Rail by reheated
An arcade game of quick thinking. You need to get the ball to the exit. It rolls along the rails. You can change the direction of the switches by driving over them. You are also under attack. Move with arrow keys or WASD, and fire with the left mouse button.
Tools used: - Coding: Visual studio code, Debugger for Firefox my code base pH. - Audio: FL Studio, Alter/Ego + Marie Ork, Komplete, SPAN, one-shots from Ghosthack. - Font: Nova Mono



| Youtube | https://reheated.net/games/rail/ |
| Youtube | https://reheated.net/games/rail.zip |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/47/rail |
Ratings
| Overall | 48th | 3.964⭐ | 30🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 40th | 4⭐ | 30🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 70th | 3.929⭐ | 30🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 217th | 3.804⭐ | 30🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 196th | 3.661⭐ | 30🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 19th | 4.143⭐ | 30🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 99th | 3.714⭐ | 30🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 12🗳️ | 17🗨️ |
Not sure about the puzzle-plus-bullet-hell format, but... just going to... try it a few more times... just to make sure...
The one thing I would suggest is that it might be a cleaner design without shooting, instead balancing the enemy waves for pure avoidance? I think that would make the feel even sharper and the gameplay more skill-based without taking anything away from the core pairing of mechanics. (I actually found myself playing that way automatically and it felt really good, but that might just be a personal dislike of mixed kb+m controls in 2D games.)
Sadly I only made it to level 14, I think I will give it another shot in a second, maybe I will get it to 15 this time :P
How many levels did you make? It came out great man, really good job!
@daitli: it goes forever - levels are randomly generated. (That was a big part of the challenge in making this game.) My own record is 15.
The music is nice and the visuals are great for being so simple!
Nice entry !
I feel that at some point there are way too many enemies and maybe it would be good to have some kind of power up to get rid of them faster at higher levels?
I felt a bit confusing not seeing where I need to go to solve puzzles because of big number of enemies, maybe adding a bit of time before the level starts could also help?
Minimal art style and everything is pleasant to look at, lots of juice, sound effects are perfect, music is super cute.
Truly nothing really negative to say. Initially I though the direction switching and shooting aspects don't meld well together, but the shooting adds a dimension of hectic-ness that wouldn't exist otherwise. Waiting for the "train" to get to the "end station" while you are already surrounded by enemies and wondering if it'll get there in time - honestly, pure adrenaline.
Great job on this game!
P.S. Thanks for the kind and detailed feedback on OnRail :purple_heart: Interesting how our games are totally different, yet the interpretation of the theme and main game interaction are the same :grin: