REWRITER by johjoh

Purify the grid and make the enemy's territory your own. A grid-based? roguelite.
(Note: no sound, but may be added in a post-jam build.)
Controls
Move: WASD / DPAD / Left Stick
Attack: Arrow Keys / Face Buttons
| Youtube | https://johjoh.itch.io/rewriter |
| Youtube | https://johjoh.itch.io/rewriter |
| Youtube | https://johjoh.itch.io/rewriter |
| Youtube | https://johjoh.itch.io/rewriter |
| Youtube | https://johjoh.itch.io/rewriter |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/45/rewriter |
Ratings
| Overall | 38th | 3.984⭐ | 33🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 7th | 4.194⭐ | 33🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 44th | 4⭐ | 33🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 437th | 2.726⭐ | 33🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 139th | 3.629⭐ | 33🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 319th | 2.22⭐ | 27🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 200th | 3.268⭐ | 30🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 31🗳️ | 2🗨️ |
But if I leave the browser tab for even a moment it says "WebGL context lost, please reload the page" and I have to restart.
Note, since you have no audio, you should opt out of that category!
@khaotom Thanks for pointing that out, just did that.
#2 best game ive played so far today.
i dont really have any complaints about this game, it ran smoothly, it was fun to play, the controls were tight and my death was fair. the only thing i could think of was that I couldn't easily tell how much health i still had, and some of the pickups weren't clear. but overall it was very fun and engaging
and having the enemies hit you with walls, such genius! well played, sir, well played
and, of course— the mechanics are quite fun, interesting premise of manipulating tiles to damage one another as well as for mobility, and the helping of upgrades on top certainly makes it good fun
i'd just really love to see some sound in, it's the one thing this game really needs
Only managed to beat it in Powertrip mode, but I did get to level 3 in normal mode until the green guys slammed me into oblivion. Super fun game, played dozens of rounds, I got really immersed into it. Very satisfying to play, the clearness of where attacks go on the grid really helped make it feel very fair when I got hit. Well designed and well polished game, great entry!
The only thing I'm not sure about is the fact that everything is tied to the grid except for the player movement. There were a lot of times that I was just _barely_ outside the box I thought I was in and it made me whiff attacks and then get hit. I would have liked to have my movement as a player tied to the grid also.
* As @minibobbo noted, it can be difficult to accurately tell which tile the player is on, and you get punished pretty hard for making a mistake with that. Likewise for the enemies. So, either tying movement to the grid, or in some way highlighting the tiles that the player and enemies currently occupy, would be helpful (I know that technically the tile the player occupies _is_ differentiated, but the effect is so subtle that it's hard to parse during combat).
* The enemies need more of a wind-up animation to their attacks; not for aesthetic purposes, but to give the player time to react to an incoming attack. Especially early in the game when you have only 1 range, there's a lot of tedious waiting for an enemy to attack so you can safely move in and counter attack (assuming you judged your relative grid positions correctly). It'd be nicer if you could (relatively) safely move in for an attack, and then dodge out of the way when you see an attack coming, rather than waiting until after they attack, slipping in for a quick hit and then fleeing and waiting for the next attack. Of course, they do already have _some_ wind-up; the windup they already have might be sufficient if it was more obvious what tile each of you were in, so you didn't have to spent reaction time working out whether or not you're co-linear with the enemy.
* Range is _really_ important, especially early. Having an attack range bigger than your opponent makes the game easier in a way that not even damage up does; this is actually a nice change of pace from a lot of similar games where DPS is king, but it does get a little silly sometimes. Again, if the enemies telegraphed their attacks better it'd better balance the different options for attack
* Of course as noted by others including yourself, some sound effects would be good.
I'd also like to give two notes of praise:
* The specific way that attacking ties into movement (that is, player attacks destroy walls in addition to damaging foes, enemy attacks, create walls in addition to damaging the player) is neat, I don't think I've ever seen a mechanic like that before.
* Even though the graphics aren't particularly detailed or complex, I really like the animation on the characters (particularly the player). His bounce is great.
Also some random notes that aren't really good or bad:
In PowerTrip mode, a number of the powerups that appears in the chest are uniformly bad:
* Jittery: Halves damage for no benefit
* Family Size: Halves movement speed for no benefit
* Near-sighted: Reduces range to minimum for no benefit (basically a death sentence)
* Shotgun: Quite good, though still theoretically a trade-off (downside matters less than in normal mode)
* T-shirt: Uniformly good, just like it always is.
* Heart Transplant: Absolutely fantastic, no downside, and much more relevant here than in normal mode.
I find the balance of these a bit weird in normal mode, though I'm not sure what you'd do about it.
My major issue was from being able to tell which square enemies and myself were in. I feel like it should have just been completely grid based instead of this partial mix between free movement and grid based attacks.
I beat it a few times and just kept starting another game so I had a great time.