pressed A or D I moved to the right. With controllers it works fine. Great game, nice job!
Mia Devs
30. Apr 2019 · 12:05 UTC
Good Game
Apace
30. Apr 2019 · 12:09 UTC
Took a while to figure out how it works, but then I wanted to try to get better. Unfortunately it seemed really difficult, the damage and health boost seem to weak at the beginning and to get enough life for more cacti / upgrades takes so long that the whole place is swarmed with zombies.

I like how you used the different colors on the cacti to mark different cactus types.

Also, the move left key (a) seemed to move to the right, and I was unable to move to the left, which was a bit annoying.

But overall I liked it :)
mimusangel
30. Apr 2019 · 12:16 UTC
The game is fun, but if you surround yourself with cactus it becomes very easy
🎤 Aqshay
30. Apr 2019 · 12:20 UTC
Thx a lot for the comments, i will fix this bug this evening (GMT)!
-banzi
01. May 2019 · 11:44 UTC
Cannot move using A. The game looks visually good, the music is awesome. Good job.
Dev Dennis
01. May 2019 · 11:45 UTC
Nice mood and music. I didn't understand the gameplay and it seemed buggy. I tried to upgrade my plants but the player just went left. I had no idea I could move untill I just did it. Some sort of tutorial would be awesome.
Bentekiller
01. May 2019 · 11:51 UTC
I liked the concept, a pretty god tower defence game, though after the first upgrade I didn't knew what the new upgrades did because the names didn't seem to be in English, so felt a bid lost. Also a exit button would be appreciated same with a fix of the movement, but overall a good game.
MrBrooms
01. May 2019 · 12:55 UTC
We are correcting all bugs ! Released is coming soon ;) We know for A but we are french so we didn't try it because we used Q :P you can use Q too ;)
MrBrooms
01. May 2019 · 12:55 UTC
And thx for the musician :)
Tuomo
01. May 2019 · 13:31 UTC
Note even before playing: that is a one huge file for a jam game. Is all that necessary?

I like the idea of the first person tower defense kinda game. I wish that you’d somehow communicated and taught me in-game more on what I’m supposed to do. Took me while to figure out. Structuring the zombies in a wave system or spawning them in recognizable patterns would have helped. It all feels so random, and unnecessary difficult as a zombie would suddenly appear behind me.

I also encountered some (not game breaking but annoying) bugs: I could strife only right for some reason and sometimes the cactus upgrade mechanic would not work.
MrsTari
01. May 2019 · 18:11 UTC
i really like this concept - the control "A" doesnt work. (WASD), that is a little bit annoying. The sound is nice. The graphic fits. a little bit unbalanced and bugging. i want to test it again. :hearts:
MrBrooms
01. May 2019 · 21:53 UTC
@tuomo @apace @banzi @mrstari @mia-devs @kregames @shrinjoy-fox @mimusangel @bentekiller @dev-dennis WE ARE HAPPY TO UPLOAD THE GAME YOU WANTED (without bug) ;)

Thanks to you for testing and commenting our project, hope you'll enjoy it and hope to read your comments soon :hearts: .
JofersGames
01. May 2019 · 22:02 UTC
This looks and sounds lovely :)

Would love to see it fleshed out into a bigger game :D

Also what are your twitters so we can follow you? :)
MrBrooms
02. May 2019 · 07:40 UTC
Twitters :

Game Designer : Axel Denjean (@MrBr00ms)

Game Programmer : Aqshay (@Aqshy33)
Zesix
03. May 2019 · 21:58 UTC
Cute entry. Great use of free assets!
Retti01
03. May 2019 · 22:09 UTC
This has a great consept and it also sounds good. I like it.
sparkysam5
03. May 2019 · 22:23 UTC
I feel as if this game needs to have more game balance at the moment it is a bit impossible for me at least.
angiemon
03. May 2019 · 23:08 UTC
*My favourite entry so far*, easily played it half an hour. I LOVED it! Love tower defence.
It's like a 3D PvZ, but totally legit, same way as Terraria is legit although there's "already" Minecraft.
I'd seriously consider polishing that and putting it on steam for a few bucks if you want to.
Grafics were beautiful. Music was fantastic and fitting. Level Design, as in the assets was pretty. The game felt very balanced and I liked that you had to wait for upgrades and had to estimate if you can make it in that time.

What I would definitly polish if you even want to:
*Add Numbers to health bar.* That was also the only thing bugging me right now when playing. I have no idea how much 300, 400 oder 600 is and wether I have enough or not.
*add a "tutorial stage"* where you explain everything and the part of the UI lights up, flies into the screen, squash/stretch animation, whatever; depending on how bored your artist is lol
edit: just saw you didn't use an artist, well, look for an artist ^^ or buy every asset, artist may be better in the long run though.
What I think might be cool as well is if you add a *round map* with yourself in the center (like in the witcher), so you get a feel how the game progresses, with a lot of red dots coming closer etc (I realized pretty late that I shouldnt just invest in damage haha)

Really a great game, you can be proud of yourselves :)
VuvuzuellaInc
03. May 2019 · 23:55 UTC
Wow, we spent 30 minutes playing this game! Love graphics, audio a bit repetitiv but fit at all !
Loved spent my time on this, really good job!
snowdozer
04. May 2019 · 04:20 UTC
this game was quite fun! if a little unpolished. i really liked the game's audio and visual aspects, they brought out a mixture of sillyness and grimness that perfectly matches the game's circumstance. the game is really buggy; i wasn't able to strafe left, some of the text is left in french, zombies would attack cacti but not destroy them, a few zombies kept walking into the invisible walls at the edge of the map, healing cacti didn't seem to heal, text would overlap awkwardly in some places, and sometimes upgrading a cactus would instantly kill you (though that may have just been the ninja zombies). but i do love the first person tower defense concept as a whole. figuring out an optimal way to survive was a lot of fun; there were just enough options to provide flexible strategies without feeling too overwhelming. all in all, a solid game! i'd love to see it once the polished version is out.
MrBrooms
04. May 2019 · 09:31 UTC
@snowdozer there is an update in legit time of the 48h left to polish : Windows - Game Update https://mrbrooms.itch.io/my-life-is-cactus

So you can play this game and there are just zombies blocked on the map and cactus (but they are not attacking them, they are just blocked) :)
MrBrooms
04. May 2019 · 09:37 UTC
@sparkysam5 @angiemon @vuvuzuellainc We will polish the game as soon as possible and may try to put it on steam. But as you said we need graphism and a long time to test to fix the balance.

Thank you for feedbacks :heart:
Beastiebeastie
04. May 2019 · 17:31 UTC
Great interpretation of the theme, graphics, audio and fun to play. Controls are simple once you get the hang of them and I enjoyed the concept a lot. My only problem was that planting cacti and upgrading them took so much time and life force it was actually just easier to run away from the zombies than fight them. Still a great, fun entry!
Mario Marinelli
05. May 2019 · 09:10 UTC
Nice Game and best Name ever :D