WHELM by Ethan Nachreiner
Top-down shooter where the bullets will overwhelm you.
The year is 25XX. The world is dead. I have reached the headquarters of the Biodroids. They must die.
Controls | Keyboard | Gamepad | -------- | -------- | ------- | Move | WASD | Left stick Shoot | LMB | Right trigger Dodge | RMB | Left bumper Clear | Space | Right bumper Pause | Escape | Start
Made using GameMaker: Studio.
Watch me make the game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9PYP9ylt3I
Updates:
2.4: - Added a helpful message that appears on the first floor - Added an extra reward for reaching the tenth floor
2.3: - Fixed game crashing bug - Added border effect when near death
2.2: - Updated the EXE name and icon - Added the version to the menu
COMPO: - Made a special "COMPO" version of the game that includes all of the bugs fixes from previous versions, but none of the "new content" (door sounds, dodge in move direction, auto collection, and screen shake option). - There isn't much of a reason to download this unless you want to rate the game as fairly as possible!
2.1: - Added door sounds
2.0: - Multiple bug fixes - You now dodge in the last direction you moved - Your bullets are automatically collected after clearing a room - Adjusted camera sizes
View all updates: https://rieneige.itch.io/whelm
(Minor seizure warning: The background can be a bit flashy.)
Tip 1: Reach the 10th floor to unlock a checkpoint! Tip 2: Remember to clear the screen to gain more time!
| Other (platform) | https://rieneige.itch.io/whelm |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/whelm |
Ratings
| Overall | 232th | 3.578⭐ | 34🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 194th | 3.545⭐ | 35🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 421th | 3.091⭐ | 35🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 444th | 3.364⭐ | 35🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 278th | 3.439⭐ | 35🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 305th | 3.015⭐ | 35🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 268th | 3.129⭐ | 33🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 29🗳️ | 34🗨️ |
I LOVE THAT <3
More seriously I really like the concept of dodging your own bullets^^
But sometimes too much feedbacks is too much tho xD
You just have to watch out for enemies beneath your haze of bullet fire and manage you location properly and this game should be a breeze... at least it would be if I didn't suck at twin stick shooters. Oh well.
As I went from floor to floor, it would have been nice to see more variety of environment - but who am I kidding. My levels didn't have any decoration at all, so well done on at least making yours look nice and in theme. The music was also simple, but on point with your theme. Well done on that.
One thing that confused me a little bit was the camera movement. Sometimes it would zoom waaayyyyyyy in and I wouldn't see what was going on. Other times it would zoom all the way out and I could see everything (I'll just stand in this corner while my bullets kill the enemies next door). Not seeing the back-end I don't know what caused this, but it was a bit interesting.
Overall, well done on this game. It's not too complicated, benefited from what polish you could bring to bear, and ended up being enjoyable to play (which is generally the purpose of games).
I've turned down the screenshake and adjusted the camera sizes! Also, if you had any audio issues they should (?) now be fixed! 😄
One criticism is about the timer combined with the locked doors. I think these two things COULD work together with a bit of tweaking but as the AI likes to hide or get stuck in corners sometimes I lost quite often just trying to find the 1 remaining thing to kill. Apart from that I really enjoyed it, probably the best I've played from the comp so far
Originally I was going to make it so that you made money by killing enemies, and your combo would multiply the money you got from the enemies. You would then use that money to buy weapons and upgrades. Obviously the game had to be scaled back, so I implemented the timer system (which is why it can occasionally feel a bit off).
Also, I think the camera shaking and lerping back all the time was excessive. It made me slightly nauseous.
Switching to full screen made my system go kaput. I lost one of the screens and had no idea how to convince Windows to give me it back. I had to reboot.
Lastly, I was not able to try out the controller? Not sure why, it simply wasn't recognised.
With all this said, I think it's a very good use of the theme. One of the best I've seen so far. Nice work.
@mike-inprinciple Thank you so much for your feedback! The instructions say that you can die when you have no combo (enemies and bullets kill you), but it doesn't point out that explosions can instantly kill you (but you have to be really close). I have a multi-monitor setup as well and fullscreen seems to work for me... so I'm not quite sure. The controller also works for me, but I think I have an idea of what the problem could've been. The controller only works if it's plugged in as "player 1", and to select things in the menu you have to use the right trigger. Again, thank you so much for the comment!
I've added the option for players to reduce the screen shake, and tried rebalancing the audio! Hopefully this will make the game more bearable if you had nausea inducing issues before (sorry 😅).
Great game! A bit hard to understand what's going on at some points, but overall, it's fun! And god damn it, what a slaughter! xD
I don't know if you fix that since the original LD version, but there were a lot of instances when no sound effects were played during the mayhem. Is it due to the bullet-time effect?
Anyway, great job on this game, it looks great (but definitively not suited for epileptics), controls well enough (even if as a QWERTY keyboard user, WASD ain't really easy to use :p) and is overall fun. Congrats!
@linky439 Thanks for playing! The audio issues are due to me messing up the audio priorities, which I fixed in version 1.2 (I think). There's a COMPO version available to download, which has all the bug fixes and none of the "new content". 🙂
@mister-kweh Thanks for playing! Yeah, I should probably make the time mechanics a bit more obvious. 🙂
@guardhei I just tested it, and you're right (my bad)! I'll be sure you make an updated version of the Mac version soon! 😄
Try our game too, maybe you'll like it)
The game has an option in the menu to lower the amount of "shake" (screen shake and camera shake), if you haven't tried setting the shake to low then that might improve the experience! 🙂 Thanks for playing my game!