Flocker by Jaker
A particle-based survival game
Tend your flock of tiny, glowing creatures as they navigate increasingly dangerous terrain.
Objective
Protect your flock from touching the hot laser walls for 120 seconds.
Every 10 seconds, your flock doubles in size and more laser walls are added.
Controls
- Cursor: leads the flock
- Escape: pauses the game
- F1: toggle screenshot mode (hides interface)
- Space: hold to increase game speed by 4x (v1.1.0 only)
Technical Info
Made in C++ and OpenGL 4.5. The particles are entirely simulated and rendered with compute shaders. Check the GitHub readme for more info.
Misc.
For lower-end machines, try reducing the initial particle count and simulation rate in the main menu. For higher-end machines, do the opposite!!
Changelog
v1.0.3 features only critical bug fixes from the original version. This is the final game jam submission.
v1.1.0 adds a no-bloom mode and a way to skip the tutorial section of the game, among some other minor changes.
Ratings
| Overall | 517th | 3.58⭐ | 27🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 494th | 3.48⭐ | 27🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 54th | 4.12⭐ | 27🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 751th | 3.48⭐ | 27🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 127th | 4.32⭐ | 27🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 978th | 1.818⭐ | 24🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 968th | 2.979⭐ | 26🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 19🗳️ | 28🗨️ |
Absolutely BEAUTIFUL game - gave me vibes of Rez, if Rez had some of Final Fantasy XIV's thornier AOE patterns to contend with. XD
Turns out I am very very bad at it: I won, but with only 10 floaters left alive XD
The game itself is beautiful and absorbing - it took me a second to get the hang of how to control the particles but once I picked it up it was really fun watching the swarms swirling around. Overall a cool and unique entry!
I recorded myself playing for extra feedback, though I worry a combination of video compression and youtube compression won't do the game justice. There's still the feedback to be had though:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPciGag2OeQ
I wish I could have added more options to the sandbox before the deadline, though.
PS: here's a gif I recorded: https://gfycat.com/chiefjauntylark
Now that that's out of the way, let's talk about the technical aspect since I feel that's what you wanted to show off here. The use of shaders was a cool choice. Visually they look nice and the bloom effect added really elevates it once you get more into a play or in the sandbox. Shaders are one of those closed box forbidden magic things and it's always really cool to see someone intentionally use them.
I only played the jam version, and saw in the changelog that you did add the option to remove bloom. This would have been my major feedback to give since it does get quite overwhelming.
Fantastic job. I really appreciate when people are able to create something so nice using just simple figures and particles.
The controls seemed a bit awkward (I'm bad with mouse only), and the difficulty ramps up pretty quicly (wich is great).
I'm just missing an audio background to really set a mood.
Other than that Great job !
  