Exolvuntur by towergame

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

Story

It is the year 20XX, and the world has endured havoc. The global superpowers have fought a war so technologically advanced, even the fundamental laws of physics are breaking down. In the city of Sendai, Japan, a government-funded group of scientists have set out to explore the new properties of the world and have figured out a way to move along the 4th dimension - time. In the midst of testing, they invent a way for a person to get duplicated using the principle of joining parallel timelines. A closed environment called “Exolvuntur” is created for the experiment to take place in and to control such a dangerous and unpredictable test, they install surveillance drones, guards and robots to have the duplication proceed in a controlled manner. You are a young volunteer who has applied to their program, wishing to change your life from living in a slum to being valued and doing something important. You have one crucial skill - your father has trained you with weapons from a very young age, and you have become almost masterful with them. You’ve been taken to the laboratory, and everything is set to take place in just a few minutes. However, moments before the experiment commences, an independent hacker group from Russia intervenes and alters the system, causing several fatal errors in the way the process ensues. The scientist group identifies some obvious flaws: the surveillance reverses their intentions and instead of guarding the subject, they try to eliminate it, and something is also crucially wrong with the way time behaves - at some point, the “Exolvuntur” reverts its timeline to some point in the past, and the subject has to continue deflecting the now-enemy surveillance. There is nothing the scientists can do to stop it because any intervention in the time loop might disrupt the global flow of time and end the universe as a whole. Can you escape the seemingly infinite time loop? What’s the farthest you can get before you get beaten by your own skill and weaponry?

Gameplay

Every time you play, a procedurally generated map is created, in which you need to eliminate all the enemies. The enemies can drop ammo packs, health packs and weapons. If you die, you restart from loop 1 and lose all your progress. At the end of a loop, you choose an upgrade to take with you for the new loop and a new begins with harder enemies.

All assets used were created in the 72 hours, including the 5 music tracks, weapon sounds, all the other sound effects, voxel 3d models as well as icons and promotional work.

Controls

WASD to move
Left-click to shoot
E to pick up weapons
Space to swap your weapons

Ratings

Overall 1479th 2.905⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Fun 1380th 2.775⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 1605th 2.3⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Theme 1573th 2.525⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 960th 3.381⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Audio 497th 3.524⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Mood 904th 3.286⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Given 22🗳️ 7🗨️

Feedback

05. Oct 2020 · 22:57 UTC
this cured my depression... right after causing it
Darkmax14
06. Oct 2020 · 10:54 UTC
Love the music :D, the only issue I had was the player's bullets are so small and hard to see that I couldn't tell if I was hitting anything.
cax
06. Oct 2020 · 11:20 UTC
Visuals are cool but this game needs more progression and shooting feedback, there is some easy solutions such as MMFeedback at asset store, it will improve everything :)
Giordas
06. Oct 2020 · 11:26 UTC
I'm sorry but this didn't work for me... I had about one fps and it was unplayable
TwoBitMatt
06. Oct 2020 · 23:34 UTC
This was a fun little shooter. The graphics were good, and I really enjoyed the music loop. The AI for the enemies was pretty fun to fight against. The UI/UX was a bit off for me, though. It seemed like I had ammo for other weapons, but couldn't swap to them. Maybe I was missing something? A few bugs with UI/weapons, and I never saw any health drops. Still a pretty fun game. Good job.
SamDemaine
07. Oct 2020 · 22:39 UTC
Hey nice job! I like the graphics and controls are nice! could you check out my game? :D
shipster
09. Oct 2020 · 22:13 UTC
I could not see the bullets. Particle effects would make it much better. It was hard to tell when you shot an enemy. Ammo display did not seem to work (it was not decreasing). There are also some rotation issues. When you rotate the player, in certain cases he shoots the wrong way (like he shoots at himself).
Also it is hard to see when you got hit (again, particle effects would solve this).

Nice music. I liked the mood.
ashashza
12. Oct 2020 · 09:37 UTC
Cool jam! Really enjoyed this music.

I struggled with some of the issues others had too.

The frame rate was quite low, I think that's due to the number of realtime lights in the scene. It seems like there might be a light attached to each bullet.

I also found it hard to differentiate bullets from the environment. One trick I've seen for this is to take a screenshot of the game, make it monochrome and see if it's readable that way. Then you can tweak color values until it's readable and reimplement those in the game.

There's clearly a lot of effort that's gone into this and just a few small tweaks could increase the awesomeness.
blobo
15. Oct 2020 · 01:10 UTC
I really like the mood, but I also had framerate issues. Really nice work on the graphics and music! The mood you set with the environment and lighting is really cool too! Great work.
fumybulb
17. Oct 2020 · 19:46 UTC
"hacker group from Russia"? :grin:
I know these guys, we work in neighboring departments!
Jam373
20. Oct 2020 · 11:04 UTC
Like others, I had really low framerate. Love the idea, and the backstory though! and the game itself seems pretty, audio was good too.
Cole and Jordan Studios
24. Oct 2020 · 20:09 UTC
Good audio and visuals, but yeah something to fix the framerate issue would have been good. It's cool that it's procedurally generated ...have you been playing Enter The Gungeon..? Anyway, the backstory is interesting and the full 3d walls are cool. I felt like the first level was a little bit big and also difficult, especially since the player moves so slow in comparison to the enemies, but at least there were a lot of different enemy types and weapons and stuff which made it interesting! Just remember to consider the framerate next time! Other than that, nice submission!
gustavo.christino
25. Oct 2020 · 04:48 UTC
[PT-BR] Ainda jogando (na primeira tentativa o jogo estava travando muito, espero que não continue assim na próxima). Gostaria de experimentar melhor.

[EN] Still playing (on the first attempt the game was crashing a lot, I hope it won't continue on the next one). I would like to experience it better.

![j13.png](///raw/bc7/6/z/3a704.png)
gustavo.christino
25. Oct 2020 · 04:58 UTC
**[PT-BR] Análise...**

1 - Mecânicas, Aprendizado e Fluxo:
Muito interessante a implementação de sempre alterar o estágio a cada partida (isso facilita bastante a questão de o jogador querer jogar novamente).
Infelizmente o jogo travou muito comigo (gostaria que houvessem opções de utilização de gráficos menos avançados, para rodar melhor no meu computador).
Ao que entendi há diversos tipos de inimigos, alguns causam dano por toque e outros disparam projéteis que possuem alguma liberdade de movimento.
Não consegui entender perfeitamente como funcionavam os coletáveis, entretanto eu notei que havia caixas (não sei se eram para restauração da saúda ou se eram recargas para a arma).
Gostaria de saber o que queria dizer apagar o progresso (no menu da tela de título).
Ter uma tela de título também foi muito bacana.

2 - Gráficos, Áudio e Narrativa:
Gostei da estrutura do estágio (até mesmo a câmera).
Também a iluminação com o disparo ficou interessante.
Os efeitos sonoros são simples e estão bons para tempo de game jam.
A música é um pouco repetitiva.
Não notei muitos traços de narrativa (mesmo uma masmorra possibilitando isso); talvez tenha sido problema das vezes que rodei o jogo terem me dado experiências muito travadas.

3 - Cultura:
O jogo parece beber da fonte de jogos como Diablo e roguelites/roguelikes diversos.
As balas terem alguma autonomia me fez lembrar de partidas que assisti de alguns jogos mais recentes.

4 - Monetização:
Creio que com os devidos polimentos (inclusive de otimização), poderiam alcançar público para compra em stores como Steam.
Isso depende da possibilidade de bem-implementarem narrativa e expandirem o conteúdo (com polimentos).


**[EN] Analysis...**

1 - Mechanics, Learning and Flow:
Very interesting the implementation of always changing the stage at each game (this makes it easier for the player to want to play again).
Unfortunately the game crashed a lot with me (I wish there were options for using less advanced graphics, to run better on my computer).
As I understand it there are several types of enemies, some cause damage by touch and others fire projectiles that have some freedom of movement.
I couldn't quite understand how the collectibles worked, however I noticed that there were boxes (I don't know if they were for health restoration or if they were refills for the weapon).
I would like to know what it meant to delete progress (in the title screen menu).
Having a title screen was also very cool.

2 - Graphics, Audio and Narrative:
I liked the structure of the stage (even the camera).
The lighting with the shot was also interesting.
The sound effects are simple and are good for game jam time.
The music is a little repetitive.
I didn't notice many narrative traits (even a dungeon making this possible); maybe it was a problem that the times I ran the game gave me a lot of experiences.

3 - Culture:
The game seems to drink from the source of games like Diablo and various roguelites/roguelikes.
The bullets having some autonomy reminded me of games I watched from some recent games.

4 - Monetization:
I believe that with due polishing (including optimization), they could reach audiences for purchase in stores like Steam.
This depends on the possibility of well-implementing narrative and expanding the content (with polish).
infinitycore
26. Oct 2020 · 10:37 UTC
two minor complaints, otherwise it is good:

1. If the game is always full screen, make sure there is a way to quit out besides Alt F4 (or any other hard exit).

2. If you're going for a top down voxel aesthetic, make sure that your main character isn't taller (in 3D space) than they are wide. If all the player sees is the top of the head, then you lose any extra details and work that you might have put into the sides. I don't know if you were going for a fish with a gun in its mouth, but that's what it ended up looking like because all you see is the blue voxels on top.
TheGreenWorm
26. Oct 2020 · 10:51 UTC
That title screen and the music are soo cool. Lacks polish/feedback in a lot of places (no hit/damage indication beside your health bar going down, no clear objective, you can still move around and shoot when you're dead) You clearly spent a lot of time on the vowel art, but I don't think the top down camera does them justice.