LudumData

Invasion by gwinnell

[raw]
made by gwinnell for Ludum Dare 45 (COMPO)

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INVASION!

Start with nothing... but a seed... of an invasive species!
Overcrowd the planet and take it over! Those native species won't stand a chance!

Controls: * Mouse: select tile and action * 1, 2, 3: switch place mode (grow, attack, seed) * Arrows: rotate view * O/P: previous level / next level. * Q: quit

Please follow my indie game development:
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If audio isn't playing, unmute it here (Chrome): Screenshot 2019-10-07 at 12.41.43.png

Tools: * Photoshop * Reaper * Custom C++ engine + Emscripten (same as all of my games)!

The Making Of Invasion:
In my (first ever) devlog video, I go behind the scenes of Invasion. How did the idea come about? What problems did the game design face, and how were they overcome? What would have been done differently?
Watch to find out! (and please subscribe!) :smiley:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mSHOofXIio

Youtube https://gamejolt.com/games/invasion/443322
Youtube https://gamejolt.com/games/invasion/443322
Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/45/invasion

Ratings

Overall 60th 3.919⭐ 33🧑‍⚖️
Fun 34th 3.919⭐ 33🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 140th 3.597⭐ 33🧑‍⚖️
Theme 254th 3.387⭐ 33🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 170th 3.565⭐ 33🧑‍⚖️
Audio 89th 3.583⭐ 32🧑‍⚖️
Humor 218th 2.643⭐ 30🧑‍⚖️
Mood 162th 3.417⭐ 32🧑‍⚖️
Given 26🗳️ 19🗨️

Feedback

Gaz_Ireland
07. Oct 2019 · 13:42 UTC
Amazing Game! I loved it! Such a great concept too!
laegoose
07. Oct 2019 · 13:52 UTC
Graphics are simple but it's very satisfying to see my flowers growing everywhere!
Ultra-responsive controls and Polythene Pam tune make it fun to play.
Kazatan
07. Oct 2019 · 13:56 UTC
This is great. Enjoyed the puzzle, although it wasn't too difficult once you got the basics. The art and music were really nice. I did notice a little rendering issue when the camera is rotating around. One of the angles looks perfect then as it rotates the sprites clip their neighbours:

![gamejolt.com_games_invasion_443322.png](///raw/f55/72/z/2709b.png)

Doesn't detract from what is a really nice game though! Congrats :thumbsup:
🎤 gwinnell
08. Oct 2019 · 12:37 UTC
@kazatan Thanks! I intended on adding more varied enemy behaviours but ran out of time. It is Ludum Dare after all!

Sprite overlap clipping is definitely a feature and not a bug. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:
koemeterion
08. Oct 2019 · 12:47 UTC
Great idea and visualy apealing even that I cant understand why. So many colors :D
This was fun and I enjoyes quite a bit!
jharler
08. Oct 2019 · 14:37 UTC
I finished the game a few minutes ago and I'm still playing that tune in my head. I like it. Nice puzzles and good difficulty progression. Well done!
tobb
08. Oct 2019 · 20:08 UTC
Very interesting game mechanics and a nice spin on the strategy genre. The visuals are quite trippy which suits the game well.

Simple still challenging! enjoyed it!
GeruGames
08. Oct 2019 · 20:09 UTC
This was a really fun game. Lots of different colors and nice puzzles. Good job. Was easy to understand as well.
Cataractar
08. Oct 2019 · 20:11 UTC
Nice! Not too long, not too short. The music was great, some SFX for the three actions would have been nice though.
🎤 gwinnell
08. Oct 2019 · 20:23 UTC
@cataractar There should be sounds! Just checked and looks like they're not playing in the web export! DOH! Will fix asap!
🎤 gwinnell
08. Oct 2019 · 20:36 UTC
@cataractar I forgot that the web export doesn't play wavs. It now uses oggs and the sounds are working!
Cataractar
08. Oct 2019 · 20:41 UTC
@gwinnell I've tested it again. The sounds were exactly what I had in mind! :D
geist_191
08. Oct 2019 · 21:00 UTC
love this game. Took me a while to figure out what the best strategy is. Good job!
DrRozza
09. Oct 2019 · 00:01 UTC
Really cool mechanics in this, also loved the colour scheme of the visuals! Really satisfying completing a level as well.
Joe Williamson
09. Oct 2019 · 15:06 UTC
Nice work man! Took me a minute to figure out how it worked but then I was away. Very satisfying victory animation of taking over the garden :D

From what I could tell it was always effectively one action for you and one action for the enemy? Would love to see how it plays with actions based on current size, or some other kind of development vs the enemies size.
RustyMonky
09. Oct 2019 · 16:23 UTC
This was really well done! The feel of the game is great, the controls and mechanics are easy to grasp, and the back and forth between the invasive seeds and nature keeps you thinking on your toes. At level five, as you sprout in all directions to combat four different fronts, it can sometimes be hard to see all of the attacking bugs. That aside, I had a blast playing this game. Great use of theme, too!
someone
09. Oct 2019 · 20:52 UTC
Awesome game. I need more levels.
The game goes straight to the game completed screen if you try to start again after completing it.
The rotation is very useful, though it's a bit slow having to wait for it to stop if you want to rotate more than 90 degrees at once.
Arcus
09. Oct 2019 · 21:36 UTC
A great game! There are not many games that need a strategy in ludum dare, so this is quite unique :)
Hajden
09. Oct 2019 · 21:39 UTC
Really good action puzzle, I enjoyed it
StickyGames
09. Oct 2019 · 21:41 UTC
I finished the game :D i love the idea, audio and graphics are a good match.
kleinzach
09. Oct 2019 · 21:41 UTC
Cool game. The growing and expanding mechanics really felt like a distilled 4x game. I would say that it felt a little easy at points as I was never really being attacked from multiple points and as long as I played it a little slow the ants couldn't hurt me. Really well done though.
lesinvisible
09. Oct 2019 · 21:42 UTC
Amazing graphics and presentation, everything is so smooth and plays nice. And it's a custom game engine, looks fantastic!
sam.awk
09. Oct 2019 · 21:53 UTC
Really great strategy game! Good job!
Herex
09. Oct 2019 · 22:04 UTC
This is a pretty good and unique game in itself. I find it pretty cool what you have managed to do in your own game engine using C++. And not only that how fun and nice the controls and the actual game loop being enjoyable. Definitely an idea you could expand on :).
Bungalow
11. Oct 2019 · 06:39 UTC
Simple, but fun strategy game. I didn't read the controls when I first played and I feel like that added to the experience of slowly learning the rules of the world. It also had simple and still really fun levels. My only problem is that there isn't enough! I could play this game for hours if you release it as a full game with more content and interesting gameplay twists. Great job!
Malai
11. Oct 2019 · 12:25 UTC
Had a lot of fun playing, i wish there would be more (and more challenging) levels, as i had the feeling its nearly impossible to lose, because you can regrow everything without a problem. But to be fair, it was fairly challenging to find the strategy to kill all hives in the last level! And as you are a fellow emscripten developer, how did you implement sound if i may ask? :D
🎤 gwinnell
11. Oct 2019 · 14:47 UTC
I agree with pretty much every feedback here - thanks all! If I work on this further I'll take this all into account.

@malai OpenAL! I don't think I had to do anything special to use the API. :slight_smile: :musical_note:
smilewood
13. Oct 2019 · 02:22 UTC
Fun little puzzle game concept. As most of the commenters have said, I wish there were some more levels, although I don’t think that many more were necessary for a game jam. I quite like the puzzle element that goes along with the three stages of your plant growth, it was interesting to have to juggle expanding and just having available defense. The graphics were nice and clean, although the billboarding effect on the flowers and trees while rotating was a bit jarring. Overall a great entry, I could see myself playing a more expanded level set for a long time.