The Red Hoard by NoahShomette

[raw]
made by NoahShomette for Ludum Dare 51 (JAM)

https://nickhaldon.itch.io/red-hoard -- link for web build and download

An endless runner with the limitation that you die every ten seconds unless you pick up a health object.

Built using Bevy.

W to move forward, A and D to rotate. Pick up Blue boxes to reset your time, pick up a Gold Box to reset your time and activate a temporary mode that allows you to kill the red blocks. You get a point every second you are alive, killing a red block gives you 5 points. Try and get the highest score!Screenshot (346).pngScreenshot (351).png

Ratings

Overall 1100th 2.917⭐ 20🧑‍⚖️
Fun 1066th 2.778⭐ 20🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 1150th 2.472⭐ 20🧑‍⚖️
Theme 983th 3.167⭐ 20🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 1092th 2.316⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Given 23🗳️ 8🗨️

Feedback

Thiefaine
03. Oct 2022 · 22:17 UTC
At first I had a hard time understanding what was happening, but after I few tries I found it really funny !
Moving with only other elements as landmark is cool & hard. Maybe having less power when turning would be neat but
Good job !
FastAndBlast
04. Oct 2022 · 06:27 UTC
Fun infinite runner! A very steep learning curve, very difficult at first but once you get used to the controls it feels like you get into the flow. Great job!
Rafale25
04. Oct 2022 · 16:29 UTC
Very difficult but it works, i think a simple background to better understand the direction we are going at the start would have been helpful. Good job !
Holtzzy223
04. Oct 2022 · 17:36 UTC
Nice job, had a good time once i figured it out :)
BoxedMeatRevolution
04. Oct 2022 · 20:36 UTC
I think the controls made it a bit more difficult than it needed to be, and it would have been nice if the difficulty ramped up a bit more slowly. That said, I played for a good while, because the music and simple visuals are kind-of hypnotic and addictive. I almost cracked 200 points on a run where I got multiple yellow powerups, but couldn't quite get there.
LDJam user 235576
05. Oct 2022 · 04:44 UTC
@thiefaine
Glad you enjoyed it! I appreciate the comment and I'm definitely gonna try and make it a little bit easier on the onboarding and movement!

@fastandblast
That was the goal but might have gone a little to overboard on it lol. Thanks for playing!

@rafale25
I originally did have a background but didn't have time to deal with trying to reset it as the player got to the edges, I'll definitely look at bringing sometype back in a simple manner to not distract from it. Thanks for commenting and playing!

@holtzzy223
Thanks for playing! Glad you had fun!

@boxedmeatrevolution
Dang I think you've beat my high score in a run, I had a little over one hundred in the final build lol. Definitely agree that the game gets kinda hypnotic once you get in a groove, I enjoyed the little challenge the controls gave but they definitely need to get tweaked some. Thanks for the insight and I'm really glad you enjoyed it!
thewrath
05. Oct 2022 · 06:50 UTC
Good movement, the game is fluid, the game mechanics is good, like many, once the controls are mastered the game becomes fun to play. It would be nice to adjust the difficulty at the beginning of the game to make it easier to learn. Good job ! :) Also, very good point that the game is playable on the web, for an arcade game it is exactly the public that it should aim.
Rlewins
07. Oct 2022 · 19:53 UTC
Controls were a bit tricky to get the hang off but once I did it was pretty fun. Good Job!
Trouv
08. Oct 2022 · 03:10 UTC
Quite difficult!

It seems like enemies were spawned directly around the player, so moving in one direction was the dominant strategy here. For example, if I ever chose to start going right after going down for a while, I would suddenly be bombarded by enemies. I think this is probably fine, in fact it ended up giving the power ups a bit of depth. To get the most out of the powerups, you need to stay in the same area for a few seconds, or go back into the direction you came from, for maximum enemy collision. However, both of these strategies will make the game significantly more difficult for a while, since you stopped going in one direction. There's a nice balance of risk and reward with the powerup strategies.

It was also satisfying to get the hang of the controls. It felt cool weaving through enemies, escaping near-impossible situations.

I wish there was some guarantee that a blue box would show up. Many of my runs ended through no fault of my own, I just happened to choose to go in a direction that didn't have a blue box for 10 seconds.

I also think the player may have just been a tad too fast. And I really do mean a "tad". I think the speed you chose is pretty close.

Other than that, I feel like it's missing something. Don't get me wrong, this is plenty impressive for 72 hours of work, but if you choose to expand on it in the future, I'm curious what direction you would go in. More enemy variety? Shooting? Predesigned enemy groups? More powerups? Perhaps another vector of complexity entirely, like upgrades + different upgrade paths. Sounds like you may have been going in that direction already since you mentioned vampire survivors on discord.

Good job, and thanks for repping bevy!
Juss
12. Oct 2022 · 16:49 UTC
Really fun game! It was hard to figure out the controls at first but after it the game was really enjoyable.
Only addition i would make is to add an indicator of direction a player is pointing at, because sometimes it's hard to understand where player is going to move when you press 'W'
nanolotl
15. Oct 2022 · 02:40 UTC
Fun but very difficult. I think a big improvement would be some simple background so that there was at least one static reference point - when the enemies are moving and you are moving it's very hard to tell where you are.
LDJam user 298334
16. Oct 2022 · 14:41 UTC
Controls are super difficult but makes the game fun to master.