Pest Control by Wyvex
In "Pest Control" you play as GR:1M, a small robot on a mission to clean up a factory filled with unstable machinery!
This project was developed in the context of the Gamejam Ludum Dare 49, where the theme was Unstable.
The jam had a duration of 3 days and this project was submitted in the jam category.
The project was completed by myself (so no team). The code was all done by myself, and the character and gun models were also done by myself, I did use an asset pack for the environment and for the skybox (links below).
The game itself is an FPS where you assume control of a small robot called GR:1M, which comes equipped with two guns that you can switch between (by pressing 1 or 2). Your mission is to complete the cleanup task without letting the factory explode; this can occur if the instability level of the factory gets too high.
If the instability level gets too high it's game over, but as the instability level gets high you also start to move faster and your weapons can cause more damage. There are several things that can raise the instability level of the factory:
- Dying: if you die the instability level is raised;
- Letting batteries overcharge: There are a lot of batteries in the level, you can tell they are overcharging when they start to glow yellow;
- Hitting a damaged core: Damaged cores are red boxes, if you hit them they will raise the Instability Level, your enemies can also hit these boxes, so watch out. -Not killing enemies: The enemies in the environment will raise your instability level, so you better try and kill everything;
But don't worry, you can also reduce the instability level, by:
- Killing enemies: Killing enemies will reduce some amount of Instability, so yeah kill everything;
- Shooting at batteries: When a Battery starts to glow yellow, you can shoot at it this will deactivate the battery and restore some of your instability;
- Shooting at water tanks: Water tanks are blue boxes that when shot they will start a cooldown routine that gradually reduces your instability level;
- Not Dying: ... ;
You win when you clean the entire factory.
Assets used: - Sci-Fi Construction Kit - https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/3d/environments/sci-fi/sci-fi-construction-kit-modular-159280#description ; - Fantasy Skybox FREE - https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/2d/textures-materials/sky/fantasy-skybox-free-18353 ;
This is my first time participating in a Ludum Dare and I had a ton of fun. I hope you enjoy my game as much as I enjoyed making it.
:)
| Link | https://wyvex.itch.io/ld49-unstable-pest-control |
| Link | https://wyvex.itch.io/ld49-unstable-pest-control |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/49/pest-control |
Ratings
| Overall | 1137th | 3.217⭐ | 25🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 952th | 3.239⭐ | 25🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 1408th | 2.543⭐ | 25🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 1053th | 3.196⭐ | 25🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 1118th | 2.289⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 1241th | 2.87⭐ | 25🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 29🗳️ | 3🗨️ |
On that note, the lack of audio was what pulled the game down for me, but I understand the reason, it is time consuming, and the result is not guaranteed (hell, look at our entry where I put an effort into audio, and it is still a mess), still, some basic noises would be welcome :)
That said, I will repeat, the movement is solid and fun, the level was interesting, with multiple paths to take, the movement animations on the character felt natural and were responsive. Implementation of the theme was also nicely done, with higher risk, bringing higher rewards :) (this is something we wanted to include in our entry as well, but due to time constraint, was left kind of on the side) Great work for solo developer ;)
Good job!
Really fun game! I am old and my reflexes are bad, so I would have liked to be able to slow down enemy bullets a bit to make it more strategic.
I ran into a problem where I stopped being able to shoot for some reason, not sure why.
Cheers! [-LB](https://ldjam.com/users/the-lame-brain/)
@drunk-wizard Progressive recoil is a great suggestion, the shooting in general was all hacked-up so I didn't put any thought in terms of its design, there are alot bugs regarding the weapon system that I have to fix, and if I continue to work on it I will add it for sure.
The lack of feedback is also something that I have to acknowledge is a major problem in the game, not only when you are hitting enemies but also when you get hit and when the instability level is raised.
@the-lame-brain the bullets being too fast is also true, that in part as to do with the fact that I originally did not intend to do this fps / bullet hell hybrid but by the end I just said f-it and decided to go full bullet hell, so I made some enemies shoot slower bullets but forgot to change that for the ones I developed first.
I know that "F-it, it works like this now." moment so, so well!
Yeah audio would improve it, but the core is pretty solid. I felt like I was doing really well but apparently my aim is not as good as I thought :P
1. a little buggy in some places. You can get stuck under ladders etc. Make sure you clip off everything.
2. The shots of the gun landed always to the bottom right of the crossair, starting from the first shot. you can maybe look into getting a better recoil model.
3. Hit Feedback. Make the enemies glow a little when they are hit etc. Like this I was never quite sure if I was hitting them.
@parttimeindie Hmm that's really weird, it might have to do with the way I instantiate a bunch of assets in the beginning of the game or maybe some dumb error, I wasn't able to reproduce the bug do you have a screenshot or something?
@lumbigui You could've change the mouse sensibility by pressing Esc, but in a webgl build, as someone already pointed, out is really dumb to have the menu mapped to the escape key, so yeah my fault.
As others have already said, sound effects would really add some juice and carry your game pretty far. After that, I would go with some popups on the UI on things we do that affect the stability. Sure we can see the progress bar on the side of the screen, but I think the feedback would be really good if we kill an enemy, get a nice sound effect, and a little floating text on the screen like "enemy killed: +10 stability".
You also did a great job with the visuals and level design. Some music or sound effects would have definitely perfected it.
The implementation of the theme wasn't for me, as losing control of the character made it less fun (rather than just a challenge). For example, when there were a lot of enemies and I wanted to be precise, it quickly became impossible.
Nonetheless, I think you packed quite a lot into a 3-day game, and I'm impressed! Great job!