FurBall by Plutonium Powered

[raw]
made by Plutonium Powered for Ludum Dare 46 (JAM)

STORY

An adventurous housecat breaks free for some wandering in the wild... It's all fun and games until someone's paws get wet—or worse! Lucky for kitty, bears in the wild are inventive and kind. Use your racket to prevent this reckless furball from losing its nine lives by volleying it out of treacherous landscapes and getting it to safety.

CONTROLS

WASDE = jump, left, underhand swing, right, overhand swing

OR

Arrow keys = left, right, jump Forward slash "/" = underhand swing Period "." = overhand swing

NOTE: hold the overhand swing to charge up power!

TITLE ART

FURBALL_Titlepage.png

Ratings

Overall 1927th 3.18⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Fun 1682th 3.1⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 1702th 3.042⭐ 26🧑‍⚖️
Theme 1548th 3.5⭐ 26🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 1106th 3.712⭐ 28🧑‍⚖️
Audio 1033th 3.22⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Humor 466th 3.543⭐ 25🧑‍⚖️
Mood 1300th 3.357⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Given 24🗳️ 12🗨️

Feedback

PolyPickle
20. Apr 2020 · 02:33 UTC
The parrallaxed background was great for the sense of movement and frantic-ness you seemed to be shooting for. The sprites were all cute! The music and sound matched the theme well, perfect for the game.

The problem with this one in my mind is that its just not that fun, with most of the game being spent waiting for the cat to fall back down. Levels also took a long time

Controls were odd, WASD + space would make it very easy to play with one hand. My entire left hand was dedicated to one button.

Also, it didnt seem to make a difference whether you caught it or not. Bug?
Schwarcraft
20. Apr 2020 · 19:46 UTC
The background movement was great. Made me feel like I was really going fast. Also I loved the art. It seemed like such a cute game if you don't think about the fact that you are smacking a cat to keep it from drowning.

I didn't like the controls you picked though. Seemed very non traditional. I would stick with classics as PolyPickle mentioned.

The "charge" didn't appear to have much of an impact to me also.

After a while the gameplay loop gets a touch stale, but limited time to make it so whatcha gonna do.

Good job!
misterG420
21. Apr 2020 · 07:45 UTC
Wow, can I have a furball myself? It is REALLY pretty and you can see the dedication of the team and attention to details!
thebreakfast
21. Apr 2020 · 19:45 UTC
Great art and neat concept. In level 2 and level 3 the cats stopped falling for me, so I was able to pass the levels only jumping over the birds.

When I was able to keep a cat up, it usually got caught in the far right side of the screen which gave me very little time to dodge the birds. Maybe making the cats bounce the direction the bear is facing would help with this, or randomize the direction. In any case, it's a good jam entry! Good job!
Cicero
21. Apr 2020 · 22:14 UTC
Cute art and nice use of the theme. Great entry!
Epsulon
22. Apr 2020 · 16:09 UTC
Cute game, with very nice graphics!
tau-by-2pi
23. Apr 2020 · 15:12 UTC
a most tremendous effort and result by a most excellent and dedicated team! good work guys :v:
AdrianKrawczyk
24. Apr 2020 · 07:19 UTC
very cute game!
Lamasaurus
24. Apr 2020 · 07:24 UTC
Had a blast playing this. Felt bad for hitting the cute kitten with a racket, but that how it is in the wild I guess :stuck_out_tongue: The music gives a nice calming atmosphere. Keep up the good work!
Nonon
24. Apr 2020 · 07:27 UTC
Cute, I was able to reach level 2 but at some point my bear jumped and desappeared so I died.
I played all the time on the far right side of the screen because the direction I was facing when hitting the kitten didn't seem to have an effect and it was always going on the right until it bumbed into the edge. Maybe that is something I would improve.
mmadara1
24. Apr 2020 · 07:28 UTC
i really like it, thank you so much for the game! I would be grateful if you told what think of my game
CarlOfAllTrades
24. Apr 2020 · 07:30 UTC
there is some bug (the racket must be fixed) and the sound also presents some problems (some sounds start together).
All in all it's quite fun.
With a few more elements, it could be a mobile game, imho.
KittenFuzzArt
24. Apr 2020 · 07:35 UTC
Incredible. The music, the furball, the gameplay. All really great and a lot of fun!
marcusnystrand
24. Apr 2020 · 07:35 UTC
Good music and also nice touch that it shifts to another melody when game is over.

I'm not sure if this is supposed to happen but if you spam jump you will actually do a double jump and go outside the screen. I believe maybe you could fix it in your ground checking function. I've had this problem myself many times hehe :)

Overall pretty fun game, well done!
JUSTCAMH
24. Apr 2020 · 07:45 UTC
Hey, that's a really cool game! It was quite fun juggling those cats, and I love the change of level theme (tho I do wish that the mechanics changed a bit over time). I really liked the music, particularly for the lava theme, that just had a really cool mood to it. Speaking of the lava area, boy did I cut it close, one life left for the last 1000 metres (but I made it!) I'm not quite sure about these underhand and overhand hits, they both seemed to do the same thing, and I couldn't find any way of charging the hit. Speaking of controls, I didn't initially realise that you could jump, and I thought birds were a death sentence. It was rather unfun to play without the jump, you could perhaps tutorialise in game so people know what they're doin. But once I figured that out, I had quite a bit of fun, and I managed to save the stupid critters (who just had to go bouncing around near lava...) :heart:
Dextreon
27. Apr 2020 · 11:55 UTC
Really cute visuals! I was hoping to have a good time, unfortunately I can't really play cause the racket seems to have a problem and I couldn't even try it. I'm waiting for an update to play the fixed version!
🎤 Plutonium Powered
27. Apr 2020 · 18:52 UTC
@dextreon, I'm not sure what you mean, "the racket seems to have a problem". The games uses WASD: E-overhand swing and S - underhand.
arkinrev
07. May 2020 · 21:27 UTC
On one hand I felt bad hitting a cat. On the other hand, I felt bad letting it plonk into the water. Really good take on keeping it alive. (I don't think I ever dealt with a single bird properly.) Nice art and sound. Good job!
pee-thief
07. May 2020 · 21:32 UTC
get out of here you gosh dang birb. thanks for submitting. Im so sorry cat i am baddddd.
GameOverMexico
07. May 2020 · 22:19 UTC
its fun, good graphics and sounds,good game, good job!!!
Finn Truman
09. May 2020 · 22:30 UTC
I adore the visuals, it looks like something out of a Nick Jr. cartoon. It's unfortunately let down by a lack of polish. The animations are a little broken, how high the cat goes when you hit it feels inconsistent (I'm sure there is a system behind the scenes, but it *feels* inconsistent where one swing might make it hop, and another swing will send it soaring for miles), and I never saw a reason to use the underhand swing (S is also an awkward button to put the underhand swing when I need my finger free to press W to jump at a moment's notice).