ClapBang by arron-fowler

ClapBang is a turn based battle royal. The shrinking stage is inspired by the Icelandic Clap. Randomly generated and short rounds guarantee action. Can you be the last man standing?
You are the Red Mech - Kill the Yellow Mech.
Control : Mouse.
Click to move to a new square, but only when you have completed your current movement. The square you are hovering over will turn from white to red when it becomes selectable.
Pick up power ups to increase your load out and tactical options.
On arrival at your chosen square your Mech will fire all selected weapons that are loaded. Different weapons take varied time to load, each move will cycle through the weapons reload and fire ready cycle. (The reload is not visualised - time got to this!)
Fires automatically once you have a power up and will auto target your opponent unless you click on a building. If you select a building it will be targeted until its destruction. The buildings drop power ups so use this to increase your load out.
You can only change weapons when you are still. The Left sided weapons are visualised on the left of the arena and right sided weapons on the right. Selected weapons are shown in red and available weapons in white. These turn grey whilst you are in motion and are unselectable.
Don't fall off the edge. Don't get shot lots. When you are out of life you lose. Sorry the health bar is not implemented. You will have to go on faith.
Pretty simple really. Enjoy this solo effort.

| HTML5 (web) | https://thesoulselector.itch.io/clapbang |
| HTML5 (web) | https://thesoulselector.itch.io/clapbang-postjam |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/clapbang |
Ratings
| Overall | 881th | 3.123⭐ | 63🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 830th | 2.975⭐ | 62🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 594th | 3.169⭐ | 61🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 710th | 3.361⭐ | 63🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 977th | 2.828⭐ | 63🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 664th | 2.7⭐ | 57🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 810th | 2.102⭐ | 51🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 867th | 2.781⭐ | 59🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 43🗳️ | 46🗨️ |
The game is quite interesting, I had not seen a mechanic like that. However, I think it lacked a bit in the movement, it should be constant, because when you click you can not change direction until you reach the point.
However, the AI and the logic itself are very well done!
The graphics would improve a little.
Yes, it is a bit difficult to understand at the beginning, but then you get used to it!
But in general, it's very very good, just a few small details, it's great!
Nice entry in jam. Quite hard to understand at first even with your description (but it's usual with LD entry :p)
Is there any way to see how much health point you or the other robot has ?
Anyway, cool idea the full-movement-based gameplay.
Controls are awkward but I totally see where you were going (and playing on my laptop trackpad is not helping me). IMHO it is a nice take on mech games which are usually quite harsh to wrap your head around.
Graphics and sounds are nice too.
Had some fun playing even if it felt a little inhospitable at first :sweat_smile:
Would be great with some clearer weapon info. And hitpoints if I had any. I'm not sure if I took hits. Looks like a couple before the yellow guy exploded.
here ya go: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/299535551
Of course, I also played your game:
The premise of this game is really good! There are clear rules and mechanics. But it was a bit unclear how I was doing. I've seen that you didn't have the time to implement health bars and a reloading indicator, that's fair since LD is a race against the clock, but it would make this massively more playable.
The visuals are simple but effective, although it would be nice if the power-ups would stand out more. Maybe with a little glowing ring around them or something. I do like that everything is made out of cubes, it gives it a distinct style!
The A.I. is very impressive, especially for a compo game! The other robot outsmarted me a couple of times but after a couple of playthroughs, I kinda knew how to deal with him.
Overall a very good entry, which could get a lot better with some small additions. Great work!
The "fire when you finish moving" mechanic is really interesting, and has a really neat rhythm to it. It did a great job of evoking the fast-paced mech battles I'd picture in my head, with a much more lo-fi aesthetic. It also led to some interesting mind games - you want to fire just about when the enemy mech is stopping to hit it, then dodge their shots, which ended up a neat little dance. The various different weapons and things are interesting - I'm not sure I ever really figured out how to properly select what I was going to shoot, but it was fun playing around with the different powerups I could find.
In the end I think the AI was too easy - I won every match without much trouble, as it was pretty easy to evade and dodge any shots that came my way, but I really like this, and would love to try to play a more complete version if you ever made it.
I had some trouble figuring out the symbology of the upgrade/weapon icons on the side of the screen. Then I realized (unless I am mistaken) that they were mech parts that mounted the upgrades? I'd rather have seen an indication of the weapon type fitted there.
Art-wise, there is so much grey... It kind of almost works, you have black and white in the buildings, and it almost seems like an artistic thing, but the soft bevels on the tile floor ruin the effect for me. I have a thing against grey-washing though, so I might not be fully objective here.
The audio is a little basic, but it does the job. Implementation of the theme works well in forcing the conflict closer together, but I did find I was seeking short-range combat to begin with.
I am glad to see you're taking this post-jam, it definitely has potential.
at the first impression, it wasn't easy to understand how it works, to have weapons and others conditions to win. Like push the AI out of the limits. But i had some fun, i really liked how you designed the different bullets. I also liked, the fact that the battlefield was getting smaller in the time. The only negative point, i had a little imbalance between differents sounds. But i globally enjoyed it !
nice job guys =)
- Easy to understand
- Good idea and execution
- Winning fills me with a sense of pride and accomplishment
Cons:
- Graphics look a bit bland
- Game starts too fast. Maybe a small countdown at the beginning would help
maybe the controls with the click are a little bit hard to master but it's a detail IMO :)
Great work !!
You really care about improving, don't you !
I don't have much to say apart from all that have been said. It's a really great game, and it would be a complete blast in multiplayer, so I'll definitely stay tuned for that update.
Maybe that part of why the controls aren't totally obvious is because buildings are not on a single tile. I didn't find it obvious that I could interact with them, and once I read again the explanations, I didn't know where to click to do so (I eventually nailed it though)
Otherwise, I love this concept of real time turn based game. It makes for some intersting choices : should I move on a close tile to reload quicker, or should I cover a greater distance, making me more vulnerable and predictable. Even if the first option seems preferable, the fact that the terrain is shrinking and that powerups are in buildings gives the player incentive to also do the latter.
Keep it up !