Flock for Feast by Antti Haavikko

[raw]
made by Antti Haavikko for Ludum Dare 46 (COMPO)

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Flock for Feast, my entry for Ludum Dare 46, is kind of a remake of a game I made more than 20 years ago. I had been programming for few years already but still was stuck with Visual Basic (well at least not QBasic anymore). My friend was also just getting into programming and together we hacked up this very simple game in few hours and most likely spent way more hours playing it and competing for high scores. The game was very crude but somehow weirdly fun and addictive. It came to my mind and I wanted to try to see if I could capture that magic again. The game ended up not being very close the the original mechanically but the same essence is still there.

Flock for Feast is an arcade style single screen score-attack game where you just try to stay alive as long as possible and rack up major points. You're in control of a flock of birds that are preyed upon by a vicious monster.


🎮🕹️ Download or play online on itch.io 🕹️🎮


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🛠️ Tools used

  • Unity 2019.1
  • Adobe Illustrator
  • Bfxr
  • Garage Band

🎞️ Gameplay video

Gameplay video

🎥 Dev timelapse

Dev timelapse


🖥️ Screenshots

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https://twitter.com/anttihaavikko

Ratings

Overall 5th 4.34⭐ 52🧑‍⚖️
Fun 2th 4.45⭐ 52🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 119th 3.92⭐ 52🧑‍⚖️
Theme 229th 3.98⭐ 52🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 3th 4.61⭐ 52🧑‍⚖️
Audio 7th 4.388⭐ 51🧑‍⚖️
Humor 142th 3.585⭐ 49🧑‍⚖️
Mood 58th 4.052⭐ 50🧑‍⚖️
Given 30🗳️ 56🗨️

Feedback

Emmanuel Gaillot
19. Apr 2020 · 21:51 UTC
This is a very cool game! I find in it a punk-grunge feeling that I love. Music is a nice contrast with the rather feel-happy drawings. Maybe the game becomes hard too quickly once Big Daddy enters.
Loig
19. Apr 2020 · 23:16 UTC
The first time this big red thing appeared I lost instantly, but at second try I was able to survive and enjoy the game. Nice graphics and very good music.
JoshuaRabbit
20. Apr 2020 · 13:33 UTC
That's crazy! This game has a cute graphics, beautiful UI, interesting gameplay, nice sound and excellent feedback.
It also makes me nervous when the red cloud hid in the shadow,who suddenly killed all my birds.
This game also has leaderboard system! That's amazing!
🎤 Antti Haavikko
20. Apr 2020 · 15:08 UTC
@emmanuel-gaillot @loig Yeah it gets hard very quick. It is supposed to be short each run to encourage trying several times. You know, like in score based games such as pinballs, it's sometimes discouraging to try again after a long run.

@joshuarabbit Thanks for the kind words!

Thanks for playing and for leaving some feedback!
Ruoyu
21. Apr 2020 · 13:59 UTC
I love the graphics. Sound is a nice addition. Camera movement gets a bit weird in some cases but not a big deal.

(BTW, for compo, you are supposed to work alone, but you know :wink: )
olafstromberg
21. Apr 2020 · 14:09 UTC
Very cool game. Really liked the art style and it was very addictive to play. Some of the levels were too difficult to navigate, especially as the red blobs can go behind the terrain. The whole design and palette is unique and very nice, great job!
gquibao
21. Apr 2020 · 14:22 UTC
Everything in this game is just great. Amazing work, really. I loved it.
I was happy that I reached the #3 place on the leaderboard but after I've seen your score as the #1, I'm pretty sure I'll stay at that position.
🎤 Antti Haavikko
21. Apr 2020 · 20:57 UTC
@ruoyu Oh I'm well aware of the compo rules, this isn't my first rodeo! I always work solo, even on jams where it isn't required. I have never actually jammed with a team. The camera movement and zooming was actually one of the last things I added because I didn't want it to feel that static. On hindsight, it was a dumb move to leave it to such a late point so I couldn't really test and tinker with it enough. Probably my biggest learning point from the weekend. Do not leave something that completely changes the feel of the game to such a late point.

@olafstromberg Yeah, I too noticed that sometimes the level generation just deals you a crap hand. Decided to sweep it under the rug though since the runs are so quick that one bad attempt shouldn't be such a big deal. Sometimes the levels can end up being even impossible because they get so narrow gaps which are then filled with rocks etc. And there is even this very rare terrain generation bug where it has some invisible walls in some corners. I guess something in my triangulation code is a bit off.

@gquibao Haha yeah, don't sweat it. I played it quite a lot this weekend. But actually, that isn't even near my hi score I got on the first day before I had implemented leaderboards. I think that was something around 3.5 mil and I even added an additional multiplier after that so it's fully feasible to get a score of around 10 mil. The key to scoring big is not letting your multiplier drop. It only drops when the monster eats a bird so doing well in the early game is a big factor in scoring. And the second monster does not spawn before 25 birds are eaten (if I remember the number correctly) so that early game before the second monster (and third if you can survive long enough) is a huge portion of the total score.

Thanks to everyone for playing and leaving feedback! :heart:
Jajakeim
22. Apr 2020 · 15:45 UTC
Okay, really nice entry. I'm not blasted away by the mechanics, but this is lovely polished for a jam.
A quick question: how did you do the leaderboard? I work with Godot and HTTP request seems to not work from itchi.io, I don't know how you did that in Unity.

Anyway Good Job!
Azo
22. Apr 2020 · 15:51 UTC
Really great game! Amazing to have a leaderboard working, I loved the sound effects and music. Fun and easy controls, very satisfying to play and looks really good! Excellent job!

just realised I have ! at the end of all these sentences - you obviously got me excited
Silas the Dev
22. Apr 2020 · 15:56 UTC
This game was really fun. Everything felt very slippery, which added a fun feeling of panic. The big baddie is a unique mix of cute and horrifying. The game doesn't feel very specific to the theme. some maps left the player trapped with no options, which I was not a fan of. However, it was generally a fun excitingly stressful game. Good job!
Karas
22. Apr 2020 · 15:58 UTC
Nice game, love the style. The gamplay is simple yet addictive. It feel impossible to avoid the red thingy sometimes but I sure try to grind a bit on the leaderboard ! Nice work
LaZZyDev72
22. Apr 2020 · 15:59 UTC
WOW what a game i love it alot you have added the leader boardt which keep the player ingage for a longer time. i had alot of fun. the windwds exe is crashing after few moment again and again The web Works Fine. Well done. My friend Keep it UP. :v: :thumbsup_tone1:
SimanSimon
22. Apr 2020 · 16:15 UTC
Wow, this is a fantastic game :D I enjoyed playing it. With some friends, it could be the perfect party beast game. I found the dying sound of the birds a little too loud, it always scared the hell out of me :D But otherwise, sound is absolutely perfect! I found the contrast between the music and the actual game funny, props for that! I was amazed by the fact that you added a live scoreboard! The only thing that annoyed me a little is the constant camera zooming and panning. Maybe it should be slower or less drastic. Overall, it's a really good game, has a weird vibe to it, which is excellent
🎤 Antti Haavikko
22. Apr 2020 · 16:41 UTC
@jajakeim Yeah it's just a HTTP request shot to my server. It has to be HTTPS though for to work with itch.io or you get mixed content errors.

@azo Exclamation marks! :smile:

@lazzydev72 Oh that's weird. I have not actually even tried the windows version but should be very similar on all standalone version and I did play quite a lot of mac version without encountering any crashes. Maybe I left some memory leak or something in the terrain generation just goes haywire. Good that at least the web version (which is the most important one for jam games really) is stable.

@simansimon Yeah, I'm not too happy about the camera really either. And you're not the only person irritated by it. I already mentioned earlier that it was actually one of the last things I added to the game. Dumb move to leave such an important bit to such a late point. Wanted it to be more lively and less static but would have needed more time to tweak its values and test more.

Thanks everyone for playing and leaving some quality feedback! :heartpulse:
gimblll
23. Apr 2020 · 05:29 UTC
So I guess I am a seagull today! And they're filming me too, well good as I look pretty cool if I say so myself. Well there, there's a fantastic shiny object there and it's mine, all mine (and my cousins')! I'll show them my awesome flying skills!

BLAAAM.

What the hell was that! Out of nowhere. The filming crew must be on 'shrooms or something. Never saw it coming. At least they have a good taste in music.

Let's try again. I can manage this. I'm doing it! I'm the best! The red meanie is easily fooled, he's pretty stupid! Just following me like an idiot! HAHA, I've got your number!

BLAAAMAMAMOOO.

WHAT? A second meanie! Come on! This is turning out to be a really bad day.
🎤 Antti Haavikko
23. Apr 2020 · 10:05 UTC
@gimblll Haha, pretty funny! Wish I could heart a comment more than once. Stupid bird should learn how to read. The film crew quite clearly warns about the villain on the teleprompter. Thanks for playing!
23. Apr 2020 · 15:00 UTC
Fun game! A lot done for 1 person! I loved the game one of my favorite games I have played. Keep it up!
Jiri Hysek
24. Apr 2020 · 19:53 UTC
Hi, I'm always impressed by amount of polish you are able to put into your jam games. But this one looks even cooler than the older ones :) Game mechanics is simple but it's so well made. I like also leaderboards with country flags. It gives a lot to replayability.. In short - another great game!
OldManWinters
25. Apr 2020 · 01:16 UTC
Very addictive little game you have here!
Only real criticisms I have are that the sound effect played when the baddie runs into you damn near blew my eardrums out, and maybe a bit too much white noise in the mix. The random level design sometimes drops a turd on you as well which I guess makes the high score chart a bit of a crapshoot. If noone is really on the same playing field than a portion of the score perhaps reflects how lucky you got with that.

Having said that, the game is a lot of fun to play and the music adds to the feel of it. The birds are fun to control and I love the dual mechanic of the poop boost.
🎤 Antti Haavikko
25. Apr 2020 · 05:06 UTC
@jiri-hysek Yeah I really dig the flags on leaderboards too. It's a very minor addition but somehow it just attaches a ton of personality to each score. And it's a nice reminder about how global thing Ludum Dare really is...

![leaderboards.png](///raw/1e4/3/z/3322f.png)

@oldmanwinters Awesome that you mentioned the poop boost being able to be used offensively. I didn't want to spell it out in the "tutorial" and was starting to wonder if I actually should have since no one was saying anything about it. Using it offensively lots in he early game is actually playing a huge role in getting a big score.

Yeah the level generation does sometimes drop turds on you but I'd say the vast majority of the levels are just fine. I don't think I really got lucky with a level on that score of mine. I just played the game lots during the weekend and other people averaging out at around five tries per player. And it takes at least five tries to get accustomed to the mechanics really. The score increases exponentially too (in the best case when you don't let the multiplier drop) so the gap on the leaderboards really isn't that big. The top spot there is still ripe for getting. I'm quite positive I could at least double the score there pretty easily myself.

Thanks for playing! :two_hearts:
Hegemege
25. Apr 2020 · 12:03 UTC
Awesome, such a polished entry! The level generation made a few of them more difficult, but then it was more exciting to get a "good" level and try to get a good score on it. Very juicy audio effects and UI animations, I could definitely see this game take on multiple different formats too, like an infinite runner or more level-based puzzles or destruction etc. Great job on this!
Kuiefs
25. Apr 2020 · 16:48 UTC
This was really polished and fun. I'm curious to see the original version!
cottontshirtz
25. Apr 2020 · 18:10 UTC
Cool concept with great execution. It might be nice to have the stage open up to a larger area when the flock gets large enough, but that's definitely a "nice to have". Truly impressing!
Thermacon
25. Apr 2020 · 18:21 UTC
This is so much fun to pay. It's simple to grasp the mechanics, addicting, and makes me want to keep trying over and over. I absolutely love the graphics. The leaderboard really adds a competitive aspect. My one complaint is the lag every time a bird get caught. At first it does not cause a problem, but eventually it starts to make the game unplayable. Over all, great job!
lapinchatware
25. Apr 2020 · 22:25 UTC
45671 - Well, it's no a bad score. Interesting game. Music and sfx are good. The first appearance of the red blob is surprising and unforgiving. But once you're expecting it, it becomes really enjoyable. Is it possible to destroy this red blob? If not, it should! Having different boss battles can be an interesting twist. It's a very polished game. Excellent LD entry! I am also interested in playing the twenty-year-old first version. :thumbsup:
Emperor Eagle
26. Apr 2020 · 05:38 UTC
My "Seagull Squadron" got third at the time of this review with 180,733 points! This game, however, the most important part, is fantastic! The colours work together superbly and the gameplay was invigorating. Super fun and super unique. This game is amazing and I really enjoyed playing it for a decent amount of time. Controlling the flock felt really good and smooth, and the font was well chosen/made. Everything fitted together really well to create this, yes I'll use the word, masterpiece! The only thing I would say was the maps randomizing was awesome, but could disadvantage some runs, but then that's what makes it fun and diverse so I'm not complaining. The only thing I could say you could improve, was the blob enemy felt like it could've done with a gradient/pattern, but that's just me picking at a near perfect game. Thank you very much for your extensive review of our game, it was much appreciated! I have given this game very high ratings as it certainly deserves it! Incredible game, incredible job!
🎤 Antti Haavikko
26. Apr 2020 · 11:46 UTC
@kuiefs @lapinchatware Sadly the original game doesn't exist anywhere anymore. This was the time before I even had internet. Learned to code from source codes I managed to get my hands on (and that were simple enough for a beginner to understand) and, drumroll, books! And a whole lot of trial and error of course. Actually might be a fun idea to do a more faithful recreation of it for some one hour jam or something...

Even though it wasn't really my intention, I kinda like the juxtaposition of warning about the enemy and them BOOM, everyone dies to it. It's just a few seconds in so probably not that big of an annoyance. Nope, not possible to destroy the blob. Not by traditional means at least. Maybe if you completely manage to break the physics of it though... :thinking:

@emperor-eagle Hmm, Emperor Eagle and his Seagull Squadron, that has a nice ring to it! :sunglasses: And that's a pretty respectable score. Even though it might seem like it's quite far from the bit over million score I left on the board, considering how the scoring works, it really isn't that far off. Thanks for the overly kind words!

And thanks to everyone for playing! :two_hearts:
n.feofentov
26. Apr 2020 · 14:24 UTC
Really good game! I like how it's polished and well-done. Level generation may give you rather unfair layouts mostly because baddies can go through the wall. But the feel and general idea are great! Good job!
m-trigo
26. Apr 2020 · 18:40 UTC
HOLY F%#!ING S#!T.

This is another level.

:ballot_box_with_check: Perfect "tutorial" (teach gradually through play)

:ballot_box_with_check: A lot of juice and responsiveness

:ballot_box_with_check: Simple concept executed very well

Even the LD page is amazing.
OddSocks
27. Apr 2020 · 09:43 UTC
Just starting this game was awesome! Loved the sound effects as the menu revealed itself. The polish you added is amazing, doubly so as this is a compo. Challenge vs reward was right on point. Thoroughly enjoyable game. I want to have a comment on something you should change, or that wasn't working... but I'm at a blank!!!

Fantastic LD entry. Top marks all around.
Rikitaner
28. Apr 2020 · 18:09 UTC
Man... this is incredible! One of the best games so far! So much juice and polish in this! It's fun, the art is great, and it's probably the only game I've seen so far with a leaderboard! My only complaint is that the sound when your birds get hit is really loud. Overall I'm really impressed, fantastic entry!
krakadushka
28. Apr 2020 · 18:40 UTC
Cool concept, well done! I like the graphic design of your project, and I was especially impressed with the table of records - that's what I didn't expect to see in the game from this competition. Thanks very much for your game! P.S. Your game is well polished - it's amazing!
Local Minimum
29. Apr 2020 · 19:06 UTC
Really cool game and well made game that got progressively more challenging. I didn't get very far though, and for some reason, while playing the web version in Firefox I could only play 3 times before the game crashed with an index error. Reloaded page and play 3 more and crash. I like the art and the music/sounds.
Aurel300
29. Apr 2020 · 21:01 UTC
Incredible levels of ***juiciness*** and polish, and it's a compo entry! :open_mouth: Very addictive gameplay, and the leaderboards only kept me playing for a longer time. The aesthetics and music are great, and I would not be surprised to see them in a full indie title or at least a very popular mobile game. I appreciate a lot of the little touches, like the faces on the … circle-shaped scenery, the fact that I can deflect the enemies with my boost-poop, the combo-encouraging score system.

I do have some nit picks:

- When the enemy destroys a lot/all of my flock at the same time, the sound is rather unpleasant and loud to the point of clipping; maybe it should be "throttled".
- The various (randomly-generated?) arena layouts are great, but many of them feel extremely unfair, especially ones with a narrow V-shaped tunnel, or a more enclosed notch.
- It would be nice to be able to restart the game without submitting, when I know my score is much worse than my best and I don't want to wait for the submission (not that the server is slow but still!)
- I really don't understand what makes the second enemy spawn, my best guess at the moment is that it is just random; when it spawns, it might as well be game over, the game becomes a lot more difficult! (My best attempt on the leaderboard is one where the second enemy never spawned?)
- The camera feels nice and dynamic, but sometimes it cuts off important parts of the screen, it is very annoying to have to collect food that is off-screen.
- The fact that the enemy speeds up towards the flock when destroying birds makes winning and losing more of a binary decision, I am not sure if that is good … And combined with the loud sound issue it feels doubly punishing.
- Sometimes I start with 2 birds instead of one? Sometimes after collecting food a bird spawns pretty much in a random spot on the screen?
- Some of the level scenery feel too thin to be colliding – the pipes that stick out are colliding obstacles while the hanging chains are not (yet they are visually similar).

But really, these are mostly minor thing, overall this might be the most polished game I've seen this LD. Great job!
🎤 Antti Haavikko
30. Apr 2020 · 05:20 UTC
@local-minimum That's pretty weird, someone else mentioned the windows version doing the same but then they managed to play the web version without any issues. Was is always the same number or plays before the crash or was it a bit more random? And does it happen on when you click to start from the start menu?

@aurel300 Thanks a lot or the detailed feedback! Oh yes indeed, decided to keep the score very small this time so I could focus pretty hard on polish. There are even smaller details like the scenery faces (dunno why but I called them lurkers in code) actually do like a different emotes when they're hit by bird or poop. Something that will most likely go unnoticed in the heat of the action.

You got a very respectable score too! Finally my position on the leaderboards is starting to get threatened a bit. The British are invading the top five!

Yeah, the birds exploding sound is quite obnoxious. Or the sound itself (or sounds since it's few different clips layered on top of each other with individual pitch shifts) is fine in my opinion at least but it starts to be an issue when multiple birds die at the same time (ie. like always). The plentiful visual effects on these also seem to cause some lag for some people.

Totally would have made sense to add a quick restart button. I actually had that functionality there but it was also toggled to isEditor flag. Wonder why it didn't come to mind that might be a good addition since I kept using it constantly myself. I like always have these dev cheat keys on my games and I'm guessing other people have them too. Always a good idea to consider those from the critical perspective that are they fixing or improving some fundamental design flaw in the game. Like I've quite a few times had a speed up dev button which as a hindsight is a pretty big red flag...

The second monster spawns when it has killed a certain number of birds. It is still possible to play for quite some while even after that, at least until the point that you get a third one. Of course it indeed is much harder but there is an additional multiplier on the scoring of monster count squared (or was it cubed, can't quite remember). It probably could be even bigger though since your multiplier has reset at that point and it's nigh impossible to get it too high again. Would make the desperate struggle for those final pickups more worthwhile.

The monster dash thing ended up being a complete accident but I kinda liked it so I left it. It actually was supposed to be kind of a knockback. I'm adding the dying bird velocity vector to the monster applied forces. Obviously this also does sort of do a knockback when you're heading straight towards the monster but more often than not you are going the opposite direction.

I still feel like the camera movement is my biggest mishap this LD. Added it way too late to get to test and tinker with it enough. Well, jams are learning experiences and here is to hoping that I don't repeat the same mistake (too many times) again. It's something like a median of the positions of all birds and the pickup and at least the pickup position should be prioritized where a lot more.

No idea what causes the double bird and the birds appearing on random positions. Quite early on I had this suspicion that it was just the pickup spawning on a bird and immediately getting collected. I even added a fix for this but obviously it's not just that. And even if it was, the bird would spawn where the flock already is. And now that I think about it, might know the reason. Most likely it's multiple birds hitting the pickup on same frame. First handled hit spawns a bird and repositions the pickup. Second hit is then handled and bird is spawned in the just previously generated position and yet another position is found. Yeah, that must be it...

Thanks again for playing and leaving quality feedback! :two_hearts:
Bloham
30. Apr 2020 · 08:06 UTC
New Nr. 20 :D ! But a runtime error with the JavaScript crashed the game (HTML5/Firefox) xD
It feels very complete and polished, that's amazing for a COMPO game! The game mechanic works and the challenge rises over time. The Game is simple and good explained! Hope you continue making games, I can imagine you can do even greater things when you have more time :D
AndideBob
30. Apr 2020 · 08:19 UTC
I honestly don't know what to say about this game that has not been said already... It is a really solid and crazy polished game. It feels great, is super easy to pick up, sounds amazing and looks super clean! Really well done. Probably one of the top games of LD46!
jaywoody
30. Apr 2020 · 19:22 UTC
What an amazing game that you've done in 48 hours! That's no small feat. Everything is spot on and polished to the highest degree. The gameplay is fast, engaging and addictive because of course you want to beat the high scores. I really didn't find anything to improve on except maybe when a lot of your birds get wiped out at the same time sometimes it kind of clips the sound, I think. But that's such a minor thing. Best I've played so far! Good job! Go Finland! :)
tacohej
01. May 2020 · 22:19 UTC
With all the great feedback we got on our game, I wanted somehow return the favor. Of course I didn't want it to effect my rating, so instead went into the game with the mindset of trying to master it.

I think all of the points has already been made about the occasional crashing on restart, the sound, camera, some harder levels than others. Something i've would like to have is some kind of feedback on the boost reload time, with the timing so important I found myself using it less and less.
Also losing the multiplier from a single bird lost was a little bit rough, and alot of runs felt like they were doomed before they started. I'm thinking that maybe the multiplier could have been based on the number of birds instead, or perhaps losing 1x multiplier for each bird lost.

The amount of polish here is super impressive, and something i would not expect from the compo jam. Crazy! A cute detail was the pitch change when boosting, and overall the music and audio was great.

I got a decent score early on, and I was #3 on the high score but I didn't feel like I was improving. The movement of the blobs was still a mystery. I was close to call it, but then I remembered my mission.

Back to square one. I started to experiment with different strategies, like going slow trying to control the blob movement and going fast utilizing the boost to get pickups closer. The most important thing I learned was to not always go for the pickups and instead focus more on the movement of the blobs.
My runs started to feel alot cleaner, and I had a few really good ones but not yet #1. A few times I got excited over the momentum and tried to peak at the score, killing myself in the progress.

And then it happened. Super clean start, great control and speed on the blob and good spawns (At this point I think it started to lag a little bit, not sure if it was because of all the birds). Still one blob, wanted to peak at the score so bad, but tried to stay focused.

At last I get a huge collision losing almost everying, but still in the game. The second blobs joins and devourers all but two, and with a difficult maneuver I manage to sneak between them losing just one in the escape (I'm telling you, that was some star wars death star action).

One flier left. Manage to recover some with good spawns and the blobs on the other side. I feel like I can recover and squeeze a few extra points when the third, mr douchebag jr joins the party.

Game over.

If I didn't make it clear, I had a blast playing this even with it's flaws, and have been for me one of the highlights for this LD. And finally I could get a look at my score!
🎤 Antti Haavikko
02. May 2020 · 04:32 UTC
Congrats @tacohej! :tada::military_medal: Finally someone dethroned me from the number one position.

The formula for the score per pellet is:
**multiplier** x **live bird count** x **pellet number** x **monster count squared**

So the bird count is already a part of the score. This is why the early game matters so much and is the major bulk in scores. Also the exact reason why I added monster count to be a part of it too. Felt like anything past the first mistake didn't matter much. And it still doesn't matter enough for my liking, should have at leas cubed it instead of just squaring it. The end game indeed has those super tight squeezes between the blobs just barely surviving and those aren't rewarded like at all. Maybe I should have added kind of a grazing functionality à la Touhou series. Balancing stuff is hard! :confounded:

Yeah, kinda farming the mob speed is a good strategy. It has a huge amount of inertia not letting its velocity rise too high is a very good idea. It was thinking at some point adding a reset to multiplier when too much time passes between gathering pellets too but I guess I either forgot about it or decided that it's not needed.

Thanks for playing! :two_hearts:
BattleCat
02. May 2020 · 07:58 UTC
Very solid entry. Everything felt incredibly smooth, and it was really fun. Good sound and feedback from events. Only thing I didn't like so much was that the tips where behind all the scenery or off screen most of the time, and that's a minor thing. Well done.
🎤 Antti Haavikko
02. May 2020 · 08:49 UTC
@battlecat Oh you mean the tips as in the "tutorial" messages? They should be in front of everything else. And yeah, them being off screen was the camera issue. Pro tip, if you've been coding a static camera game for a weekend, it's not such a great idea in the final moments decide to adda some camera movement to make it seem more dynamic.
invader
04. May 2020 · 07:14 UTC
Amazing game! Very steep arcade-style difficulty curve. And maybe because of that, it is highly addictive. You get wiped out pretty fast and want to try again and again.

I agree with comments above on the camera. Sometimes, it can zoom in and cut out a significant part of tutorial text or a view on baddie just nearby. But it is really a minor issue. I feel, that the camera zoom makes the whole experience better. It feels more dynamic that way. Maybe, the camera should be a little bit smarter regarding baddies position. And you can disable the zoom until the end of tutorial.

I had another issue with the scene layout. Sometimes, the generated landscape is divided on several caves by huge rocks in the middle with small passages in-between. And that makes it very hard to navigate, since baddies have no problem of getting through and my flock should get around it and often gets stuck. Therefore, the landscape layout has a big influence on the final score. Not a big deal, but still - after a while, I was already aware that with that particular layout I could not get very far.

As an idea - you can try to make the landscape partly destructable by the birds. So after multiple hits, landscape elements will be destroyed, cleaning up the caves and making them easier to navigate.

In overall, you can try some improvements, but the game already looks complete the way it is.

It is the most polished game I've seen in this jam! Well balanced and with moody soundtrack... Very engaging and a joy to play. Superb job! Especially for a compo entry! :thumbsup:
Jupiter_Hadley
05. May 2020 · 17:08 UTC
Cute graphics, fun game! I included it in my Ludum Dare 46 compilation video series, if you want to take a look. :) https://youtu.be/hSxuRpvTWAs
angiemon
06. May 2020 · 15:57 UTC
What a fantastic game! Wow! It's very very obvious you've been making games for a long time.
I don't even know where to start. The gameplay as well as the graphics are outstanding.
Visually this is very strong, on like every level. In game, every little detail you've added also with the UI and all the effects, how the buttons react etc., this looks sooo professional!
Also from a graphic design point of view this is fantastic, as with the colour combinations, contrast and shapes this looks great from every distance and therefore made for a really appealing cover image :)
I'm amazed you've come up with this amazing artstyle while "only" being a programmer (Oh god, I'm sure that just sounded extremely horrible haha, well you know what I mean, normally those folks are more.. tech oriented ;))
The gameplay is highly addictive so if you say it's some sort of a poor bad knock-off of the original game you did I'd be afraid to never stop playing that one, haha!
This game seriously feels soooo polished, I have nothing negative to say..... EXCEPT! I have one HUGE complaint! (Ha, didn't expects that now did you)
WHY. THE. HELL. IS. IT. POSSIBLE. TO. DOWNGRADE. YOUR. OWN. HIGHSCORE.
Dude. This is so mean D: Beyond mean actually.
Just whyyyyyy. My precious highscore T_____T I'll have you know that the Pro Player I am; I managed to beat #1 EASILY and then wanted to play again for the lulz and what happened? I had to sneeze (Corona or something) and now it's GONE! GOOOOONE. Well, and there's no way for you to check if I was lying (...right?) Soooo. Shame on you! Tsk.

Apart from that major flaw though ;) you really did an outstanding job! :D you should seriously publish that on Steam and the Appstore (I feel like this would make a pretty awesome mobile game too, and aasuper addictive one at that, Geometry Dash style)
5/5 would play again
🎤 Antti Haavikko
07. May 2020 · 11:03 UTC
@angiemon Big thanks for the detailed feedback!

I indeed am "just" a programmer and I approach visual stuff mostly from code perspective too. I have worked as a web dev for over then years quite closely with graphic designers so I guess I've absorbed some eye for colors and basic compositions. :wink:

It actually is not possible to downgrade your score. Every time you submit a new row is added to the database and then the leaderboards just shows the best from those (with name and machine id combination) and ignores the rest. It just asks for a name each time for the case that multiple people would be playing on same computer. Unless you really somehow stumbled into some weird bug. I can check the database if you think something didn't go right...
angiemon
07. May 2020 · 19:58 UTC
@antti-haavikko Oops my bad, then it seems like I've misunderstood things :D (I played all my playthroughs in a row until I was satisified and didn't check the Highscore inbetween those, and for some reason interpreted it as updating it every time) seems like I'm just a dummy,
in that case your game is perfect ;D
"I guess I’ve absorbed some eye for colors and basic compositions" And a pretty pretty good one at that, this is top notch even for a "real" designer (ugh let's drop that shit, I regret ever bringing it up, haha) You ARE a real designer ^^
Keep making games :)
JMad
09. May 2020 · 00:29 UTC
Definitely one of my favorite games. Easy to pick up, smooth, juicy, engaging dynamic music, great feedback, superb palette and cool minimalistic art style... and POOP BOOSTS. It just feels amazing playing, and you keep wanting to try again and achieve better. Loved it! You did a fantastic job.
Naca
09. May 2020 · 16:07 UTC
Impressive work for a Compo entry! Music is fantastic, gameplay is fun and addictive, procedural level generation (or it's just many different levels, I don't know)... The game also feels complete and well polished, it's a pleasure to play. Congratulations!
Geckoo1337
12. May 2020 · 12:06 UTC
Amazing game with a neat aesthetic and a very good gameplay - unusual and clever. I had fun playing, trying to reach my best score. There is inside your project many beautiful details with monsters, music or FX. Controls work as expected. I would like to say that this is my favorite game for this 46th LudumDare session, but... with a **score near to 180k, it was very frustrating to see your game crashing**. Sorry, but bugged. Thank you ++
IDidGame
12. May 2020 · 12:27 UTC
damn, that is fun as hell! great style too!
Game-mon
12. May 2020 · 14:22 UTC
Amazing game! Very fun to play. Nice visuals & audio. Great you could implement a leaderboard in such a short amount of time. Congrats! :D
🎤 Antti Haavikko
12. May 2020 · 20:11 UTC
@geckoo1337 Aww, sorry about the crashing! Was it the standalone version? I have a slight suspicion I might finally have a clue about the reason for this. I've now been developing my #7DRL game further and very similar thing happened there too. And there it was the case of Unity not including one shader in the compiled game. I have no clue why it doesn't crash straight when first trying to use the shader but kinda randomly after trying to use it loads of times. Thanks for playing tho... :two_hearts:
Geckoo1337
12. May 2020 · 22:11 UTC
Yes. I played using the standalone version. I hope that you can find and fix the bug. Thank you ++
ukirain
14. May 2020 · 09:44 UTC
Awesome game! Your game dragged me very tightly. Nice work! I wait more games from you​. Good luck!

PS: Glad to see you again on Ludum Dare! :smile:
Lee Reilly
15. May 2020 · 19:18 UTC
:wave_tone1: This game is featured in a blog post highlighting my favorite LD46 games:

**https://github.blog/2020-05-15-ludum-dare-46-staff-picks** `<3`