Too aggressive colors, but i like this game.
Interesting idea.

I was pretty confused to start as to what the goal was. Once I got the hang of it, my enjoyment really increased. The game was very hard, I never managed to save the creator. My suggestion would be to have more of the orbs to pickup and maybe give them a bit of a magnetic pull when you get in close. I spent a lot of time hunting for orbs which never came or chasing them only to watch them float away. Increasing the player speed or decreasing the speed of the orbs might help.

The colour is a bit too intense for me. The mechanic is straight forward and everything works smoothly. Congrats!

Yeah, colors are really aggressive. But the idea with 3 layers is nice. I don't know, why does my speed decreases significantly when I am close to the edge? It's hard to collect spheres if they are there.

Thank you all for your feedback!

@brian-wurster, yes, unfortunately, I did not have time to add a description of the goal into the game, and I indicated the goal only in the description of the game. I like your thought about the magnetic pull.

@interpol, yes, your speed decreases when you approach the level boundaries, but the speed of sharps and spheres is constant in every point. I tried to limit the movement along the boundaries of the level, since more enemies are concentrated in the center.

A few pretty unique things I really enjoyed:

* slowing down while close to the edge. Nice touch, brings realism.
* "we must go deeper" thing

Overall a really nice game. Felt like what I was doing mattered, like I really wanted to be the cure.

I didn't have problems with the colors, but was confused about what to do in the start because wasn't seeing any spheres and didn't get the HP system before a few deaths. Once I saw the first circles and understood the layers system, started to think it's a great idea. The basic idea is straightforward: avoid enemies, don't fall in holes, collect spheres, but the layer system made it more interesting and added...dephth? XD

The thing is, after you get used to the game you just don't die anymore. Is it possible to win emptying all three bars? The slow down at the borders was a bit annoying, but the overall gameplay was smooth and I didn't catch any bugs.

The art is also nice. Very good work.=]

Well, that was pretty good. You actually touched upon a similar topic to my team heh.

I lost both play throughs I did. The first one quite fast, the second one I was battling the second and 3rd stages for about 15 minutes It was pretty gruelling. And just as I got the second one patched the 3rd killed me. A touch frustrating.

The graphics though simple worked for me. Also the colours I felt were actually pretty spot on for the feel I THINK you were going for. That SAID the bar on the right got me hit more than I needed to be, that whole bar could probably have been considerably thinner and served its purpose - unless it making play mote difficult to the right was actually intentional.

The soundtrack I though worked really well. It had a sense of urgency, which could maybe have been built on a touch more by the narrative - I didn't even realise you were slowly losing if you weren't getting orbs OR hit till half way through my second play.

Theme... I honestly didn't really pick up on any game mechanics that supported the theme specifically. I did wonder at one point if the number of sharps were actually increasing slowly based on the number of orbs I'd collected but I didn't come to any conclusion on that. There were marginally more sharps the deeper you went it seemed and yep, that did make it worse.

Over all I enjoyed it BUT by the second death I was hungering for something to mix up the mechanics a little. Whether it be a different kind of sharp, a slightly different task to go from repairing the holes to curing the sharps, I dunno. BUT - ALL that said - that you got all this done by yourself? Nice achievement dude, VERY nice. :)

Thanks for playing and your comments, guys!

@mess110, this is exactly what i wanted! :smiley:

@felipe-guimaraes, yes, you win when all three bars are empty. And this is possible. I tried to design difficulty in such way, that you have to decrease all three holes simultaneously and move between layers continuously. When you close one hole, enemies become faster and the penalty at a collision with them becomes larger.

@juri, thanks a lot for such a detailed comment!

Yes, maybe the interface looks too cumbersome. I wanted to reduce the player's view to the square, since the level itself is square.

Concerning the theme, I would put it this way: "Bad things grow in your world, and with careless actions you increase their growth". Probably, this is not quite clear about the theme, but it feels close, as for me.

I planned to add different kinds of sharps and abilities for the player, but unfortunately there was not enough time for this.

Music suited the game perfectly. Didn't have any problem with colors either, depth effect was clear to read.

Moving up/down is not responsive enough, and a low-res/high-latency radar would help being less frustrated when seeking orbs. Nice game and atmosphere overall!

Guys please take a look at my game
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/40/i-am-done-here

@agulev @brian-wurster @interpol @juri @mess110 @beuc

nice control. need more text for progress information.

Good balance of mechanics, good music and sound effects.

My issues:

* It was too hard to find spheres. Very frustrating to just wander and see nothing. Some indicators at the screen edges would have helped a lot.
* Invisible walls
* Number of enemies felt unfair compared to number of spheres

Simple concept, but well executed. I liked the visuals, and liked how you went for a theme and stuck to it. I think some indication of what level you are on and the direction of the nearest spere would be good QoL enhancements, sometimes it was a bit frustrating, especially when you are trying to balance each level.

Good Entry!

I really like the depth idea, I have not seen that in a top-down shooter before but it really works well. I did find the graphics a bit garish but given the setting, of course there's going to be a lot of red. The UI was a bit ugly though, it at least needs a nicer font but more visually appealing "health" bars would be good as well. You could really make it look like it was all taking place under a microscope to give it a cohesive aesthetic.

Also, an indicator of which depth you're in would be nice, as they do all look similar (but maybe that's supposed to be part of the challenge?). The graphics were all very simple shapes but come together with the music to create a nice mood.

There is a bug in the HTML5 version that if you hold left-click too long, movement just follows the mouse instead of having to click - however, it actually feels nice to control it that way, much smoother.

Overall, I really liked the depth mechanic and this held my attention for longer than I thought it might. It could use some polish though. I didn't end up winning, so I'm not sure if there is any end content that I missed.

Thanks for your feedback, people! It's really important to know what you think about the game.

@steve-johnson, this is the most frequent comment about frustration in the search for spheres, and I agree, it is really need to add some markers. Concerning the invisible walls, did you mean the boundaries of the level? I tried to denote them with a darker color and slowing down the speed of moving as you approach them. And I think if there were as many spheres as there were enemies, it would be too easy to close holes.

@ciaranw, yes, I will definitely add the indication of what layer you are on. I had this thought, but I forgot it :slight_smile:

@kodiqi, maybe you right about the interface font, but it's not too easy to find the right font for this strange world. But I'll try! And yes, the "health" bars look rather clumsy, I should work on them. I did not plan that players will control the character simply by holding left click :smile: I think this will be fixed.

Great mechanics! Some clear feedback when you switch layers or what layer you are on would be nice.

Music is catchy, even if the loop is a bit abrupt. Moving up in layers is a bit of a gamble since you only see what's below you (right?).

@jordgubben, actually, the enemies at the above level become transparent and can be seen. But, probably, it is difficult to understand what enemies are under you, and which ones are above you.