Keep It Alive by ZenriS
In this game you need to protect the town from some strange things that are being launched at it. You control a giant metal plate that can block what's incoming, use the mouse to move it.
This game is based partly on memory and reflexes, whoever is shooting is luckily using laser sights, so you can see where they are aiming. Just before they shoot, the laser expands slightly, giving you a short warning, where to focus. That is the reflex part, the memory comes in if you remember what order the lasers turn on, that is the same order they will shoot.
The game has 20 levels, can you protect the town for that long?
Programs:
Unity 2019.3.8f1
Visual Studio Community 2017
Audacity
Paint.net
Assets:
| Youtube | https://zenris.itch.io/keep-it-alive |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/46/keep-it-alive-35 |
Ratings
| Overall | 1501th | 3.37⭐ | 29🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 678th | 3.593⭐ | 29🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 975th | 3.407⭐ | 29🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 1329th | 3.611⭐ | 29🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 1906th | 3.037⭐ | 29🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 1705th | 2.396⭐ | 26🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 2101th | 2.788⭐ | 28🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 60🗳️ | 30🗨️ |
I really like the game mechanic that you designed, it fits the theme really well too :)
Sometimes I was able to shoot my own buildings even though I deflected the laser (because angles?), I'm not sure if this was a conscious design choice but I thought I'd bring that up.
I liked the representation of health using buildings as well, it's a nice break from traditional HP bars.
I also liked that the parts of the game that are significant are nice and bright while the background is dark, it allows the player to really focus on the gameplay.
Keyboard controls would be a great addition to the game in my opinion, I think the gameplay lends itself really well to a two button control scheme (left/right to move the protecting thing)
Overall, it's a pretty fun and challenging game, great work! :)
@aryanjumani Am sorry you are having problems, I tested the game in three different browser (Opera, Firefox, Chrome) both incognito and normal mode and everything seemed to work fine. What browsers are you using?
I really liked the rebound of the shot on my paddle, it feel nice.
Once you understood that the laser sight getting a bit bigger just before the shot is fired, it's helps you lot to remember where to protect :p
Simple but polished graphics.
Windows 10
Nvidia 1080
4K resolution
@bitbrain sad to hear you had problems, if you have time could you let me know what browser you used? I tested the game on Firefox, Chrome and Opera. If you use any of those, do you mind trying it in private/incognito mode? And let me know how it went, ofc only if you have some spare time and still want to try the game.
@macdoom Thanks for letting me know, what browser did you use? If you still want to try the game give it a try in incognito/private mode on the browser, sometimes that helps with WebGL bugs.
I got 8300 on my first try, probably not a good score but there you have it :)
Well done!!
The art and sound worked well together and the gameplay loop and difficulty curve were easy to pickup and steadily got more challenging as time went on.
The gameplay definitely is where I think this game shines the most. It was a really creative choice to combine the idea of memory games, which usually are quite slow paced and can unfortunately get a bit tedious after a while, with the fast-paced move now, think later nature of reflex driven games. Especially when the game got really hectic, I felt I needed to commit my full attention to the game in order to do well, and this was definitely a factor in making the game pretty absorbing to play. The gameplay overall felt smooth and enjoyable, and was really fun!
Graphics-wise, I thought it was a wise choice to give the player hints as to, for example, if a laser recently entered the screen, or if it's about to shoot. This adds a sort of salvage mechanism for if you lose focus, which admittedly happened quite often to me, and lets you make some educated guesses as to where the next shot will appear, even without needing to remember. However, it absolutely didn't eliminate the _need_ to remember, but just gave the player some room for errors. The actual sprites of the game were rather simplistic, but definitely served their purpose well. I did however really like the lightning effects, which added a bit to the mood! :smiley:
The audio more than did its job, and in fact made it quite satisfying to block the shots, and all the more obvious when you had screwed up.
There were only a few things I felt a bit on the edge about. First of all, shots would occasionally land outside the buildings. I'm not sure if this was perhaps intentional, but I just found it strange that you sometimes weren't punished for missing a shot. Perhaps this was a feature however? Also, especially in the later levels, I noticed the laser sights sometimes vanished. I'm also on the edge about whether or not this was intentional, because it actually added quite a bit of challenge and variety as the game progressed. I thought I'd mention it though!
Overall, I actually quite liked the game! It was fun and challenging, and just the type of game I'd expect to quickly get addicted to! Well done! :smile:
Think both things you mention at the end are bugs. The laser are suppose to always hit the buildings, but just not the same spot all the time, the offset must be to big. Also the lasers getting reset, might be the result of the same lasers being triggering before it have shoot, but you are right it might be a nice difficulty boost to add.