Fire Loop by Kevin Meissner

[raw]
made by Kevin Meissner for Ludum Dare 47 (JAM)

Top down wizard shooter.

You have to collect fireballs from little volcanoes. Safe them in your magic loop and fire them against attacking ice trolls.

Try to kill as many trolls as possible and give us a screenshot of your highest score!!

Good hunting ;-)

Credits: Art: Kevin Meissner and Violeta Juškova Code: Carsten Ruhr

1.jpg 2.jpg 3.jpg 7.jpg 6.jpg

How to play: - Use WASD to move and your mouse to look around. - Collect fireballs from the little vulcanoes. - Keep the fireballs in your loop to increase their power. - Shoot them with leftclick at the ice trolls, as soon as the fireball is infront of you. - Kill as many trolls as possible.

Ratings

Overall 753th 3.538⭐ 41🧑‍⚖️
Fun 910th 3.25⭐ 40🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 1182th 2.974⭐ 41🧑‍⚖️
Theme 1432th 2.842⭐ 40🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 359th 4.039⭐ 40🧑‍⚖️
Humor 548th 3.026⭐ 40🧑‍⚖️
Mood 922th 3.27⭐ 39🧑‍⚖️
Given 138🗳️ 53🗨️

Feedback

newbieDev
05. Oct 2020 · 15:43 UTC
Amazing that you made this during the jam!! Love the textures and animations. Really sells the fire haha!! 🔥
p-brighenti
05. Oct 2020 · 15:49 UTC
Loved the music on the title screen and the little dancing guy! I always liked mobbing in games that required heavy amounts of grinding like ARPGs or korean MMOs so this felt good. Kinda wish there was more of a visual feedback on when the ball is sucessfully shot and when you can shoot the ball. A visual clue would still require player coordination but would feel better overall, imo. Congrats on the submission!
Vollfeiw
05. Oct 2020 · 15:49 UTC
Ok so to be honest, i leaved at a point because i was bored. I started collecting fireballs, and then collecting fireballs, and then collecting fireballs, and then collection fireballs, and then collecting fireballs, and you get the idea.

While the idea is great, enemies doesn't really require to use your fireball, so you just have to collect them, then once in a while, just one shot a bunch of enemys, then get back to collecting fireballs again.

The gameplay loop is too much collecting fireball, and not enough fight, and it's specially just because enemies don't required to be killed to get more fireball. And then, the game actually tells you that you have to collect more to be powerfull, so why should i throw my power away right ?

Enemies should get better over time, maybe their speed should match player speed and add a dodge so that the only way to get passe through enemy is by using a dodge with cooldown OR killing them, that would make the fireball collect way more important, and harder to stick around with 50 fireball or so, i don't even know.

Overall, arts is great, controls are great, actual fighting is fun, remind me of zombie games actually, that's just the gameplay loops that is boring. With that said, i was stuck in that loop so .. maybe a plus for the same ?

Congrats for your entry, still a great job !
edomiyamoto
05. Oct 2020 · 15:49 UTC
Animation is good, monsters voices is a bit repetitive so we really have to kill them !
Original mechanic as well :)
Thulium Games
05. Oct 2020 · 15:54 UTC
Fun game. The graphics were good, especially the UI. My only complaint is that I can't use arrow keys to move.
Evileptic
05. Oct 2020 · 15:58 UTC
Good gameplay and graphics, but I think the topic of the "loop" is not fully covered or not covered at all. Or... I am... just blind :smile:.
🎤 Kevin Meissner
05. Oct 2020 · 18:37 UTC
![Unbenannt.JPG](///raw/0e7/b2/z/36d36.jpg) Try to beat that :-)
Rolly
05. Oct 2020 · 19:51 UTC
It took me a few attempts but I made it to 880 (unfortunatly didn't beat your score...)!

The growing fireball and shooting mechanics are very nice. It's a very solid entry for less 3 days of work!

The models are gorgeous and the animations are really smooth! +1 for the character dancing on the title screen. :D

Nice entry !

Edit: I'm curious, what is your interpretation of the theme? Is it more than the "loop" of fireballs around the wizard? 'Cause I also realized that a good way to win the game is running in circles (loops) so that you get a big pack of trolls behind you before shooting them?
🎤 Kevin Meissner
06. Oct 2020 · 07:39 UTC
@evileptic @rolly We were thinking a long time about the theme and decided to do not the obvious thing. We interpreted the theme in a way that we say: The fire wizard has a magic loop around him and as soon as you come close to fire it gets stuck in the magic loop and becomes stronger over time.
JagsyFox
06. Oct 2020 · 14:55 UTC
Amazing graphics and HUD, well done
Milmalissa
06. Oct 2020 · 15:45 UTC
Nice graphics an I really like the music in the start screen, it's fitting very well.
Kpedatte
06. Oct 2020 · 16:36 UTC
music and art are really great, Congrats, it's a fun game
Vivien Fargette
06. Oct 2020 · 16:52 UTC
Really nice game with beautiful graphics and nice mechanics. Two things tho: you had a nice background music in the menu, why not continue it in game? The sound of enemies is quite repetitive and, as it is the only sound present with the fireball one, it becomes quickly annoying. Second, the AI is quite easy to make a fool of once you get the pattern so I think adding a few obstacles to make the game harder for the player than just running in circles and sending fireballs from time to time. Overall, I enjoyed playing this game and it could be really nice to update it after the jam to make it even more enjoyable
Vollfeiw
06. Oct 2020 · 17:26 UTC
I also post it there for highscore hunter
![fireloop_score.png](///raw/074/c2/z/391e1.png)
Gonzalol
06. Oct 2020 · 17:41 UTC
Great graphics. Sometimes it's hard to shoot when the enemies are close to you.
Coding4rtist
06. Oct 2020 · 21:24 UTC
Funny game, I'm really impressed by the 3d graphics and Love the main screen music! Good work!
Flying Basement Studios
06. Oct 2020 · 21:25 UTC
The graphics is in one word STUNINNG. I loved the enemies, they looked so cute in the menu and it was very funny how one was dancing and the second was scratching his belly. I'm not sure whether it's a bug or not but there was no music during the game itself even though there was music playing in the main menu.
Overall, really good game.
Eugenik
06. Oct 2020 · 22:09 UTC
Nice and addictive game! Well played !
Anrewqa
06. Oct 2020 · 23:25 UTC
Nice graphics, but wanted to shoot thouse balls from save distance, or hit area effect would be nice
Aless
07. Oct 2020 · 01:47 UTC
Can't believe you made all of this in such a small amount of time. It was fun and felt pretty addictive, main screen music is awesome!
Skleembof
07. Oct 2020 · 03:56 UTC
Did you make all of the assets yourselves? if so that's very impressive.

The loop mechanic was pretty interesting. It took me a while to figure it out though since at first it seemed like the shooting mechanics were just unresponsive since it wouldn't always shoot when I clicked.

After I figured it out though, it did become a lot more enjoyable.

Maybe add more spell types, or change what the fireball does depending on where in the loop it is when you click
🎤 Kevin Meissner
07. Oct 2020 · 07:01 UTC
@skleembof Thanks for your feedback.
Yes we made all of the 3d assets in the jam. I just used a few shaders I made a while ago.
Our first idea was to have all of the elements: Fire, Air, Earth and Water and different enemy types.
But we said lets start as small as possible and just used fire and the ice trolls and it turned out as a good idea. We did not have the time for anyting else^^
Nectanebo
07. Oct 2020 · 15:35 UTC
The visuals are great! Considering the time that you had you did a great job on the animations too! The mechanics are quite simple but the gameplay is really fun! The only thing i didn't like that much is the voice overs of the enemies, since they sound weird and loud. Overall, it's a cool concept and a beautiful execution! Nice!
VPhyre
15. Oct 2020 · 18:44 UTC
I really liked the atmosphere of your game. The graphics are beautiful, the sound is functional, and the controls are very interesting. I imagine a bigger game with the same mechanics and different types of spells. I had a good experience in general with your game. Good job.
dans17
15. Oct 2020 · 19:25 UTC
Fantastic job on the graphics and UI! I'd like to see a post-jam version of this with more elements and enemy types; I think the element looping mechanic has a lot of potential, but timing your shots would be more interesting if you had had to line up the correct element for the correct enemy.
dans17
15. Oct 2020 · 19:27 UTC
This was my highscore, by the way.
![Screenshot (47).png](///raw/993/72/z/3a2f0.png)
daitli
21. Oct 2020 · 21:33 UTC
Oh wow this was really good, I especially liked the 3d graphics, you did a great job on this. It took me a second to get used to the gameplay but once I did, I had quite a bit of fun playing it! Overall a very solid submission.
Enad96
22. Oct 2020 · 13:10 UTC
Wow the graphics of this game look incredible. The dancing animation of the little horned guy was very funny. I think this game deserves more attention! I think the large download is what is scaring potential reviewers off. Great job!