LudumData

Mountaintop Groovy Robot Laser Battle by Jeremy Ryan

[raw]
made by Jeremy Ryan for LD 39 (COMPO)

Mountaintop Groovy Robot Laser Battle

A rhythm-based fighting game where you play as a robot and share a single battery with your laser. Taking damage and firing your weapon reduces your power level, which can only be recovered when you are safe.

Screenshot 2.png

Instructions for install

  • Windows zip: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B2FLvR9xg9GmZ2lnSHBHLU5sUzQ
  • Unzip the folder
  • Run .LaserBattle.exe. There is a period at the beginning of the name so that it appears first in the directory, but if you have trouble running it, rename it.
  • When launching the game, it will ask you to press space to the beat of the music. This isn't just a title screen gimmick, it's a calibration phase, so keep that in mind! Enjoy the game!

Controls

  • Fire weapon: D
  • Recharge: A
  • Jump: W
  • Shield: S

All inputs have to be coordinated with the beat of the music and the flashing of the background in order to register. At the start screen, you calibrate the music beat with the visuals by pressing space to the beat as you hear it.

Creation

  • Programming: Python and pygame
  • Art and animation: Paint.NET and a nice Python sprite sheet class
  • Music: Sibelius and an online MIDI to WAV converter
  • Sound effects: SFXR

I made all assets during the 48 hour period, and used no external sound, music, or image samples. You can listen to the original soundtrack here: https://soundcloud.com/user-565506175/fredericks-theme.

Screenshot 1.png

Download the game:

Another link for redundancy. Enjoy! https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B2FLvR9xg9GmZ2lnSHBHLU5sUzQ

Windows https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B2FLvR9xg9GmZ2lnSHBHLU5sUzQ
Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/39/mountaintop-groovy-robot-laser-battle

Ratings

Overall 125th 3.694⭐ 38🧑‍⚖️
Fun 346th 3.139⭐ 38🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 68th 3.833⭐ 38🧑‍⚖️
Theme 358th 3.472⭐ 38🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 23th 4.324⭐ 39🧑‍⚖️
Audio 10th 4.237⭐ 40🧑‍⚖️
Humor 168th 2.939⭐ 35🧑‍⚖️
Mood 149th 3.4⭐ 37🧑‍⚖️
Given 28🗳️ 39🗨️

Feedback

William Derksen
31. Jul 2017 · 03:23 UTC
THIS GAME IS AMAZZZZZIIIIING! Such good music! Such crisp animation. This is good game.
RootPew
31. Jul 2017 · 12:56 UTC
Wow. You just made me feel pretty terrible about my own skills in art/music :D

Great entry, congrats!
WillData
31. Jul 2017 · 12:56 UTC
I like how you tied the health and attack together. I did something similar for my game and I think it is an interesting system here! I'm not sure if I was wrong in doing so, but I ended up holding shield or jump instead of timing it because I have awful rhythm but it was fairly effective. In any case, nice game!
Rafael Souza
31. Jul 2017 · 12:58 UTC
OMG!

I just need to take more time to play this game as well.

Madly in love with graphics,
love the combination of the sound and game mechanics :)
🎤 Jeremy Ryan
31. Jul 2017 · 13:11 UTC
Thanks all for the feedback!

@RootPew I've had a focus on graphics for both Compos I've entered, I've decided to go with the simple-game-that-looks-nice approach.

@WillData Intentionally programmed so that you can hold, mash, or press to the beat :) Most control with the last one though
Rombus
01. Aug 2017 · 02:14 UTC
A python game and no linux build? D:
I downloaded the zip file but I'm not sure what exe to run through wine. Tried running the python files alone but no dice.

The music is freaking awesome! (soundcloud link :P)
Pixel Programmer
01. Aug 2017 · 03:42 UTC
Very nice concept, great music, clean solid graphics and animation (although animations played glitchy sometimes). Really great game that was fun to play:).
Connor Hagan
01. Aug 2017 · 03:55 UTC
Beautiful art and music, unique gameplay idea. I had a lot of issues timing the actions to the beat to something as swingy as that song.
Justine Griffin
01. Aug 2017 · 04:02 UTC
Cool game. Music was great!
Will Walters
01. Aug 2017 · 04:04 UTC
Good music is a must for rhythm games and you nailed that. I wish there was some kind of visual indicator as to when I was supposed to press. I also wish it was easier to exit the game (maybe I was missing something, but I had to alt+tab out and close it from the toolbar). Still, the art style is fun and the music is banging so there's not much else I can ask for.
Ashment
01. Aug 2017 · 04:07 UTC
For a game jam game, it is pretty good. The pixel art is stylish, though the animations are a bit clunky and sometimes jerky. The music is on point, love the style, even if it is a bit on the repetitive side. Unfortunately the same cannot be said about the gameplay.

The concept seems like it would be fun if it functioned well, but I was more frustrated than anything. Pressing buttons to the "beat" more often than not did nothing at all, so I resorted to holding buttons to perform actions to get through the first few enemies, and could make it no farther. I think some clear visual indication on the timing of key presses would have been nice. I did not expect necrodancer quality in 48 hrs, and yet this "beat" mechanic only held back the game. Still, the game was impressive overall. Great job.
🎤 Jeremy Ryan
01. Aug 2017 · 04:09 UTC
@Pixel Programmer: Compliments on the animation means a lot coming from someone with "pixel" in their username :)

@Will Walters: Thanks! The background should flash somewhat to the beat of the music, as well as the health bars bouncing, it was hard to get something that was obvious but not overbearing in the visual indicator sense.
Iago Lobo
01. Aug 2017 · 04:11 UTC
You did a really good job with this game! Very good indeed, especially the music and the art.
🎤 Jeremy Ryan
01. Aug 2017 · 04:14 UTC
@Ashment: Thanks for the feedback! I did have a little bit of issues with the timing, and it takes a while to get a feel for it. One thing to point out is that when starting the game up it actually syncs the internal "beat" to when you press the space bar (it's a calibration, not just a gimmick!). If there is a big enough difference between the beat of the music and when the background flashes, it's probably because something weird happened in that step which can be fixed by restarting the game.

Hope that helps you, if you decide to give it a second chance :)
oxysoft
01. Aug 2017 · 05:04 UTC
Good points for innovation, but not very intuitive unfortunately. I didn't have much of a clue what the "beat" was and couldn't get a good rhythm going, and I beat Thumper so rhythm games aren't new to me. In games like this, you need strong visual cues to create anticipation, e.g. have certain visual elements react to the beat or in sync to increase the density of information communicated to the player, since audio cues are often hard to recognize if they are not distinct, like a drum you can easily pick out of the song. The art is nice but you could done something more interesting with the palette imo, looks a bit washed out and bland!
SecondThread
01. Aug 2017 · 22:17 UTC
I am getting a "Failed to execute script Game" error when I run the .exe, even with it renamed to remove the period. I unzipped it and followed the instructions. I wish I could play it though; the sound track sounds pretty cool!
SecondThread
01. Aug 2017 · 22:17 UTC
I am getting a "Failed to execute script Game" error when I run the .exe, even with it renamed to remove the period. I unzipped it and followed the instructions. I wish I could play it though; the sound track sounds pretty cool!
LittleLegend
01. Aug 2017 · 23:56 UTC
Such an awsome game ! The Artstyle is cool and once you get the hang of the ryth thing it very fun. I like the Animation of the Monsters and the little Tells they have for theyre attacks. The second Snake was too much for me though
🎤 Jeremy Ryan
02. Aug 2017 · 02:18 UTC
@SecondThread I'm not sure what that is... my friend had that as well, but got it working after doing the unzip again. It may have something to do with the extra files generated by Pyinstaller that allow the Python code to run, but I don't have a fix for it that I know of. Sorry!

@LittleLegend Glad you liked it! The second snake is pretty tough.
sbeif
02. Aug 2017 · 13:49 UTC
Awesome graphics, animations and music.

One problem though: if I keep the attack/dodge/block/charge button pressed, it does the corresponding action at every beat. Since I think it would be too hard otherwise (I died quite a lot as it is), it's not a great problem, but maybe for a rythm game you should reward players who can keep up with the rythm (but in that case, even though the music is really awesome, it might be better to use something with a slightly more heavy beat).

Anyways, this is great nonetheless, so good job!
rigdonware
02. Aug 2017 · 13:56 UTC
I'm a percussionist and i was struggling to stay alive. Every time I would hit I would lose hp. I"m not sure if I'm just terrible or if my space was out of sync but I would say I can keep rhythm. Super awesome artwork and awesome Idea!
Fajpaj
02. Aug 2017 · 14:08 UTC
This game has great graphics and audio. However... I don't know if im just horrible or what, but I died 4 times trying to get past the tutorial and then instantly died. This game badly needs a Crypt of the Necro-Dancer type meter at the bottom telling you when the beats are going to happen, as I never really had a clue what was supposed to happen when. Also, even tho the music is great, I didn't feel like the drums were loud or punchy enough to really take the roll of that meter thingy I was talking about.
eXr
02. Aug 2017 · 14:20 UTC
I really like the game mechanics. It's harder than expected, but fun to play. Good work with that art. Congrats!
Mathiouza
02. Aug 2017 · 14:28 UTC
I'm dying instently ... @Fajpaj is right, maybe a visual effect could tell us when we have to do an action, at least in the tutorial. Great music and art though. Keep coding :)
ToonTeamJ
02. Aug 2017 · 14:30 UTC
I don't have an ear for music, so I'm afraid I didn't do very well. I'm sure it would have been fun. I would suggest brighter visual cues for those who are hard of hearing.
SpaceSparkle
02. Aug 2017 · 14:48 UTC
Lovely graphics and a great concept.
Despite having few years of musical experience playing this game proved to be much more difficult than I thought. After a while I got the hang of jumping, shooting and blocking but regenerating energy rarely worked. Is the calibration really necessary? I feel like despite pressing keys exactly on beat it sometimes does not react. If so why not calibrate with WASD, which usually has a different response than space?
Music is very catchy, it's mostly because of it I gave this game like a dozen restarts. It just makes me want to come back for more! I would just tweak the solo a bit to accentuate the beat more. I easily get lost during it having to kill monsters at the same time.
Konstantin Boyko
02. Aug 2017 · 17:44 UTC
Nice concept, for sure. Unfortunately, I found the music in this game to be 100% inscrutable and could never catch the beat and time my actions to it. I'm admittedly bad at anything rhythmic (though I can get by in most rhythm games), so I was glad to see others in the comments having the same issue as me. I would suggest using a song with a much more apparent baseline.
jasperarmstrong
04. Aug 2017 · 00:11 UTC
Cool game! I had a lot of fun playing it, and the art and music were great. One thing I found is I could seemingly just mash the buttons for the most part, as long as I still dodged/jumped at the right times. Also you obviously didn't really package this for Mac, but I ran it through wine, after looking for a few minutes for the exe, which was hidden because the name started with a period. I guess Windows doesn't do this, but Mac and Linux hides files/folders that start with periods by default.
🎤 Jeremy Ryan
04. Aug 2017 · 16:14 UTC
@jasperarmstrong Good to know --- I named it with a period so it would show up first alphabetically among all the assets in Windows. In hindsight, I should have just put all the assets in a different directory.
Baski
04. Aug 2017 · 16:47 UTC
My opinion

### Graphics

* These are pretty cool graphics , fluid and good animations

* I like this style, it is really natural with game

* Maybe add some visual clue when to do an action
### Gameplay
* Cool mechanics, but somehow i got bored in a while :/ do not know why :/

### Music/Audio
* I like it , nothing less nothing more :) only maybe sync visual with audio somehow sometimes, so you can "predict" better

### Summary
* Cool game with nice visuals and music and funny graphics. I like it :)
Rocketship
04. Aug 2017 · 17:07 UTC
It looks really great, the art style is quite unique in the world of pixel art. The music also was great and never started to feel annoying.

I feel the controls should have been a little bit more responsive for a game like this. I think for the rhythm type of a game the music should have been a little bit slower to work well with the rhythm attacks.

I like the challenging nature that the game slowly introduces and the control scheme felt very natural, D for attack and W to jump/dodge, good design there.
🎤 Jeremy Ryan
04. Aug 2017 · 21:29 UTC
@Baski: Thanks for the good feedback, definitely been hearing a lot about improving visual queues and making the audio easier to match to the beat. First time trying to make a rhythm-based game, and I guess I grew desensitized to it through 48 hrs of development.

@Rocketship: Thanks! I definitely tried to make the soundtrack repetitive in a groove sense but hoped that it didn't get too repetitive. The control scheme was mostly a result of me originally thinking the character might move side to side, in addition to jumping and ducking, but it seems to work well with the attack/recharge too. Thanks for the compliments on the art; what about it is especially "unique" though?
automatonvx
05. Aug 2017 · 10:49 UTC
Great music and graphics, felt that things were not quite lining up when i was hitting the keys on beat it didn't always work as often as it did when hit them randomly, maybe i messed up the configuration, but i tried a few times... maybe more visual clues to make sure things are in sync. Felt like it was impossible to die also.
Still really great work overall though for 48h.
cudabear
06. Aug 2017 · 02:49 UTC
The music is really nice, but for a rhythm game it's really hard to follow to the beat. It doesn't really have a prominent metronome type sound to it, which I feel is necessary for these kinds of games. It was able to spam the keys a lot and was most successful that way, but I feel that defeats the purpose of this being a rhythm game. The animations on the monsters were great and telling of what key I needed to press.
Togis
06. Aug 2017 · 03:12 UTC
I uploaded my gameplay of this game on youtube, you can find it here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3sMx6vPbFo0

Thanks for being part of the stream :)
Russell Ng
06. Aug 2017 · 08:09 UTC
Interesting game! Great job. The dragon is really hard.

Also, thanks for reporting a bug for my game! It has been fixed.
TolMera
06. Aug 2017 · 18:57 UTC
Hey @jeremy-ryan - [you put your game on my list to play](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/39/end-of-time/whos-not-had-any-love-link-your-game-for-me-to-play), and [I streamed the play-through on Friday](https://youtu.be/-DEvWdMWCKk?t=10691), - Unfortunately I had no idea what I was doing, Leaving me to calibrate the game just meant that I probably got it wrong right from the start. I liked the idea, I liked the graphics and monsters, wish I could have gotten further, but just couldn't get the rhythm.. sorry.
ledez
06. Aug 2017 · 21:57 UTC
Graphics and game play are cool. Just a little bit fast for me, But its a fun game!
LeReveur
06. Aug 2017 · 22:34 UTC
I have a "failed to execute script Game" when launching. I tried to remove the period, and download the last version of Python, but with no results. :( (I'm with Windows 7 pro 64, if it's helps)
TheFlyingKeyboard
08. Aug 2017 · 19:15 UTC
Really fun little game, it is very fun to play. Graphics looks nice. Good Job!