LudumData

IONOSPHERE by HexyVexy

[raw]
made by HexyVexy for Ludum Dare 59 (JAM)

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A wave based, score attack, roguelite adjacent action arcade game with tons of style and a concerning amount of shaders.

Features

  • Satisfying, skill-based arcade action
  • Build variety: towers, orbitals, multiple guns
  • A striking, neon drenched visual style
  • Chunky rock music

Upgrades

  • Statue Heads passively orbit you and provide various effects. The Aggressive Head collides with foes, the Salvo Head fires, the Fulgur Head sends out arcing lightning, and the Bombastic Head periodically...explodes.
  • Placeable Statues allow you to shape the battlefield. The Volley Statue shoots at the Noise, the Sloth Statue slows them to a crawl and the Chaos Statue...explodes.
  • 3 different attack spells! A standard rapid fire, a Blast spell that shoots in a spread, and the powerful Burst shot which...well it explodes.

Tips

  • Use the melee to deflect enemy projectiles
  • You can't move when you are summoning a tower, but you can still cast spells!
  • Build towers in the middle of the arena, slow towers will save you getting surrounded in later waves

History

  • 24/04: Fixed an issue whereby progression wouldn't resest between runs.

Screenshots

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Link https://arcanerituals.itch.io/ionosphere
Link https://arcanerituals.itch.io/ionosphere
Link https://arcanerituals.itch.io/ionosphere
Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/59/ionosphere

Ratings

Overall 82th 4.083⭐ 26🧑‍⚖️
Fun 72th 4⭐ 26🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 636th 3⭐ 26🧑‍⚖️
Theme 636th 3.25⭐ 26🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 126th 4.354⭐ 26🧑‍⚖️
Audio 68th 4.146⭐ 26🧑‍⚖️
Humor 301th 3.13⭐ 25🧑‍⚖️
Mood 184th 4.042⭐ 26🧑‍⚖️
Given 18🗳️ 26🗨️

Feedback

Itero Proto
Apr 21st · 18:48 UTC
Where's the web game?
summerfield
Apr 21st · 19:06 UTC
Absolutely incredible audiovisual experience. I especially love the jumbled bits of various broadcasts that play during tower phase.
please make more of this
Wraithind
Apr 21st · 19:18 UTC
Had a pretty interesting art style and vibe with this one. Make different enemy types very distinct and easy to recognize. Took a while to figure out what all the statues did though at first, but that was mostly me not understanding the upgrade screen right away. Still a little lost on how some of the passives worked. But, overall nicely done.
Seravlac
Apr 21st · 19:22 UTC
Great work on making a roguelite full of content in just 3 days! Really enjoyed it
AFlatThrasher
Apr 21st · 19:23 UTC
I'm not a huge fan of this type of game, but it was fun for what it was. I think when I died and played again, it thought I kept my old upgrades (I was getting upgrades like "another fulgur head" on my first set), but that's not a major deal. The fact that I played it a second time tells you you did a good job (as I said, I don't love this type of game). Soundtrack was rocking!
LDJam user 276593
Apr 21st · 19:31 UTC
@itero-proto There isn't one. The web export version has terrible performance because of the shader abuse we do.
LDJam user 276593
Apr 21st · 19:44 UTC
@aflatthrasher That is such a dumb bug, there is literally a function for resetting everything that I forgot to call 😭

Thanks for playing, and reporting it!
Mark Swinimer
Apr 21st · 21:27 UTC
I really enjoyed this! Amazing art, amazing music, amazing style. I like the vaporwave aesthetic and crazy visuals, it really comes together. The rock music was on point. My favorite detail was the backdrop with the radio tower and the transition to the upgrade purchasing phase. I played for a bit and wish there was some sort of escalation aside from more enemies (though it is a jam!)
LDJam user 276121
Apr 22nd · 10:25 UTC
@mark-swinimer Thank you, it was my first time doing terrain in blender and all things considered it came out pretty good.
kanity
Apr 24th · 16:01 UTC
The visuals are REALLY cool. I love the atmosphere. An interesting way to attack enemies, as well. And the animation that goes with it is beautiful! The music sets the mood quite well. Maybe not quite sure where the jam theme comes in and I wasn't very good at avoiding enemy projectiles, but it was definitely a unique experience!
LDJam user 276121
Apr 25th · 08:19 UTC
@kanity Thanks! Regarding the theme it's a loose play on "Signal to noise"-the "Tone" that grants you your abilities from the tower being the signal and the enemies coming out of the static being the Noise. I had grander ambitions to sprinkle more narrative in but that fell to the wayside as we leaned harder on the arcadey nature of the thing.
Revetoon
Apr 26th · 18:05 UTC
Cool graphisms, it really makes the game unique. Also I like the attention to details (VFX, SFX etc)
The game is well balanced for a gamejam game so congratz!
I got 14800 :grin:
hoarime
Apr 26th · 19:49 UTC
thenoisefillsmyheadthenoisefillsmyheadthenoisefillsmyheadthenoisefillsmyheadthenoisefillsmyheadthenoisefillsmyheadthenoisefillsmyheadthenoisefillsmyheadthenoisefillsmyheadthenoisefillsmyheadthenoisefillsmyhead i n33d to turn it off
Rocotos
May 01st · 08:52 UTC
Great design and very addictive gameplay. Good job!
Le Don
May 01st · 11:30 UTC
This is a very fun game! I couldn't quite tell those head aparts - maybe it's more helpful if they had different colours or adding a counter to the upgrade menu with the current number of heads. I was also bit confused why I couldn't place some of the statues (those were supposed to be unlocked), but otherwise this is a lot of fun.
zhangzhimu
May 01st · 14:15 UTC
As soon as I entered, I was immediately struck by the visuals. I thought the map design was very innovative! Coupled with the music, I felt very motivated to play this game. Haha! Maybe adding some narrative elements would make it even more complete.
Ouisky
May 01st · 21:47 UTC
Visuals and audio are awesome. Nice survivor-like, i enjoyed my tuime on the game. Died wave 10, so close to unlock all the upgrades...
Fupi
May 02nd · 00:04 UTC
This is an absolute power fantasy of a game, there's something so satisfying in a primal sort of way about mowing down hordes of enemies to the sound of a crunchy guitar! I appreciate that the enemies themselves aren't very complex or difficult to deal with, there's just a lot of them, so you need to keep upgrading to survive, it's a very nice gameplay loop.
LDJam user 423693
May 07th · 14:05 UTC
Really nice design and sounds and the gameplay is well-done !
alexey_bobrovskiy
May 08th · 10:30 UTC
It's a good game—the progression system works, and the balance is solid. I really felt the sense of progression from one wave to the next.
P1x3lc0w
May 08th · 12:21 UTC
Really cool entry, very well polished for a jam game and very stylish! Two things i noticed:
- I don't know if this is intended, but the long animation for placing a tower felt very punishing. In the later waves it felt like i could only place 1 tower at most and even then i still got hit sometimes while lock in the animation (maybe a little time before/after each wave to set up would work?)
- I never really felt the need to branch out beyond the basic volley tower; lots of TD games increase the cost of building the same type of tower the more of that type there already are, i think that would have worked well to encourage using the other towers a bit more.
Very well done overall, i had fun and the game felt very polished.