Swirling Infestation by Coda Highland
Ludum Dare 42
Theme: Running Out of Space
Team: Adam Higerd
Swirling Infestation
Fight back against the curse that is spiraling into the town! It is a dark magic, contagious, spreading to other victims with no more than a touch.
You are the town's only hope, a sorceress with the power to drive off the curse.
You have three powers available to you: * Pulse: A forceful burst that can push the curse out of its victims, leaving the physical world untouched. (Costs 1 wheel) * Radar: Reach out to find the souls of the afflicted. (Drains energy when active) * Teleport: An emergency escape. You have no control over the destination, but the curse can't follow you. (Costs 2 wheels)
Be cautious! You are strong enough to resist the curse, but you are not immune to it. While you are cursed, you still have access to all of your powers, but the strain of fighting its influence will quickly drain your vitality. Pulse will expel the curse from your body as easily as from the townspeople, and Teleport will leave the curse behind.
Once cast out of the body, the curse loses its virulence, but its frustrated power becomes an impassible maelstrom. Be wary of where you purge the curse, as the maelstrom will slowly grow, blocking you off and leaving you running out of space.
Downloads
Or play on the web:
Controls
- Move: Arrow Keys
- Pulse: Space
- Radar: Z
- Teleport: X
- Respawn after dying: Space
- Pause: Escape
Credits
Programming: Adam Higerd
Some library functions: Austin Allman
Sound effects and design: Adam Higerd
Visual effects and animations: Adam Higerd
Character sprites: Aeon Warriors Field & Battle Sprites by JosephSeraph
Tilesets derived from: Lots of free 2d tiles and sprites by Hyptosis
Background music: Various pieces from Soundimage.org by Eric Matyas
License
Copyright (c) 2018 Adam Higerd
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.
Ratings
| Overall | 1156th | 2.75⭐ | 28🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 1168th | 2.52⭐ | 27🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 996th | 2.76⭐ | 27🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 1160th | 2.52⭐ | 27🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 885th | 1.848⭐ | 25🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 936th | 2.66⭐ | 27🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 28🗳️ | 21🗨️ |
When I try to run Win64 version. Changing the data folder to exactly match what it's looking for makes the program run. But then it froze later in the game, so that might not be the right solution. Ping me if it gets fixed and I'll play again and rate.
I got to a score of about 210 before it froze. Am I evil if I realized that you can drag the infected people to the healthy people to get more infected to get more points on a pulse?
As far as the Win64 version is concerned, I think it'll just be easier to take down the Win64 version since there's no reason to have it distinct from the Win32 version. I've relabeled the releases appropriately.
Other than the technical problems, the game is nice. I like the idea of using a single purge to clear many curses getting progressively more points, but it seems to encourage me to infect uninfected villagers. The games' strong points are its AI and music and sound. The AI doesn't just blindly follow you, it routes around buildings and it moves to other villagers to infect them. The music and sounds are nice and appropriate.
Edit: it looks like there is still a link to the 64 bit version in the Downloads section above Controls.
You have to press Space to respawn after dying. It's something I should probably have documented. The main reason I have it on a keypress instead of a timer is to give you a chance to wait for the enemies to wander away and that was faster than implementing temporary invulnerability after spawning, but even that rationale doesn't work considering you can't see where you're respawning -- it's a rough edge that I just didn't have time to polish up before the deadline. I do appreciate the feedback!
I'd add it to the list of links in the article but for some reason it won't stick when I save it. I'll try again later, maybe it's just a site issue, but until then... into the comments you go, link!
I did get some decent amount of playtime in the first play through. The controls are a little sluggish, and I did see the swirling was growing in size, I wish it hadn't froze so I could see how large the infestations get.... I had just found my groove
As you can see, just before crashing, the game is using 3.5GB of RAM, up from about 100 MB near the start. I also downloaded the source, and ran it in Unity. I managed to finish a game by doing that, but even Unity used a lot of RAM while the game was running. Playing the game in the Unity Editor with the Profiler going, and clicking on the Memory tab shows that Textures keep going up into the GB while Meshes and Materials stay fairly constant. I hope this helps.
Pros:
- Cool concept
- Very atmospheric
Cons:
- The spirals grow kinda slow, so I didn't feel the "running out of space"
Obs:
When the spirals get a collision box everyone inside it is expelled, so I experienced some blinking moments
Cheers!