Crux Swarm by MarkoPoloDev
About
Crux Swarm is a metroidvania tower defense game. Activate cores to gain new abilities. Defend the cores from enemies or you'll lose your abilities - and your only chance to escape.
Media
https://www.twitch.tv/markopolodev (ldjam41 vods here)
https://twitter.com/markopolodev
Development Timelapse
https://youtu.be/q9Y3624VRsY
Changelog
I've made some bug fixes and minor improvements to the game. The git commits should be pretty clear if you'd like to verify them :thumbsup:
- 0.2
- added hint about falling faster using the down button
- fixed an awful awful awful bug that soft-locked the game if you started to charge a core, stopped charging that core, and then that core was reduced to empty by enemies. The game treated this situation as a de-activation even though the core wasn't activated.
- 0.1
- Added Arrow Key support!
- removed a bunch of unused lossless audio files - cut the download size to roughly 1/3 the original :smile:
- fixed ui alignment issue where the tower symbols didn't line up with their corresponding numbers
- moved core labels so they didn't overlap terrain
- fixed a bug where sometimes two tower symbols appeared to be selected
- reorganized player movement code (no functional changes, purely for my own sanity)
- fixed a bug where towers still had the explosion buff when starting a new game after finishing the game
- lots of minor hints have been tweaked (trackpad discouragement, clarity on cursor-as-crosshairs, etc.)
- jump overrides the "down" key, so you'll always rise when holding up (assuming you're not shooting)
- buffed aoe slow towers since they were not very helpful previously
- removed "too many towers" debugging message that was spamming the console :smile:
Tools & Stuff
Ratings
| Overall | 39th | 4.012⭐ | 43🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 41th | 3.951⭐ | 43🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 128th | 3.768⭐ | 43🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 282th | 3.732⭐ | 43🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 18th | 4.378⭐ | 43🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 15th | 4.115⭐ | 41🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 346th | 2.643⭐ | 37🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 24th | 3.988⭐ | 43🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 46🗳️ | 37🗨️ |
Fun and challenging - only made it to 5 cores. Didn't see the theme's combination of genres, but enjoyable non the less.
I did experience a weird issue where after playing for a while, I got very slow. It did not effect my firing, just my movement.
Great job.
> Didn’t see the theme’s combination of genres
My reasoning is
* metroidvania -> explore, find powerups
* tower defense -> defend from waves of enemies using towers
I struggled a lot at the beginning trying to come up with something, best I could do =\
@James Dunlap
> would have been nice to know what my limit was on each kind of weapon and how many I had so that I would know when placing one would erase one I already had
Yeah, definitely something I would add. I counted on players trying to place as many as possible as soon as they found one, but apparently only I do that :D
> I did experience a weird issue where after playing for a while, I got very slow
Full disclosure, I've not played it for more than like 10 minutes straight, so there could easily be some weird lag issues. Sorry about that :(
@JavaSaurus @Nerzal @Angelbait Thanks! :D
I like the facts that shots sounds are soft, and the dancing things is a nice touch.
The level was a bit too "vertical" to my taste. It was cool to go up, less cool to go down (also I don't have a qwerty keyboard so I appreciate when there are also arrow keys in addition)
I didn't find a way to erase a turret other than to spam, but that would erase other well placed turrets. The more you can strategize the better !
I feel this respects the theme well, and the idea could be built upon.
Good job :)
Anyways, I think what you made for this jam is really great! Congratulations on making a game in 48 hours!
> I appreciate arrow keys
Sorry about that, I hadn't even thought of non-qwerty layouts :slight_frown:
> I didn’t find a way to erase a turret
Yeah, there's not a way currently :\ I think it would be better to have an easy-to-see "turret inventory" and then when the player hits the limit prevent them from placing new turrets until they've deconstructed old ones. Sort of force them to go hunting for unnecessary resources they can repurpose.
> Good job :)
Thanks! :smile:
@Johnny Turbo
> unique mood, good use of a simple color palette
I wasn't sure if it would push people away, glad it appeals :D
> tower limit
Yeah, similar to above, tower usage wasn't totally clear; I've also had people complain about not being able to find the cores they were losing, so I think some kind of map or directional guidance might also be in order.
> movement bug: not able to move up
I've heard a few people mention movement issues, I'll see if I can hunt it down.
Thanks for the feedback!
@lautregars
> I personally had fun
Perfect, that's what I was going for :smile: Thanks for playing!
It took me a little bit to find tower three for some reason lol. I was able to find the others and then spent a good few minutes looking for that one.
So I guess it's like a lot of the games I've played for LD: great work, just needs a bit of polishing (which always take about ten times as long as you expect it will).
Sadly my laptop's audio doesnt work at all so I didnt have a chance to enjoy the music element, which Im sure would have been lit.
It's too bad about the audio glitches that didn't let me see the ending, but that's okay! I still had lots of fun and was very engrossed in it.
:heart: What I loved
* I felt that you did a really good job at creating a unique mood
* Smooth gameplay, fantastic visuals & such nicely polished!!!
* That color palette though
* Excellent music
:thinking: My Thoughts
* No azerty :confused: don’t really like arrows
* Was a little to hard / vertical at times
* kickback on the shooting was epic
Loved it! I’d love for you to review my submission as well.
## https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/keyboard-warrior
I also think the introduction with the texts is well done. I really enjoyed playing.
Great job!