Battle of Neptune by BinarySpark
A cycle of giving and taking
Humanity is exploring the stars, and found a never-seen before planet, with all manner of odd creatures on it. So what do you do? Get in a hazmat suit and blow them up!
Enter a roguelike with procedural levels and stackable powerups. No run is quite the same, no build plays exactly the same.
You may not succeed at first, but keep trying, experiment with different styles, and push ever onwards.
Key Features
- A new roguelike & bullet-hell experience.
- Variety of fully stackable powerups to create crazy weapon builds.
- Cast of enemies with unique behaviors, forcing you to adapt, and creating new gameplay opportunities.
- Destructible terrain: punch through cover, or hide behind some -- but keep moving!
- Powerful, juicy gameplay, with sounds and visuals that pack a punch.
Controls
Supports mouse and keyboard or an Xbox-compatible gamepad. (Though you need a mouse for the menus.)
- Move: WASD or arrow keys [keyboard] or left stick [gamepad].
- Look/Aim: Mouse or right stick [gamepad].
- Shoot: Left-click [mouse] or right-trigger [gamepad].
Screenshots


Credits
- Sam Minh Ly: Level design, enemy design, balancing, audio
- Mika Molenkamp: Programming, audio, UI
- Jorrit Neslo: Character art, environment art, UI
Sounds created with assistance of BFXR, or sampled from FreeSound (https://freesound.org/).
Music: OpenGameArt (https://opengameart.org)
Font: Karma Suture, by Typodermic Fonts (http://www.typodermicfonts.com)
PLAY THE GAME:
| Youtube | https://binaryspark.itch.io/battle-of-neptune |
| Youtube | https://www.syllendel.nl/ld47/ |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/47/battle-of-neptune |
Ratings
| Overall | 116th | 4.107⭐ | 30🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 34th | 4.214⭐ | 30🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 1139th | 3.018⭐ | 30🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 1578th | 2.519⭐ | 29🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 573th | 3.821⭐ | 30🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 985th | 2.426⭐ | 29🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 620th | 3.571⭐ | 30🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 16🗳️ | 23🗨️ |
Wasn't really sure how the theme fit in here though (unless it's the replaying after death?).
@amkingtrp Thank you. To be entirely honest, we mostly just made the game we wanted to make, even if it didn't quite end up matching the theme.
@fupi @error-ff Thank you for the kind words :heart:
@elbbard Those both sound like bugs, sorry about that! The 'break the loop' button is just an exit button, it wouldn't do anything for the web version anyway. As for the weapon being stuck - I hope it didn't bother you too much!
@cnewt Thank you! Well, it's a roguelike for a reason :wink:
I wish there was either a way for me to manually reload, or I didn't have to worry about clip sizes. Especially when the HUD went away, I wouldn't know how much ammo I had left and would enter a fight only to immediately run out of bullets.
The UI for health bar and ammo was a little obtrusive for me, it was hard to see bullets/enemies sometimes because of the size.
The item powerups were fun and it really started to feel like a roguelike in the later levels.
The enemies that spawn the green walls were a little annoying when they would block up a doorway I was trying to enter. I would have to shoot the green walls over and over again as they continually blocked up the only entrance into a room.
Overall, great game!
So (Finished the game), i made it in 1st try, wich indicate that i clearly played too much nuclear throne. But yeah, that was fun, totally my kind of game, so that may be not really relevant.
There's a bad thing in my opinion, the ui (HP / Ammo) is cool, but tend to be "unaware of my own size" if i can say it that way when i'm not directly looking my character, my brain process it as "i'm going to be hurt" just before the "oh, it's just the UI", this is my only bad point i guess.
Well anyway, as for the theme, i really expected a loop system as in nuclear throne, where you keep your upgrade, but enemy are tougher and in greater number, the game being more punishing with every loop. That's kinda the same thing as you do "per floor" i guess, but, considering the same, i would have expected an endless rogue like, where you end up a god fighting god like creature.
With that said, I really enjoyed it, and from a rogue-like fan, not as a developer, but with my gamer heart, thank you for your entry.
# Now to the feedback:
- **Enviroment:**
It got a ltitle repetitive but it's a Ludum Dare and it's insane to expect different environments.
- **Ammo**:
I wish there was some more indication of ammo as you run out and then seemingly randomly it just instantly refills and I have no idea how long that will take which just makes the whole system feel clunky and slow and leads to me having to sit around waiting a good 5 seconds to make sure it's refilled before moving on.
- **Wall placer thingy**:
The wall placer green slug thingy really led to some tough moments and I like it from an outside perspective but in practice coupled with the fact that the walls it places don't go away it really doesn't feel all that great.
- **Movement:**
The on off movement may have been better on a controller but without easing in and out it makes it feel a bit janky but that's a bit of polish that is hard to sneak into LD's!
- **Upgrades:**
Perhaps it was purposefully but not knowing what an upgrade is before you get it really sucks.
- **The bullet sprayer:**
In my opinion is not great. In my experience after getting the upgrade I couldn't hit anything from greater than medium range, and if you go under medium range especially in a packed area where this upgrade would be best you won't be able to avoid taking damage - a permanent change!
- **Barrels:**
This is really nitpicky but having random barrels and things around the map that do nothing when destroyed felt off to me, I would have loved to see if there was something that came out of it other than the sound!
- **Juice!:**
The juice in this was great but as the saying goes at all those Ted Talks, *"You can always have more juice!" and mainly I felt killing an enemy was missing a little juice (Again, understandable for a LD!).
# The things I loved!
- **Unit variety and upgrades:**
Their were a lot of cool units (*By far my favourite one is the machine gunner - such a cool animation too!*) and the unit variety always felt good. The upgrades all felt really good and I had fun stacking them and making my own custom build.
- **The pew-pew:**
I can't quite explain this but you'll know what I mean: Shooting just *feels* right! It feels good, it feels fun, you've done **all** the right things!
- **The balance:**
The game was balanced really *really* well - good job on that part! Nothing felt too op or tough and everything felt right. It took me about 2 tries to get used to it during which I was crap but I eased in quick.
- **The camera:**
The camera movement was done really well, with it being synced up with the mouse and all. It felt super polished and smooth and it was good enough to have me forget about it and just become completely immersed in the game at most points.
**The game left me wishing that their was a boss or just more it was that good and it feels polished enough and solid enough to be a co-op party game on steam.**
Bravo, bravo solid entry amazing game, great job - I can't overemphasize this! Congrats on such a great entry!
There is a lot more on the 'things I loved' section or else I wouldn't have played it til the end, I am just tired today, perhaps I'll update this in the future with more things!
*Oh, and thanks for checking out our game - that was not what I expected to happen when I made that comment. Now that I've looked over this more I can decided that you are using energy projectile's rather than bullets. I think because of this distinction we can settle this lawsuit as friends, what do you think?*
*(Oh and consider the lawsuit dropped, yeah? xD)*
You tuned the game just right that even someone like me with not too much interest in bullethell's feels accomplished, chapeau!
Liked a lot the upgrade system you went for too, yet I think the optimal power level at the beginning would be +1 sniper and +1 bullets everywhere. Not that this would matter too much, as it made getting the first upgrades even more satisfying!
Oh! I also really like the idea of most of the map being destructable, aswell as the great use of the green-block-generator-enemies!
The music fits fantastically too! Wonderful job, thank you for this game!