littleBLASTplanet by gamepopper
Description
2-Bit Run 'n Gunner where you defend (and escape) tiny planets from rockets and robots. Watch out for spikes!
Developed using HaxeFlixel, with graphics from Photoshop and Piskel, music using the Abundent Music Generator and sound effects using BFXR, ChipTone and Audacity.
Controls
Left / Right - Move
Left / Right / Up / Down - Aim
Z - Shoot
X - Jump
POST JAM: Gamepad Support added. Use D-Pad/Left Stick to Move/Aim, A to Shoot, B to Jump, Right Shoulder to Restart and Start to return to Menu.
Goal
Last as long as possible. Once you spend 30 seconds on a planet, the self-destruct will begin and you must reach the ESCAPE zone at the bottom of the planet to teleport to the next one.
Playable on Windows and Web/HTML5


PERFORMANCE WARNING
If the web build appears laggy, I'm aware of it and there is not much I can do other than suggest you download the windows build. Sorry. :(
Source Code
Social Media
Ratings
| Overall | 238th | 3.4⭐ | 57🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 180th | 3.4⭐ | 57🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 393th | 2.764⭐ | 57🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 59th | 4⭐ | 57🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 227th | 3.4⭐ | 57🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 314th | 2.341⭐ | 46🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 329th | 2.94⭐ | 52🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 63🗳️ | 61🗨️ |
I'll try it out in a couple of hours when I make myself some time :D
Rated!
I also found the millisecond part of the counter a bit distracting and unnecessary.
The bullets not being attracted to the planet is kind of a pain, since you have to be right next to the enemies on the ground to hit them. Also, it is pretty hard to predict where the ground enemies will fall.
But all of those points are minor, balancing things. I played this game for ages (it took me a long time to survive 30 seconds - I think the initial difficulty needs some tweaking ;). It's got potential to be really fun.
Also, I kind of liked the "follow" camera more than the static - the bullets look really cool as you move around. Anyhoo, great job!
Graphics is good for such fast gameplay - it is very clear what happens on screen.
Plain and simple: awesome. Love that style.
### Music
Fits the graphic really well. I'm suprised by the music generator - I actually thought about using it too but had no time in the end.
### Gameplay
Theoretically gameplay would be fine. I'd like to especially mention controlling the character feels really polished! But put in praxis there are some thinks that could be improved on easily and allow for much more fun. I don't know if it's a web version thing but it kinda feels like the hitboxes are too big. I always feels like I'm running into the aliens before I should've (I get that I'm not actually supposed to run into the aliens - just one thing I quickly realized). Another thing is that the window size for me is too small. Again this could be a problem with the web version - I don't know. It gets really really annoying when those bouncy enemies come and you can't really see where they are jumping. Also while talking about those bouncy fuckers: one of the jumped right in my face after spawn... Not nice!
But even though that sounded quite negative - just trying to leave some constructive criticism - the game really comes together nice. The controls and graphics feel polished and music and sound effects fit. I still think it's an awesome game :)
I did discover that holding down the shoot button makes the game much more easier. At the same time, though, it sort of falls into the other extreme: too easy. It looked like I would kill airborne enemies before they're even spawned. I'm not really sure that was intended, and the fact that there doesn't seem to be a middle ground between these two difficulty dampers the experience.
I noticed the lag, but it didn't really get in the way. Unfortunately, I can't play the Windows version.
Sound was nice, and it seems they were original(?)(judging by the post), so confused as to why you opted out of audio.
Overall a solid and simple game, just wish it was more forgiving
One major suggestion I have is to consider having the bullets you shoot curve around the planet in the same trajectory you walk. It feels especially strange when I'm walking in the direction of an enemy and shooting, but my bullets are flying off into outer space, because that just happens to be the direction I'm facing on the circle.
Although your playing field is a circle, intuitively for the player (or at least for me), the 4 directions of shooting are up, down, left, and right. When I shoot left at an enemy on my left, and it doesn't die, it creates a dissonance that can quickly lead to confusion or frustration.
I hope you have plans to work on this more in the future! :)
1. Having the bullets curve around the planet instead of straight on: Yeah this one is pretty common. I did think about having it this way, but I felt it would be better to do the latter because it made shooting objects in the sky much easier. With enemies on the ground you can walk up to them and fire them easily, but with air based enemies you either have to jump and shoot or go underneath and aim upwards. I can see that not everyone sees this advantage and prefer a more realistic behaviour so worth taking note.
2. Enemies falling right on top of the player: Another common complaint, and I treated it as a bug in the last remaining hours. I attempted to fix it by having enemies drop on the other side of the planet from the player, yet somehow that didn't work. When I tried to fix it post-jam, enemies were STILL dropping onto the player. It's a bit wierd.
3. The game is hard: Yeah that seems to be a recurring issue in all of the games I make. I tried to make sure that the initial planet had as few enemies as possible, which made it possible too reach the first planet with ease, yet I see streams where the player keeps dying. Problem is I feel if I leave too few enemies, the game will get boring quickly since it's designed where you need to last at least 30 seconds on each planet.
4. Why can't I vote on audio: I thought about it, but because the music is procedurally generated, and not exactly what I was intending the music to be, I didn't feel it's worth being rated on it.
I recommend adding a bit of particle effects when killing enemies, to make it even more fun.
I feel like the only thing this game really needs is to make the progression through the level more obvious to the player; some combination of enemies getting tougher or more frequent towards the end of the level, a song that is the exact length of the level, something that makes it _feel_ like you're progressing. Obviously those are hard targets to hit in a game jam, especially when you're in the Compo, but for a post-jam expansion I'd try to increase that sense of progression within the level. Even a countdown timer would help (and not just a count-up timer).
For difficulty concerns, earlier levels could just be _shorter_, to combat the possibility of being bored early on.
For the curving bullets, I'd actually suggest having two guns would add some neat strategy to the game. One would act as the current gun acts, the other would be affected by gravity. You'd have both options available, but maybe there's a split second animation frame to switch weapons, or just the fire rate is for either weapon, combined, so you can't just spam them both simultaneously at all times. Something like that.
kinda feels like a spectrum game, nice job ^^
Don't really have much criticism, everything worked really well and the game was overall fun. Covered a good scope for a Ludum Dare entry, not too complex an idea executed brilliantly.
Only thing I could complain about is the size of the screen, since all the enemies fell from the sky, it would have been nice to have a bit more warning of this.
As said before maybe the screen being a bit bigger would be better, but may take away a bit of the difficulty.
That said my only big hangup on this game was that some of the enemies would just hurtle out of space and smash you in the head. No chance to react or to avoid the enemy. Perhaps if they were just a smidge slower that would help.
Otherwise not bad. Simple but it fits the jam theme in a very direct a literal way.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shr5iGdQs3M
Although it's much too dificult for me and I loose in seconds (longest run was 11 seconds maybe?). I think the most awkward thing is getting used to the controls (it's never straighforward up, left or right)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSWOUTubUBM
https://youtu.be/2E_VB598v2c
I had a bit problems with key-mapping (it didn't suit me - but that is often personal preference, so it is somewhat hard to satisfy everyone).
Congratulations on making the game and keep up the good work.
As for possible improvements, I had a bit of trouble determining when or why the planet would explode (I wasn't sure if the square guys could hurt it, or they were just chasing me), and in some cases enemies would spawn right next to the player, resulting in an insta-kill. Perhaps adding some anticipation could be useful, in case altering the spawn logic is difficult.
The automatically generated music sounded nice, too (at least, more fitting than other generators).
And kudos for using Haxeflixel! Great job! :smiley: