ECO WARRIORS by FreeLivesGames
We've tried Green Peace, now it's time for Green War!

Landfills are overflowing, the oceans are clogged with plastic and the space for moderate debate has run out. Shoot your way through tree hating polluters, free the dolphins and make Al Gore proud.
It's time to SAVE THE F*CKING PLANET in ECO WARRIORS!!!

[Note from the team] Due to time constraints the game ended up very short. Given more time we would have loved to have expanded on the shooting parts of the game, improved the woefully underdeveloped tactical play, and properly implemented co-op (be careful about pressing [Enter] during the game, it spawns another player). But we're really happy we got to make a game for Ludum Dare, and the bits we did get in came out better than we expected.
Hope you enjoy!!! Thanks for reading.
Controls:
Use a mouse and WASD to move and shoot. Press [Q] to moderately debate. Press [E] to commandeer vehicles.
Team:
Evan Greenwood [Programming] Jarred Lunt [Programming and Art] Robbie Fraser [Programming] Jonathan Hau-Yoon [Art and Special Effects] Jason Sutherland [Music and SFX] Adoné Kitching [Writing] Filip Orekhov [Additional Art]


NEW BUILD
We've made some improvements! Better (but actually dumber) AI. A bonus level with more things to explode. Gamepad controls that actually work (almost as if this were programmed by competent software developers)!
http://www.freelives.net/GameJams/Builds/EcoWarriorsPostLudumDare.zip
Ratings
| Overall | 31th | 4.141⭐ | 41🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 25th | 4.128⭐ | 41🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 624th | 3.141⭐ | 41🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 1198th | 2.408⭐ | 40🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 16th | 4.577⭐ | 41🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 27th | 4.149⭐ | 39🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 11th | 4.333⭐ | 41🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 93th | 3.868⭐ | 40🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 33🗳️ | 23🗨️ |
That said, the game feels a bit like an uninspired top-down Broforce. The action feels a bit tepid and uninteresting, getting in range of anyone with a gun pretty much means death by default (that air drop), and the explosive barrels are quite similar, but without as much interaction. The run-and-gun mechanics work, though not super interesting.
I don't know (can't remember) if a lot of the mechanics that made Broforce interesting were in the original Broforce LD prototype, but comparing this to what I imagine was aimed to be a top-down Broforce-like, it's not quite at that level of mechanical interestingness yet. But it's top notch in terms of quality!
Yeah. We would have loved to have spent more time polishing the combat. Some of the things we did try didn't come together as well as we'd like, and the design of the final level isn't very good (my fault). Technically the game works in co-op (with up to four players) but a lot got cut due to time constraints.
Broforce (Rambros) was more interesting in terms of tactical play in its prototype form. And I think that was excellent, but for this game idea we felt we had to do so much more work in terms of explaining why the badguys are bad, and we've ended up putting in nearly as much story telling in this prototype as the finished version of Broforce had. I think this was a good move, but it came at a cost.
If we work on it further the run-and-gun mechanics are where I'd like to spend a lot of time. I'm pretty happy to make a top-down derivative of Broforce, but it has to be as tight.
Here's a video of the Rambros prototype for reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VBTQ-JaA_k
I really appreciated the brick house destruction, the sound combined with the falling physical bricks were sooo satisfying. I must admit, I spent most of my time in the game destroying the house :P. Please make more destructible houses!
Gaia speed.
I should add, there seemed to be a glitch where you can go through the wall if enough enemies push you? I could shoot the brick wall down so I could escape but I figured it'd be good to mention.
I had a blast with the game, just hoped to be able to sneak some narrative skills between bullet and bullet after that promising intro!
Awesome entry
Nice humor, nice graphics and nice gameplay!
I need this as my new avatar.
Omg i laughted so hard!
Please do tutorials for the effects, modeling and everything. Please teach me how did you do those responsive trees. Please.
Btw, about the jam version:
I think you took inspiration from Wallace & Gromit series :D
Sounds (Especialy of gunfire) sometimes are weirdly silent (this is the only thing that breaks the feeling).
Imho "mission acomplished" should be in green because red is reserved for failure messages :)
But its very polished, fun and addictive.
I loved everything !
But as mentionned above, it tested the updated version and there is the sound bug again (i can't hear my shoots or barely).
Continue it, this is super nice ! :D
PS: as @halomegames mentionned, i would love to know how you made the rotation of the trees ! Is it pure physics with joints or a script is handling this ? Thanks !
My only comment would be to put more emphasis on the mission objective when it changes midlevel. When I first wandered into the ambush I thought I was supposed to go back out and it wasn't until I was dead on the ground I happened to notice that the mission objective had changed to hold out or whatever it was. That might just be me though.
Excellent work!
@halomegames The first thing we need to address is that elusive sound bug. I can't figure out what's causing it, the audio code in the project is pretty elaborate (it's ripped out of a previous project), and the bug is hidden deep in there.
And we'll try adjust the way the enemies move (they shouldn't be able to push the player around like how @cresceda pointed out).
A lot of the code in the game either existed in a previous prototype/experiment, or was something we'd done several times in the past. The one big chunk we hadn't coded before was the pathfinding, and it was using some pretty undocumented Unity code. I kind of hate the way the enemies move, in terms of implementation, and I think we'll scrap it and do it better ourselves.
About @rend, @halomegames and @antoined73 comments on the trees: The trees are mostly just a cone collider on a very springy joint (i.e. really high angular drive forces on the joint). The bullets apply a force when they hit and the joint springs the tree back. (It's the same trick we did on the trees in Genital Jousting). It's actually quite quick to implement. We can probably make more things springy!
@atom0520 We're going to try improve upon the top down shooter combat. Robbie (@squidcor) wants to get co-op working (so there are multiple players and the potential for coordination). I want to figure out how to mix up the combat (like the random changing of characters in Broforce which force you to reconsider your tactics). We've also got a ton of jokes we never got to tell. Honestly, I've never managed to create something much better than a standard top-down shooter, but I'm sure we can figure it out if we beat our heads against it for long enough.
I really love this game, but before Eco Warriors could ever be considered to be a commercial project we have to do much better than the standard top-down shooter experience (in terms of combat).
@minibobbo I'd like to work the mission briefings more into the gameplay. Maybe using Al Gore to give clear instructions when the objectives change. Maybe the design of the levels (or elements in the levels) can make the objectives more intuitive. I'd like less up front reading and more discovering information within the levels (like how the tree talks to you).
Just look at the model, shading, particles, and those ***explosions!*** Even those speech bubbles were satisfying to read. Also nice touch on the destructible walls and dancing trees.
And the humor! Nice job on the humor. Also, was that falling man on the first level a jab at flat earthers? :laughing: