World Battles by Thinkofname

[raw]
made by Thinkofname for LD 38 (COMPO)

worldbattles.png

Pretty simple game, I still struggle to get enough done during the time limit.

The game was programmed in Rust and cross-complied to javascript (asm.js although it works with wasm as well). Whilst I like Rust for large projects for quick things like this it felt like it got in the way, dynamic typing/inheritance tend to be pretty useful for this. I might try Rust a few more times to see if it gets easier as more libraries turn up.

Links

  • Web: https://thinkofname.itch.io/world-battles
  • Source code: https://gitlab.com/Thinkofname/ld38

Ratings

Overall 379th 3.053⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Fun 293th 3.105⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 319th 3⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Theme 389th 3⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 488th 2.421⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Audio 367th 2.263⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Humor 455th 1.588⭐ 19🧑‍⚖️
Given 22🗳️ 21🗨️

Feedback

Zelos
01. May 2017 · 21:35 UTC
I like the basic idea and the graphics look pretty clean, but I feel like I'm doing something wrong.

My guns don't really hit the enemies and I'm not sure what the correlation is between the placement of the guns, the clicking of the mouse and the aiming. It seems that they're just firing in random directions and I can't hit the enemies.

I would really like the idea if it worked a bit better though. It reminds me very much of Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime with the placement of the guns and all.
TacomaBert
01. May 2017 · 21:38 UTC
Unable to get game to work in Safari on Mac OS 10.10.5. Was able to get it to work in Firefox. Interesting game. Did not quite understand the objective at first, but once I started flying, kind of figured it out. It would have been nice to know I could place more guns around what ended up being a ship. When I figured it out, I couldn't find a safe place to stop flying and add more guns. When I did, I was swarmed and found it really hard to land on the pilot seat to press E. Got some good bones, with some tweaking and better graphics this could be a lot of fun.

Would love for you to check out our entry in the Jam:

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/38/super-natural-defense
geeitsomelaldy
01. May 2017 · 21:55 UTC
Eventually got to a point where I didn't have enough time between spawns to put down all my guns, and my planet was too big to even run away before I got bum-rushed from all sides :D
Izunah
01. May 2017 · 22:41 UTC
I like this idea a lot, I hope that you choose to flush it out more in the future. I played for a little bit and after the first wave felt like I could kill anything that came my way. I only died because me and 2 other planets got stuck together, then the rest swarmed and destroyed me. I would have liked to see some variety in the weapons, and maybe a few weaker planets in the early waves to ease you into it; but I had fun regardless.
Gurbx
02. May 2017 · 13:06 UTC
Fun game! Like others have pointed out, a greater variety of weapons would be nice. I played it by putting all my guns on one side and then traveled in the other direction while shooting at the enemies chasing me. It kind of felt like cheesing it, as it was easy to dodge their bullets, and in that way hard to loose. So maybe some boundaries to the world or something that makes this way of playing it harder, and more variety to weapons would be cool!
Khorm
02. May 2017 · 17:57 UTC
Pretty cool shooter that plays really well, I really like the upgrading aspect I just wish maybe there was another weapon or something to get some strategy over placement etc, theres really quite alot of potential here.
micahcowan
03. May 2017 · 07:55 UTC
Surprisingly fun for such a simple concept. The "hop out of your seat and place your guns" bit has a mild "Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime" feel (but fortunate that you don't have to go and individually man the guns!

I like thta I have to anticipate their future location and adjust accordingly with the gun aim, and that I can often hang out in their blind side (where they have no guns), and wail at them from there! ^_^

Congratulations on making such a fun game by yourself in only 48 hours! And thank you for having played my game as well. :)
blaster391
11. May 2017 · 12:53 UTC
Very simple but quite addictive, I liked how you could have different strategies, like placing all your guns on one side and trying to manuevour yourself so that all the enemies are in that direction. I would love to see things added to this, maybe additional types of weapons, shields and extra features that would help you to customise your world more.
JulianMH
11. May 2017 · 13:04 UTC
Nice Game. Very interesting idea.
I love the smooth animations and the basic game mechanics.

Some gun and ship upgrates would be fun.
For some reason the AI never managed to hit me, so the game was a bit too easy. i guess that is a glitch?
The guns feel very unresponsive, maybe you could find a way to show the player why and when the guns will shoot in a direction. (Maybe recharge sound effects, indicators where a gun is aiming)
nekoballs
11. May 2017 · 18:55 UTC
Great mechanics! Building stuff and destroying things with it is fun! Would love to have seen upgrades and other buildings but that's probably a bit overkill for 48 hours. Great game!
Shamps
11. May 2017 · 19:29 UTC
I like the idea of "setting up" guns before a battle, although it's very hard to plan ahead when the enemies are so swift and mobile! A reduction in difficulty at the beginning would be so helpful, just so I can get used to the controls. The tutorial faded away too quickly so I couldn't remember all the buttons.
NedMakesGames
11. May 2017 · 22:10 UTC
I liked the idea of placing the guns, but it seems unintuitive how they shoot, or how the game decides which gun will fire when I click. I never really got the pattern. With some work I think you have a good idea here. Good job!
Skosnowich
11. May 2017 · 22:27 UTC
Pretty cool game, it is fun to play. The need to place the guns aforehead is a nice strategic aspect. I think this game could also be a pretty nice multiplayer title. :)
Eli Delventhal
12. May 2017 · 21:21 UTC
I really like the idea of this game. The building around the planet and all that is really cool, and it felt like it took the cooler parts of tower defense and made it more interactive (one of my frequent complaints of conventional tower defense is the build and wait). However, I felt that the actual shooting parts lasted too long and wasn't particularly exciting. The building is the shining star here, but is maybe 10% of total time spent with the game. Tuning that balance would really help. And it's cool you made this in Rust!
makiki99
14. May 2017 · 10:57 UTC
Fun game and great idea for a game. It felt problematic to me that I had more gun parts than I could ever use.
Antti Haavikko
15. May 2017 · 14:10 UTC
Very nice! Simple visuals but they work. Bullets (both enemy and player) need to be bigger. A bit more details on the background would make it easier to notice the movements.

In my opinion, everything has too much health and the timer between waves is unnecessary.

Had to give up at this point:

![Screen Shot 2017-05-15 at 17.01.24.png](///raw/1e4/3/z/459a.png)

The last enemy of a wave crashed into me and I couldn't move or damage it anymore. Well, I didn't have much room to plant any guns anyway especially since just having all the guns in one quadrant and keeping your enemies on that side seems to be the best strategy.