Wired Network by Behenate
Hi!
This is my compo entry! I think it was my most sterssful jam yet. I thought I won't make it, but suprise! I made it perfectly on time! I hope you like my game. Sadly it is really unpolished, I already know a few bugs, which I will have to fix tomorrow, because today I am compleatly exhausted. I havent added any tutorial, so read instructions below :)
Instructions
WSAD - Move
LMB - Shoot
1,2,3 - Change Guns color - Your guns color has to be the same as enemy in order to kill him.
Escape - Uncap the mouse cursor
Don't let the orange wall behind you get you. It was supposed to be part of the plot, where you had to run away form a firewall.
Retro Mode doesn't work in WebGL, thats pretty bad, because i really like it. It works in PC version, though.
Retro mode screenshot :
Regular screenshot :
I have Opt-Outed Audio, because my game has only some basic, incomplete sound effects, so please don't take them into account when judging.
Version 0.0.2
- You can't fall off map and keep falling forever now.
- Survival mode spawn points are now marked with particle system, so you know where enemies are coming from.
- Fixed bugged bullet trail particles color.
- Enemies dont spawn particles while shooting now. It makes survival little less chaotic.
- Windows version of the game now looks much better on Ultra (8x multi sampling)
- WebGL version looks worse now, but runs much better.
- Mouse capping now works much better and should auto un-cap in non-playable levels
- Now Survival Mode has ending (when there are no waves left to spawn it just loads "StoryComplete" scene, which was made during LD)
- Added Cover image into startup "cutscene"(the one with unity logo) and as Icon in Windows version.
- Removed "Retro Mode" button, which did nothing and was there just for development purposes, but I forgot to delete it.
- Minor code optimization
Plans for version 0.0.3 : - Adding Linux and MacOS builds. - Creating special menu scene without "Quit" and "Retro Mode" buttons in WebGl builds. They do nothing now. - Fixing health spawning in Survival mode, which I broke in update 0.0.2 (propably that minor code optimization xD)
Ratings
| Overall | 339th | 3.381⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 393th | 3.167⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 474th | 2.881⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 659th | 2.262⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 88th | 4⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 362th | 3.025⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 24🗳️ | 19🗨️ |
I don't have much experience in this, so I hardcoded most of the stuff, but I felt so bad for hardcoding and writing super - inefficient code, which took me way too long, that I didn't really have any energy for level designing.
To be honest next Ludum Dare I will try to make Level Design just after base mechanics and graphics, so I have some creativity and energy left for it :)
I might relase post Ludum Dare version with more levels ( that's my first LD game that I feel has some potential to become nice free and short browser game). Don't even remind me of the audio :P I know it is really bad too, but I hate making audio! I mean, programming Audio in unity is pretty easy, but creating it is a nightmare! Especially music.
Of course Ludum Dare version has a lot of bugs too (enemy bullets smoke effect changes color when other enemy shoots because of shared material) or you can fall off the map and you have to restart the game. Also the gun particles are little to intense and make it very easy to lose track of the enemy because they cover your view.
Also also survival mode difficulty curve is way too steep and created manually, so you can actually finish all 16 waves (which is pretty much inpossible, but still) and have nothing to do. I would like to automate the process.
It took me >20 tries to get past first level and I was very sad about that.
If the game is hard on purpose, well done. If not, consider being a bit more forgiving to the player.
I only tried story mode.
I have some feedback on the controls:
Jump was too unresponsive and more than often I fell instead of jumping. Maybe some tweaks to the player collision box would make it feel a bit more fair.
The mouse sensitvity was waaaaay too fast, often when trying to aim instead I turned 180 degrees or just fell to my death because running in the wrong direction. Maybe add a setting for or decrease the mouse sensitivity.
Using 1-2-3 to switching gun color was not nice, I was too busy running from a burning wall here! ;) I just spamed 1-2-3-1-2-3-1-2-3 and just kept firing while mid air hoping to kill the enemy in my way. If you wanna keep the color thing going maybe let the player change colors with the mouse wheel?
I liked the look of the game and the idea of being stressed out by a burning wall of death chasing you while doing precision jumping and shooting, but the controls kinda ruined it for me.
Still, well done!
The difficulty curve of story mode is really high. The first two levels are super easy, (at least once I figured out the mouse thing), but the third one is so hard that I could not even get to the purple hammer. I always was either killed by the enemies or by the orange wall.
One thing that's a bit strange about the game's graphics is that there is still occlusion culling, which is somewhat counter to how one would expect wireframe graphics to appear. However, I suppose this might be for the best, because seeing everything on screen at once would probably be too difficult. But maybe the terrain shouldn't have occlusion culling? I don't know. I guess I would just suggest perhaps looking into twiddling with the graphics, because I think it might be possible to get a pretty unique and cool look, which I guess this game already has.
My other note on graphics is that the arms on the character look a bit out of place or otherwise strange.
I do think that this game looks pretty good as it currently is. And I don't just mean graphics -- I mean that all of the stuff that already exists (environment hazards, etc) seems to work, and I think that this could be made into a pretty good platforming game.
I haven't added any new features. I just made quite a lot of bug fixes, but highlighted all of them.
Changing weapons with 1 2 3 kinda took away from the immersion on the game, it made me think of which to press, which makes it even harder for someone who already has difficulty controlling the character. Maybe cycling weapons with a single key, or mouse wheel would fit better.
The game had an amazing look, the graphics and particles and the whole retro feel really appeased me (I love retro). You're only missing a retro synthwave background track and you're good to go with the whole package! Congratulations!
Story mode was my favorite, but I found it hard to judge how far the firewall is behind me, some kind of indicator would be cool.
I think you sometimes introduced new elements to quickly, try to focus on one element at a time and then variations of that, then new elements, then combinations. E.g.
1. run to target
2. platforms
3. varied spacing
4. no platforms, but a saw
5. saws on platforms
6. rotated saws on platforms
7. easy platforms and a hammer
8. platforms and multiple hammers
9. saws and hammers
10. saws and platforms and hammers
(I did not include enemies, you can weave them in there as a separate element) Look to mario games or donkey kong country games for excellent examples of these.
I found the platforming tricky, but got used to it. I think I prefer 3rd person for platforming, so I see where the characters feet are. Also a nifty trick to reduce the frustrating "falling of when wanting to jump": allow the character to jump 1 or 2 frames after they drop off a platform, again nintendo does this a lot.