Better than nothing by Fictions
Have you ever felt lost? Was there a time in your life when thought your stuck? Well, anything and anyone is BETTER THAN NOTHING!
Better than nothing is a fun little game that I developed for the Ludum Dare 45 - Start with nothing. I made the game withing 48 hours. I created all assets except the music and sounds within that time.
Are you brave enough to enter an empty room full of nothing? Are you crazy enough to make your own life killing decisions? Are you eager enough to reach for a higher score than 0?
Whatever you answered, it's better than nothing.
Features: - One Room! - One Character! - A Ground!
Maybe you could add some more features, I'm thinking about enemies, interfaces, gameplay mechanics and cosemtics.

Thanks for playing my game, I hope you have as much fun playing it than I had developing it. Fictions~
ATTENTION: The leaderboard doesn't work with the WebGL Version of the game! If you want to show the world your score please download one of the standalone versions.
Ratings
| Overall | 253th | 3.769⭐ | 190🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 249th | 3.665⭐ | 190🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 197th | 3.702⭐ | 190🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 36th | 4.263⭐ | 190🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 452th | 3.697⭐ | 190🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 435th | 2.971⭐ | 176🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 566th | 3.329⭐ | 183🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 76🗳️ | 121🗨️ |
Also I see you scored well in the leaderboard :D
The scores so far xD
Really good job in such a short time ! Keep up the good work !
As pfeyffer has said, the main thing missing for me was some indication on what the items do. I would definitely keep it mysterious for the enemies, as each new enemy type you unlock will be a gamble, but the "friendly" items could've used a tooltip at least.
Keep up the good work!
Goodjob!
Pretty charming graphics too
Just gonna add that I could move and dash even before unlocking those, but other than that it is all fine. Good job.
@n-one: Thanks, but the music is license free music from the asset store by Marching Dreams... They have amazing free sounds for games :)
@thoof: That's an amazing idead by unlocking side rooms :)
A bit laggy before and after the menu...
Good job !
Quite an interesting game which follows the theme quite well! It took me a few rounds of purchases and running around to figure out what was going on, but after that, the game became quite challenging! Have to admit, though, nearing the end, I was starting to think having nothing would be preferable over all the rocks and slimes and eyes thrown my way! Nice job!
But nice concept and good graphics :) !
I wish that the abilities didn't truly unlock until you unlocked them (i.e. dash).
I really like the leaderboard! I had the same troubles with my game originally and had to setup SSL on my server so that it could record and get the scores from the web version, lost a solid hour to that one :(
Bugs:
-I had some big frame drops when entering and leaving the shop, I would drop like 3 seconds before and after
-some UI elements are missing (i think, maybe i didn't finish it haha)
The game controls really well. I did get the dash for free when buying controls, just without its UI element. I wish the timer was the first thing to unlock, as it was a bit confusing why I'm getting upgrades when I get them (before buying the clock at least) did I click something? Is it timed?
will make the game even better. Sadly the time is just not enough...
Much better in fact. Not only do I build up the game from "nothing", also by doing so I begin to understand what I'm supposed to do step by step. That's a really cool and original concept.
Not to mention the great graphics and animations as well as the perfectly fitting soundtrack (even if you searched for it that's still something!)
Thank you for this great experience :)
👉 Things I liked about your submission:
- Lots of content!
- Highscores (Wish I had time to get them implemented before time ran out)
- Web version :pray:
- In line with the theme
Other than that, great game! Keep on making games!
Make sure to go rate my submission as well!
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/45/ld45-submission
Even without it I enjoyed it a lot. Art is amazing, control fluid. Great entry!
But I don't like "unlocking" interface things. The weapons or abilities to survive will be better on my opinion.
In the end, I would like to say that this game is better than nothing ;)
I personally would have liked it if you couldn't pickup hearts when you were at full health but I guess that's just one feature that makes the game harder. (I accidentally ate two heart pickups when trying to get away from enemies :slight_frown:)
Sadly I didn't see the note about high scores. My high score was 2375.
When the "shop" / "menu" opens, the game lagged (Web-Version) always a little bit. Don't know if it is only on my pc...
some notes
* the web version doesn't fit in the browser very well
* I was confused by what the gems were for
* game lagged pretty hard before and after upgrade screen popped up. If this was an intentional slow down, it felt like lag
pretty neat and meta concept haha
There were moments that I thought the game started to lag, it seems that it was to time-freeze everything for in the name of selecting the [unlockables] screen. :thinking: Suggestion: to add sound for time-freeze and unfreeze effect..
I Could see further expansion on this unlockable-progression mechanic; Accumulate significant amount of gems and/or unlock 3/4 of game-objects to progress towards another room. :dizzy:
But that was very fun
Also...at the game start I had 450 score even without playing yet :sweat_smile:

If you’d like to rewatch the playthrough, you can find it here: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/494940957?t=3h6m51s
Hope you got some valuable feedback on your game and looking forward to seeing you next LD jam if I dont catch you before then! :D
💜 Elysia Griffin AKA Button Feedback Lady
https://www.twitch.tv/elysiagriffin