Prophet by marcell-balog
[Compo game] ------ Keep the Prophet alive until it reaches it's goal, and upgrade it to overcome the ungodly! ------
📌 Story
The Earth became an abandoned place after the raid of the ungodly. Finally, you decided to take a step to cleanse the lands, and brought to life the giant machine, the Prophet, your greatest achievement to date. The Prophet can only follow one action: "Eliminate!".
📌 What you need to know
Your objective is to keep the Prophet alive until it reaches the end of the track. The little running enemies are trying to stop the robot by leaking it's fuel tank. There is an indicator in the corner for you, to track how much fuel is currently in the machine. You can slow down enemies by pressing E near them.
You are controlling this little guy (due to his size, you can easily lose track of him, if you are not careful, so look out). There are two kinds of collectibles: gear (toolboxes) and fuel (flasks), scattered around the map, which you can carry and give to the robot (be right below). You can upgrade the robot by collecting enough gears.
* Controls: * - WASD - Movement - E - Interract - F - Open upgrade manual
📌 Upgrade Manual
Is your robot not strong enough? Let's power them up! The upgrade manual is the where you can use all your collected gears, and upgrade the Prophet with new features or power ups.
*How does it work: * - There are 5 types of main features (columns) and 3 upgrade types (rows). - You can start upgrading each part on the first row. - Then for the second upgrade (yellow section), you can choose which type you want to unlock (A or B). - You can switch between the two secondary upgrades later, if you want.
You can find a complete Upgrade Guide with every features and stats here or on the Itch.io page.
📌 Bugs to look out for
- Player can stuck outside of playing field - [I recommend not to stay close to the borders (that are moving with the camera), until it's fixed]
- You can nullify an enemy's movement speed - [Not intentional, but found this useful during testing, so not a priority]
- Rear gun a bit buggy - [3rd upgrade is working properly though]
Fixed 1.2: - Phrophet navigation - [Missing some checkpoints]
Fixed 1.3: * - *Clicking the same upgrades multiple times could bring points to minus - Crushers wasn't working properly - Head 2nd/A upgrade effect timing was off a bit
Fixed 1.4 (web version): - Losing/Winning screens were not playing properly - Rear gun fixed somewhat - [this was a headache, and still not perfect, but better than it was]
📌 Dev notes
Honestly, I still don't know how I managed to finish this in time (besides some bugs and missing effects), it was a ton of work. I definitely had a fun time making it though, so I hope you will like it. Because of the lack of time at the end, I couldn't playtest it properly, so I made 3 difficulty levels to compensate it somehow.
Extreme difficulty walkthrough:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UK6AY587hEw
| Youtube | https://marcellbalog.itch.io/prophet |
| Youtube | https://marcellbalog.itch.io/prophet |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/46/prophet |
Ratings
| Overall | 137th | 3.882⭐ | 57🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 321th | 3.545⭐ | 57🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 276th | 3.6⭐ | 57🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 149th | 4.065⭐ | 56🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 112th | 4.118⭐ | 57🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 285th | 3.426⭐ | 56🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 227th | 3.608⭐ | 53🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 29🗳️ | 16🗨️ |
@lees-pac Yeah, I had these thoughts too while developing, but I was just happy to finally sync up the animation with the move speed haha. I will adjust the numbers a bit, if it is allowed. And what kind of customization system did you think of?
@alexauragan I haven't experienced input lag yet, but I'll take a look.
I'm glad you liked it! :)
Edit: Considering that the player needs to be able catch up to the machine, and that I can't add more interactable features now, I will leave this pacing for the time being.
I found a bug however: When I bought the first 'second row' upgrade, I clicked it twice. On the second click, it removed the cost again, and my scrap went into the negative digits. I could keep clicking it to keep detracting scrap.
The tree models somehow remind me of another game :D
@KynanTokoro @ToC Thanks for reporting, I will look into it.
@bredcrumb Glad you liked it, yeah I can see your problem. Playing in fullscreen might make it easier, but I agree they can be hard to spot.
Nevertheless, I can'T deny that I had a great time playing this! Keep it up :)
I simply ran out of time to implement those feeback features, but I included a full upgrade guide table on the itch.io page, where you can see what you are upgrading. On the houses part, I was having the same result while testing, but thought I balanced it. A cheat workaround could be slowing the enemies you can to 0.
Smooth voxels and awsome techno-spider design!
@jacobwing @snarkusius Thanks, I'm glad you liked it :)
@macdoom Thanks, yeah controlling the robot would be cool indeed!
@moomka Thanks, I hope you liked it despite the monotony.
@peterfiftyfour Yeah, I want to see more too. :D I definitely had more thoughts about different enemies and more varied map, but that's only what I could do in 48 hours.
@conor-galvin Thank you, I'm glad you liked it this much. :D
@zeggamer I tried to make it clear at least in the description, but yeah, more straightforward indication would have been good. I haven't thought of a stun gun, it's a great idea! You're able to slow or stun enemies in this version too by pressing E near them with the player.
@niels Thank you, I'm glad you like it!
@zebraatomica Your comment was fun to read, thanks! :D Yeah, I like your idea of keeping the upgrades, it rewards the player, but that would require more possible upgrades I guess. If your cannon on top stopped firing suddenly, then that is a rare bug, that I only ever saw once, so I don't even know where to start debugging. But thanks for mentioning! I'm glad you liked the game!
- Simple control
- Easy Objective
- The music matched the mood and pace of the game
- The aesthetics are all well done and fit together
- (good a jam) so long as I collected everything on the way I was always ready for the next round of enemies
Areas of improvement
- A gear counter in the HUD so that I don't have to open the menu to see it
- Some sort of an alert near the "Open Upgrade Manual" to let me know when something is available for purchase
- Better indication of the machine's state...I never felt like I losing
Optional things (depending which the style of game you want and how much more difficult this makes it)
- Friendly fire?
- Should the enemies flock towards me if I'm near and maybe snatch away whatever I collected? (since the goal is to keep the machine alive and not the little avatar) :)
This is an impressive solo project. Nice work!
Well, friendly fire would be a bit tricky with these upgrades, and it would probably need a player healthbar, and that's a whole new design issue, but I'll play with the idea. The gear snatching would also throw off the balance a little in this state of the game, but if I decide to develop it further, I'll definitely take it into consideration.
Thank you for your comment! :)
- I really like the concept of playing support for the bigger robot who's doing the main work!
- The upgrades were a little bit unsatisfying gameplay-wise - e.g. I don't have the feeling that the crusher or the flamethrower ever did that much, probably mainly because I can't control either. They were super satisfying visually though!
- And on that matter, I really like the art!
- The music fits super well.
- I wonder if the robot could be a bit more interactive. Maybe I could (or have to) mark enemies by shooting them with a tagging weapon? Maybe I have some other kind of supporter weapon? Right now it doesn't feel like there is a lot of strategy to the game.
- ...and maybe that could also enable different kinds of enemies. E.g. some that you just want to stop for a bit so they are shot later (e.g. because they can take more hits), or some that you definitely want to shoot first (because they are fast or do a lot of damage).
- Actually, what happens when an enemy reaches the robot? I have no idea, although I guess I did play (and win) on the lowest difficulty level only.
- The upgrades should really have some info about them ingame. Pausing and checking the itch.io page feels cumbersome.
Despite the slightly non-interactive gameplay, I enjoyed the experience and I really like the general feeling of the game. Great job!
Actually, I did a little brainstorming in recent weeks about how I could expand this prototype, and now what I'm pondering about is whether I sould bend it into more of a strategy game or more of an action game. Because I consider this a hybrid of those genres, and what I got from the comments is that action players doesn't like the slowness and the chill vibe, and strategy players doesn't want too much action. So I don't really know what kind of audience this could fit. The closest things I could find are shooter tower-defenses, but still this one only resembles them slightly.
But anyway, this is my problem, sorry for monologizing, and thank you for giving it a try and giving feedback!
Edit: Oh, also to make it clear in retrospect, there is an indicator in the lower right corner which shows you how much fuel is currently in the machine, so if it runs out, the game ends. That's what the enemies are draining upon reaching the machine. Sorry that I didn't make it clear enough in the description! The different upgrades have more prominent roles on higher difficulties with a lot more enemies swarming in, so yeah, on easy they could have felt a bit needless.
I can't help you with the decision on whether to make the game faster or slower, but I think you could make it both a better action game *and* a better strategy game by giving the player more agency over what happens.
I think if this was my game and I'd go for the action route, I'd make the player itself stronger, e.g. by giving them a weak weapon so that they can also fight a bit. If I'd go for the strategy route, I'd grant them more agency over the robot, e.g. by giving it commands.
It feels to early to make a decision though. Actually, I'd probably try to go both routes and see what balance feels good in the end.
Ah, and another idea that feeds into both: Maybe the enemies (or some of them?) could also try to attack the player. That could allow you to actually kite monsters, either delaying or gathering them. Provides both more action and more strategic decisions.