LudumData

Trapping Circles by Rialgar

[raw]
made by Rialgar for LD 40 (COMPO)

Control with arrows, wasd, dpad or any of the analog sticks on a xbox controller. Build walls by enclosing an area without enemies. Enemies take damage when hitting walls, but not when hitting each other. Defeat all enemies to win the level and advance to the next. The more enemies you have, the worse it is. How many can you handle?

Tested in Chrome and Firefox, somethings off in Edge but it unbelievably almost works.

01.png Web/HTML5/WebGL

Source

Notes:

Renders entirely in the fragment shader, because I can. Not the most performant solution, quite a bit of texture sampling going on because I use data textures to pass in the data. Also I should not redraw the unchanging bits each frame. But it works!

Inspired by JezzBalls and another game from that era which I do not remember the name of. You controlled a Spider and had to fill the screen in the same manner you do in this game. But your enemy was a snake and your goal was some percentage of the screen covered, at which point the snake just left through a hole.

HTML5 (web) https://rialgar.github.io/LD40/index.xhtml
Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/40/trapping-circles

Ratings

Overall 352th 3.357⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Fun 171th 3.619⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 557th 2.667⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Theme 473th 3.119⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 564th 2.643⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Humor 552th 1.688⭐ 18🧑‍⚖️
Mood 585th 2.361⭐ 20🧑‍⚖️
Given 29🗳️ 9🗨️

Feedback

FussenKuh
04. Dec 2017 · 04:35 UTC
Dang, it felt like I was reliving my 1980s youth (and, I mean that in a good way!). The game just feels so very fluid. I just wish it had some quality retro sounds to go along with it.
elemel
05. Dec 2017 · 14:36 UTC
I like this genre of games. But it's hard to understand why the enemies die. Do they have a limited number of bounces, or do they die when they bounce too often? Also, there's no real threat to you. You should probably die when you collide with an enemy, or when an enemy breaks your line. Would be cool if you could kill enemies by capturing them with lines.
🎤 Rialgar
05. Dec 2017 · 18:12 UTC
@elemel for the record, they get damaged when hitting the wall, but they recover slowly, so you have to trap them in a tight space. Also you take damage when colliding with them, the number of stripes on the player decreases, when none is left, the level resets.
elemel
05. Dec 2017 · 20:38 UTC
@rialgar Aha! Thanks for clarifying. :-)
Ace17
09. Dec 2017 · 17:37 UTC
Strangely addictive game, smooth movement, solid mechanics.
Sound FX are missing, though. Otherwise, good job!
mgsx
12. Dec 2017 · 21:05 UTC
i played this game on Amiga when i was young. It could be a good game with something new, something unexpected. For now it's not so fun but you will find out something to fit the theme and make it really fun.
smiley
20. Dec 2017 · 23:27 UTC
this game brought me back to my teenage room and my Amiga 1200 and a game I had forgot about.. nice! :)
nekoballs
21. Dec 2017 · 06:48 UTC
Fun game! I forgot this genre existed, fits the theme very well! Would be nice with basic sound effects and some juice when a line gets filled in. It feels a bit off that nothing happens when you trap an enemy inside a line.
Querk
27. Dec 2017 · 00:23 UTC
Great Idea , it gives a lot of fun , Good job :D
MrChippy
27. Dec 2017 · 22:44 UTC
Nice game, I likes the look of the game a lot. It reminded me of old pre-installed windows games. There does seem to be a bug that enemies randomly fly off the screen and then it is impossible and laggy.
🎤 Rialgar
27. Dec 2017 · 22:56 UTC
@yeah, they probably clipped. The rendering is not efficient at all (not even remotely...), so a frame may have taken too long...
Zambini
27. Dec 2017 · 22:56 UTC
Great game! I was a little bummed when I couldn't cut off one of them from the other and instantly kill one! but besides that great execution on the theme :)
PixzleOne
27. Dec 2017 · 23:12 UTC
Pretty cool, reminds me of Qix.
The predictability of the enemies make the game a little bit too slow and easy, and it could use some sound effects. Like others have said, it wasn't too clear how to kill the enemies, but figuring it out was kinda fun too!

Well done!
explorer
28. Dec 2017 · 02:10 UTC
Fun game. I remember a similar game from a looooong time ago.
epb9000
28. Dec 2017 · 08:54 UTC
Yeah, I can definitely see the Jezzball influence here. I liked how I could get them all separated from their friends. :D

![trapping-circles.png](///raw/00e/e/z/ec71.png)
M2tias
28. Dec 2017 · 11:40 UTC
Well done clone of Qix. I used to love it when I was a child :)
Graphics work, but the background and foreground could have had some texture. I wasn't sure if I could die, so it felt a bit too easy. Anyway, great mechanics. Good job!