AkimBear by ecmjohnson
Grizzle is on a journey back to a home remembered from long ago. There's memories of the lab, the others, but nothing about what happened there. Maybe it's time those memories were brought back.
Grizzle is on a journey back home. This is a bear with only one goal... but luckily there's two guns along for the ride.
Trailer
https://youtu.be/avRx-U6SNHk
Controls
Controller: beary highly recommended!
Left stick: left gun aiming
Right stick: right gun aiming
Left bumper: left gun shooting
Right bumper: right gun shooting
Keyboard: if you don't have a controller, we apologize profusely
Please let us know if you finish the game without a controller so we can be suitably impressed!
Left gun
Q: rotate left gun CCW
W: left gun shooting
E: rotate left gun CW
Right gun
I: rotate right gun CCW
O: right gun shooting
P: rotate right gun CW
Design Notes
We wanted our player to have to make a sacrifice when choosing to shoot, but we also wanted there to be a lot of shooting. In order to balance these goals, we decided that shooting with either gun should stop your forward motion so it would be a sacrifice and then there would be no disincentive not to fire the second gun at the same time. Therefore, shooting still results in an important player choice between advancing towards the goal (fighting the timer) or fighting the despicable wildlife aiming to steal your honeyed health points while maximizing shooting when the player chooses to stop.
Our "feel" is highly influenced by this talk from Vlambeer's Jan Willem Nijman and we would be amiss not to give it credit. We should also mention that this section of Kingdom's TIGsource thread was super helpful for implementing the water reflection (ignore what he says about rendering to a Render Texture being a Pro feature; it's not anymore).
We also wrote some articles about individual aspects of the game that you can see here: - technical details of the 2D reflection system - inspirations for the music and a how to for the sound effects - how inspiration from Nijman's talk influenced the game - breakdown of the style and inspiration for the art
About
This is the fourth jam game from TeamHumanSimulator. All assets (sprites, sounds, music, etc.) were made by us during the jam and we did all the programming ourselves. We hope you enjoy the game and welcome any feedback you may have!
| Windows | https://ecmjohnson.itch.io/akimbear |
| macOS | https://ecmjohnson.itch.io/akimbear |
| Linux | https://ecmjohnson.itch.io/akimbear |
| HTML5 (web) | https://ecmjohnson.itch.io/akimbear |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/43/akimbear |
Ratings
| Overall | 48th | 4.117⭐ | 100🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 45th | 4.065⭐ | 102🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 162th | 3.667⭐ | 101🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 817th | 2.995⭐ | 96🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 38th | 4.485⭐ | 101🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 41th | 4.066⭐ | 100🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 52th | 4.052⭐ | 98🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 122th | 3.905⭐ | 97🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 36🗳️ | 43🗨️ |
@doctormozart Hahaha, thanks for the positive feed back. If you get the chance to try it with a controller at some point definitely give it another shot, it's a completely different experience (i.e. a much much better one :smile:)
@woofdog99 Whoa, thanks for the kind words! Hmm... Maybe we will... :thinking:
Everything feels just soooo right. Graphics and audio are top notch. The responseviness is incredible - The screenshake made my day (I will definitely look into the talk you posted!)!
Thank you for making this game. It's a favourite for sure.
Can I give you some productive feedback? Hmm... Maybe the enemies in Level III are a bit hard to see. But then I guess that could also be the point.
The last level's enemies were definitely a talking point amongst us, but in the end we decided the increase of challenge as well as tying the enemies into the game's narrative was more in line with our vision. But definitely a valid critic, thanks for the feedback!
Yeah... If you're playing with Mouse and Keyboard it's pretty difficult and takes some practice, but it's a much much smoother experience if you have a controller to use! Thanks for playing!
@gamers-blood-entertainment Hooray! Thanks for the positive feedback! Spread the word, and tell your friends!
Tried it with keyboard and xbox controller too... well, on keyboard better use WASD + arrow keys next time and on xbox controller I would use triggers instead of the top buttons.
(I'm with the Window version, I'll try on linux later)
@gerardb I'm so glad you had fun playing! We spent a lot of time on feel and look so it's great to hear it payed off for you!
@theonethatneverwas Thanks! We put a lot of attention into the polish (including some really sticky bugs with showing multiple :honey_pot: for health) and I'm glad to hear it was worth it!
I'll try to play again with a controller, i want to see what's in that underground lab :P. Good job!
Yeah, it's much much more manageable with a controller. The birds are still tricky with one, but it's at least do able (If it makes you feel any better, on keyboard I still haven't made it past the first level so you've done really well haha!) Definitely give it a shot with a controller if when you have the chance, and let us know what your theories on the ending are :thinking:. Thanks again for playing! :bear:
I tried it several times with the keyboard controls before grabbing a controller. It is great with a controller but almost unplayable with the keyboard controls. I wonder if using the QWE for the left gun and the mouse for the right gun would feel more natural.
Anyway, keep up the great work!
@legavroche Thank you so much!
@edward-dassmesser It really is much easier and makes more sense with a controller
@tekses I'm glad that you realize Grizzle is the coolest bear in town! We were planning to add more sound effects but the time limit squeezed those out.
@lavinski Thanks for the kind words!
@tpamir Thank you! We wanted to have some keyboard controls so that everyone could experience the game, but we definitely realize that, despite our efforts on tweaking them, they're really not the optimal input method.
This has a lot of personality for such a small game. Using a controller felt perfect, because I tried playing with a keyboard and boy was it bad. Sometimes the ground enemies were a bit hard to see, and it chugged a little when a lot of bullets were flying. But aside from that, the concept, art style, and the sound/music blew me away. Great submission!
Every once in a while a game makes me sit up straight and smile, and sticks with me for a little while. Usually I don't even know what _exactly_ it is, there's just something different. It's just that this game is different. This game is _special_.
Akimbear is one of those games, and I wanted to let you folks know. Every little bit is so finely put together - I love all the visual touches, especially the reflections and the RGB-distortion damage effect, that wonderful Vlambeer screen shake and time stretching fanciness, the awesome animations, the character and style oozing from everything, and the super tight gameplay. There's not much here in terms of novelty that sets things apart (though honestly now that I say that I can't immediately think of an on-rails side-scrolling twin-stick shooter off the top of my head...), but it just doesn't matter. It's fantastic entirely on its own merit, and it's just plain fun to boot.
One of the intangibles that shines here is the way a particularly well aimed shot, or perhaps a big desperate barrage fired to fend off a large group of enemies, feels like a personal accomplishment. The mechanics are simple, but the execution and responsiveness is so spot on that I feel I can take pride in the waves where I do well, and I know what I should have done differently when I fail. For me that sets hooks in deep, and is super compelling.
Thanks for this game, and I'm looking forward to seeing more in the future!
P.S. I didn't initially notice controller support and yeah, wow it's _so_ much easier with thumbsticks. The keyboard controls did feel pretty great for what they could provide, though, so kudos for polishing that up as well!
I have rated your game, but all of my feedback was captured in the stream.
You can hear my comments in the archive at https://www.twitch.tv/videos/345723905
@sodaraptor :wink: That's part of the story. I've noticed the framerate drops (seems to be especially noticeable on the web build) and I'm not sure what the cause is. It's somewhat hidden by the fact that we intentionally dilate time on some events, but I do have the nagging suspicion that there is something to optimize (I guess there really always is...). We already pool all the things so I doubt it would be garbage collection, maybe physics (those bullet casings...) or the double rendering for the reflection? I'll have to look into it more when I get some free time. Thanks for commenting on it and, of course, playing!
@lilou-cormic Grizzle is one :dark_sunglasses: :bear: Thanks!
@jesse-santana Thanks a lot! I'm glad you picked up the controls!
@deemoo You're cool! Thanks!
@acoto87 [We find the joy in the polish.](https://bit.ly/1xrSWQh) Thank you!
@gizmolo Bringing a smile to your face is exactly what we wanted! For our polish, I think we owe that to how we worked as a team. Our programming of new elements early on managed to keep slightly ahead of Jeff's assets which let us delve into adding the camera effects and reflections. Thanks for playing!
I felt like I wanted the guns to snap to my thumb stick position faster. Sometimes an enemy would be at my feet and I would instantly aim the stick right at it but the gun has to make a slower turn toward that direction so there was no way to get them.
I also feel like the enemies should contrast the background more.
Make sure you add the HTML5 link to the page above so those like myself looking for HTML5 don't pass on this great game. I found if from your feed post about adding the web version.
Hey Justin, sorry about the late reply. To be honest, our whole team including myself have been so humbled by your lovely comment that we're a little speechless! It warms our hearts to know that you enjoyed our game so much, and we're so proud that you believe it to be something special. To me having a game be something special is the highest praise and i'm so touched that you believe our game fall anywhere near that.
Thank you so much for this comment, it has legitimately made my week (and it's Smash week... sooo...).
After all these lovely comments on this page, including yours, taking this game further is definitely something we're considering right now, and hearing we have something special from an outside party other than amongst our selves is definitely another layer of inspiration to do so. Have a good one Justin, and thanks so much again for taking the time to play our game! :bear:
Re: HTML5, a version is now available from this page. Thanks for the suggestion! :bear:
From a graphics and audio standpoint, you've done a fantastic job for 72 hours. Everything is so neat and crisp! I was playing via keyboard so that made things much harder, but I understand that this was optimised for controllers and it actually made for a fun challenge. Might have done better if not for those bloody birds! They kept hitting me before I could point either gun at them.
Still the coolest game I've seen this Ludum Dare. A cigar-chomping bear dual-wielding Gatling guns?! How is that not pure awesome? Great idea, and great game!
We'll Possibly be building this game out in the future so... stay tuned! :thinking: Thanks again for playing! :bear:
You can watch me play it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99187aER7DQ
SFX's are pretty much gold and gameplay satisfying yet frustrating. Overall I'd say you go far with this one.
It is very visible that you were "guided" by the talk by Vlambeer and you did it very well. I especially liked the shells piling up. However, I think you overdid the slowmo part a bit.
The game is quite hard (even with a controller) and the last few meters took forever. But it was really fun to play.
I appreciate the feedback on the slowmo; next time I'll tune it to be a bit subtler :timer:
@shakedimus I'm glad you enjoyed it, even with a keyboard! Thanks for the feedback on the movement mechanic! We understand what you mean about it, but we really like what it contributes to the choices a player is required to make. Maybe it would have been better handled by us if we clearly communicated the mechanic and how that interfaces with the timer
@emperor-eagle Thanks a lot! :gun: :bear: :gun:
I think maybe the encounters should've been toned down a little because there were occasionally long stretches where I just wasn't able to move at all, and sometimes they felt a bit too random, with enemies approaching from both directions both from above and below at the same time and it just didn't seem possible to get them all without taking a hit or two. :p
The control scheme was well chosen and felt like a very natural way to do something like this. Reminded me a bit of playing something like StepMania. Maybe this would be fun as a rhythm game? 💃
Great audio, both music and sound effects. Music kinda drowned in bullet hell sometimes, haha.
Graphics are amazing! I hadn't noticed your many posts on the front page about them, but will make sure to have a look now. 👀 Really pretty overall. I do feel like the screen shake and blinking made it a bit difficult to fully appreciate the gorgeous backdrop at times tho.
I think maybe the easiest balance act would be to make the health refills simply refill more lives. p:
Really good entry! Rating it highly! I hope I didn't come off as overly negative with my little nitpicks, but I'm providing them because it was such an amazingly polished game overall, and these were the minor things that nagged me just a liiittle bit. Great work! <3