LudumData

Hive Preserver by _for_science

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

You are a newborn alien, abducted from your home by evil scientists. They are trying to destroy your hive. You must return quickly if you want to keep it alive...

It is a fast-paced first-person action game that you can with mouse and keyboard (recommended) or using a gamepad.

screenshot_matrix.jpg

gif_hive.gif

In fact, we started making this our "quarantine game" and have been cleaning up the project. Right now we are going a little more in a stealth gameplay direction, but we are still experimenting. We started by developing a better alien locomotion controller that can crawl on walls and ceilings:

https://youtu.be/-Aw_R7h2niw

If you want to stay up to date follow our project on itch.

Follow us

Controls

  • [WASD] / [L-Thumbstick] to move
  • [Mouse] / [R-Thumbstick] to aim
  • [Space] / [R-Trigger] to jump
  • Double Jumping performs a deadly pounce attack
  • Killing enemies restores your health.

Tools used

  • Unity
    • Puppet Master (for Ragdolls)
  • Photoshop
  • Blender
  • Substance Painter

Music Credits

"Chase Pulse Faster" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

If you are curious, check out our * Post-Mortem Level-Building Breakdown

Youtube https://hastilyassembled.itch.io/hive-preserver
Youtube https://hastilyassembled.itch.io/hive-preserver
Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/46/hive-preserver

Ratings

Overall 50th 4.228⭐ 48🧑‍⚖️
Fun 23th 4.315⭐ 48🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 528th 3.652⭐ 48🧑‍⚖️
Theme 1148th 3.696⭐ 48🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 335th 4.25⭐ 48🧑‍⚖️
Humor 1189th 2.872⭐ 41🧑‍⚖️
Mood 258th 3.989⭐ 46🧑‍⚖️
Given 25🗳️ 12🗨️

Feedback

Poupi
21. Apr 2020 · 15:28 UTC
Outstanding work, the old Alien Vs Predator game feel is really great. Unfortunately it's too short and too easy :) . Having an upgraded version of this game would be awesome !
Fireshake
21. Apr 2020 · 15:30 UTC
Wow, what a great game. I really love the Low Poly style. The Lighting and the perfect textures really make me feel like beeing in the world of quake or unreal tournament^^ I would have given 5 stars for graphics but the enemy models and the UI seem a bit out of place. Still pretty good though!
Jofish
21. Apr 2020 · 15:30 UTC
Easily one of the best LD46 games I've played - it feels like it was made in 72 days, not 72 hours. I love the look, I love how it makes you feel like an alien, with the humans glowing and the fact you're about 2 feet tall. It's fast-paced, it's smooth, the sound effects are very half-life-y (in fact so are a lot of the visuals). Only one problem, which is the lack of an invert mouse option. I didn't feel like I was very much in control, and only the fact that the game is quite easy/generous about what counts as an eaten head coupled with the game's short length allowed me to finish it. Fantastic effort overall though, well done!
Pilarius
21. Apr 2020 · 15:38 UTC
A lot of content for 72 hours. Options, safe points, big 3d environment... Was a fun experience and hunting as alien felt good. Spamming space was often the way to go and patrolling targets would have been a nice addition to the game. But overall great entry :smile:
ArcticMattekar
21. Apr 2020 · 16:05 UTC
@jofish Thank you for your feedback! We will be posting a breakdown of our rapid level design techniques as soon as we have gotten some sleep. We had actually implemented Invert Y-Axis (and Look Sensitivity for that matter), it appears we just forgot to actually add it to the menu! I have pushed a fixed version to itch.
Lamossus
21. Apr 2020 · 16:25 UTC
Cool game! Low-poly graphics look nice. I think it would be nice if the game showed you your play time at the end, pounce makes it a fun challenge to try and complete it as fast as possible
Sarok
21. Apr 2020 · 18:55 UTC
Impressive content given the time we all had! The FPS feel is also great, well done :)
rohezal
21. Apr 2020 · 19:34 UTC
This is an AVP remake done in 72 hours, where you can only play the Alien and can't climb on the walls. But it is realy fun, the graphics are selfmade and absolutely fantastic for being created in only 72 hours and the game is challenging. A very good entry :).
tiptoe
21. Apr 2020 · 19:40 UTC
I was so immersed when trying to survive that I couldn't pay attention to environment and enemies. Very nice! Has kind of Half Life vibe.
ashashza
21. Apr 2020 · 22:53 UTC
This was great!

The feel and texture work really bring out those 90s shooter vibes, which is awesome. The health bar is super-duper-cool!

I really appreciated the ability to adjust mouse sensitivity. You did a good job with the pacing too, this felt brief but left me wanting more.

It would been nice to have ways where one could use cover more effectively. It felt like as soon as I left a safe spot I was immediately shot at. I guess I wanted the ability to surprise and terrify enemies a little more. :)

Great jam! This was my favourite detail:
![2020-04-22 00-41-34 Screenshot.png](///raw/284/a2/z/3209f.png)
Merpui
22. Apr 2020 · 12:51 UTC
A very solid game! Especially considering the aspect that it was done in only 72 hours! :O
I really loved the mood of the game. It felt like I was a headcrab from Half-Life :D
Well done!
JJacobs
22. Apr 2020 · 19:33 UTC
Awesome game and in such a short time! Had a really good, scary athmosphere to it
Jay Berlin
22. Apr 2020 · 21:10 UTC
Great game and concept. I think the jump physics could stand a bit of tweaking but otherwise it's got great, snappy controls and it's a great callback to twitch-based FPSs of old.
monetai
22. Apr 2020 · 21:31 UTC
I Loooove this esthetic =)
It was really fun and soo well made, it was a littte hard because we have no ways of avoiding or deflecting shoots but it was fun nonetheless!
ruddgasm
23. Apr 2020 · 05:37 UTC
Wow I really loved the direction you chose to take the art style in. I kinda reminded me of older games like half life 1 with fairly low res textures and simple environments. I ended up just moving around slower and looking at all of the details. The mechanics were so much fun that I went back and tried to see how quickly I could beat it. The sound effects were great as well. My only complaint is that it seemed like the enemies always knew where you were and would shoot you as soon as you turn a corner. Luckily you make the movement quick and simple so at the end of the day it was easy enough to avoid getting hit as much as possible. Overall i liked this game a lot. Fantastic job!
TPZombie
23. Apr 2020 · 14:32 UTC
Wow! This doesn't seem a jam game, it's too polished! The game feel is really good and the art is so inspiring. Maybe the scene transitions are a bit abrupt, but nothing important. Great job!!
Khyrgrim
23. Apr 2020 · 14:50 UTC
Great Work, lot of fun playing ... well designed but sad it is a bit short.
Manderxan
23. Apr 2020 · 16:30 UTC
Tried to run this on Linux via steam proton, but it fails to see subfolders with spaces in the name, so it won't work. Looks interesting though, reminds me of Natural Selection. I might try again at a later time and check if Lutris can handle it.
ItsHornUnicorn
23. Apr 2020 · 19:40 UTC
This driving me crazy. Triple kill in two seconds this so exciting. Cool audio (especially sound of main character), pretty simple graphics. 10/10
leon75
24. Apr 2020 · 11:02 UTC
Good game, I loved it
Nice handling, controls are good and responsive. The sounds are good and varied, but I wish there'd been more (ie tapping sounds for walking, jump sound, more ambient sounds). Good graphics & aesthetics. Happy to see a checkpoint system is in place immediately after I died.
Effarek
24. Apr 2020 · 18:24 UTC
The double jump mechanic to attack is very interesting, good job
MrChippy
24. Apr 2020 · 19:18 UTC
This was really good. Graphically and sonically it felt very half-life. I'm really impressed by how polished it all is in a 72 hour period.
eldogg
24. Apr 2020 · 19:21 UTC
Amazing like Half Life combined with superhot. Played on Linux. Tremendous environments, the choice of color is great. Fun mechanics and perfect length. Like the pacing too, and the checkpoints - normally people make games too hard and unforgiving, so I was relieved to not have to restart when I died. I like that enemies are highlighted as it makes sense for an alien to see the world that way.
Tomssuli
24. Apr 2020 · 21:09 UTC
Wow, that was intense! I got flashbacks from the AVP gold from 1999, my favourite aliens game :)
Only grievance was that enemies seemed to see me through the walls as they were always facing me when I came out of hiding... Some stealth mechanics would have made this even better. Even so, great fun!
killy9999
24. Apr 2020 · 21:32 UTC
Feels like playing Half-Life as a facecrab. Awesome quality for a gamejam game. I liked the gamefeel, physics, collisions - all superb. One thing I missed was a stealth element. Enemies always seem to know when I approach them from behind.
ColeSlaughter
25. Apr 2020 · 00:09 UTC
I like this. I like this a lot. :) Super simple concept, but nice and polished. I'm a sucker for games with a fun method of traversal, and the combination of being able to leap around while being 1/4 the size of your enemies was super fun to play around with.

Also, hat's off for the level design! It's not easy to pull off a seamless, cohesive level in such a short amount of time, but y'all managed to pull of a tutorial sequence, several progressively challenging rooms, and a satisfying finale setpiece! I'm super impressed!
khaoz-fang
25. Apr 2020 · 04:06 UTC
Love the screaming, and the level design. Short, simple but very polished game.
OrdiNeu
25. Apr 2020 · 15:22 UTC
Love the level design! A good tutorial is hard to make, and this one was excellent at teaching the controls!
picross
25. Apr 2020 · 17:16 UTC
Wow. Amazing work. Great level design, shaders, models, game feel, and audio. I was super impressed by that robust options menu. The health indicator was super cool too. My one critique is I wish that the attack had a little more weight/juice when it hits to make you feel more powerful. Great work.
curleysam
25. Apr 2020 · 17:22 UTC
Wow this was so cool! I loved the low poly look and the textures were great! Amazing environments too! Really impressive feat for a game jam! Well done!
Geckoo1337
25. Apr 2020 · 18:51 UTC
Well. What can I say after this short experience? I really like the main idea - be a strange creature searching to protect its hive. It fits with the theme - easy but good enought. The main gameplay is really good and reminds me Half-Life (the first from the nineties). The halo around the enemy is gorgeous. I would like to encourage you so that you can develop a full game because this first attempt is just to short. Have you thought about time control like in SuperHot? I think that it could be an interesting feature. Really I could pay for something like this game on Steam. Thank you for this experience. I hade fun playing. Well done. One of my favorite entries for the 46th LudumDare session ++
thebreakfast
25. Apr 2020 · 22:41 UTC
Definitely reminds me of the larval stage in AVP2 back in the day! I loved everything about this one, the graphics, the atmosphere, the sound, the controls. The ending is a little hard though I did eventually manage to beat it by taking a different approach. I think it doesn't really fit the theme super well, although whatever it fits reasonably. The menu music probably could have worked as combat music too. Though not necessary, it may have added to the experience. Overall, great entry! One of my faves for sure.
SplitPainter
26. Apr 2020 · 15:44 UTC
I played and rated it right after you published, but the comments weren't working. So I gave it another try now and I gotta say this is a very well done entry. First and foremost, the visuals are eye candy for me, this aesthetic is what I love (and what I also have experience doing, since my game for this jam is also Half-Life inspired).

As for the game itself: when playing Alien Isolation I always wondered how would be a game from the perspective of the Alien. Although this is not exactly like Alien Isolation it fed me a bit in that desire.
Trexxak
26. Apr 2020 · 18:28 UTC
whoa, nice blast to the past!

Really appreciate the in-depth settings-menu!

As for the gameplay, I love the reversal of the genre. Yes, how about you play the facehugger? Great idea and even makes for something like a stealth/ puzzle game.

Had a lot of fun playing through this! Thank you guys so much for bringing us this game!
Beard or Die
28. Apr 2020 · 02:57 UTC
This was fantastic. It was a blast to play.
jakeuro
29. Apr 2020 · 21:24 UTC
Really nice job, had a lot of fun with this one! I think some low-key, creepy, droning music would help the mood a lot!
Jupiter_Hadley
04. May 2020 · 15:16 UTC
Great graphics! I included it in my Ludum Dare 46 compilation video series, if you want to take a look. :) https://youtu.be/SML2NB40RxM