Raging Snowman by ETHproductions

[raw]
made by ETHproductions for LD33 (JAM)
By some miracle of creation, a snowman has come to life and is trying to kill anyone who crosses his path! Fortunately, his only weapon—the snowball—is enticing people to join the snowball fight. Play as the Raging Snowman and clobber as many kids as you can in 60 seconds!

This game was made, using Stencyl, in (a lot less than) 72 hours for Ludum Dare 33. I was originally planning to enter it in the Compo, but I didn't have Internet access for the final hours, and the game wasn't ready to be entered anyway. The extra 24 hours gave me much more time to polish the gameplay, but I still ran out of time for sounds, music, terrain, and more characters. Oh, well; I'll add those in the post-jam version. And next time, I'm going to plan to finish in eight hours so I can actually finish the game. :)

Controls:
- WASD or arrows to move
- Mouse to aim/fire
- R to restart
- P or Q to pause/unpause

Hints:
- You shrink when you throw a snowball, and grow when you're hit by one.
- If you get too big or too small, you'll suffer the consequences!
- You deal more damage when you're big.
- Face shots deal more damage, as well.
- When the 60 seconds are over, you gain points for being small and lose points for being big.

Any feedback is appreciated. Have fun!

P.S. As a thank-you for commenting, I'll rate your game! (Assuming it does not contain offensive or adult content.) :)

P.P.S. If you have a Newgrounds account and want to get onto the scoreboard, try the NG link below!

Ratings

Coolness 46% 1362
Overall(Jam) 3.15 583
Fun(Jam) 2.92 627
Graphics(Jam) 2.77 803
Humor(Jam) 2.76 533
Innovation(Jam) 3.24 353
Mood(Jam) 2.78 767
Theme(Jam) 3.12 768

Feedback

Unept
25. Aug 2015 · 04:58 UTC
Not bad. Cool idea, with the growing/shrinking, needing to get hit to stay loaded.
xWarZonex
25. Aug 2015 · 19:08 UTC
SNOWMANNNNNNNNN!!!
conrad123
25. Aug 2015 · 20:39 UTC
I like how the snowman gets bigger when pelted with snowballs.
ceosol
25. Aug 2015 · 20:44 UTC
5193. The head shots definitely make a difference. This reminds me a lot of your toaster game from last LD. I agree that the big/small mechanic is very nice. It is a neat concept to balance getting hit, damage, possibly losing and point adjustments after 60 seconds that way.
Sergi Montaner
25. Aug 2015 · 21:33 UTC
Snowfight + monster = So inocent and original!
The particles made it difficult to see the snowballs though.
Dizzyman572
25. Aug 2015 · 21:39 UTC
Puny humans, your feeble attempts to kill me only makes me stronger!!! Interesting game, I liked the idea of snowballs coming at you are like just ammo for you to throw back at them. The graphics were also very nice, and this was just flat a fun game to play. :)
hinerz
26. Aug 2015 · 00:34 UTC
Haha, cute game! I wish there was music/sound!
merrak
26. Aug 2015 · 03:16 UTC
This was great! The fall-apart animation was a nice touch. I was kind of hoping to see the Unicode snowman from LD31, though :)
squarepug
26. Aug 2015 · 14:53 UTC
Like the idea of getting bigger/smaller, thats a nice dynamic. I found it a bit difficult to see the actual snowballs from the particles effect, perhaps could have been a different way to do that. Shame you didn't have time to add some sound effects/music too. But its a nice little game.
Donni11
26. Aug 2015 · 17:57 UTC
Cool game !
🎤 ETHproductions
26. Aug 2015 · 19:43 UTC
Thanks for your comments, everybody! I'll make the particles smaller and semi-transparent in the post-jam version.

Also, if you would like to share your score with the world, play on Newgrounds and click the Leaderboard button at the end of your run: http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/662637
🎤 ETHproductions
26. Aug 2015 · 19:44 UTC
@merrak: Seems like Ludum Dare has a curse on all snowmen from now on. ;)
RougeRogue
27. Aug 2015 · 00:58 UTC
Pretty fun game with a creative core mechanic of having to get hit and grow but not grow too much.
Saf
27. Aug 2015 · 14:32 UTC
Changing size looks like a fun mechanic! good job
LMT
27. Aug 2015 · 15:18 UTC
That was quite a nice fun and innvative game. It made me smile.
spotco
28. Aug 2015 · 04:34 UTC
was surprisingly fun to jump around and do 360 noscopes with snowballs :)
oakus
28. Aug 2015 · 09:11 UTC
Interesting how much my gamestyle changed after I read the instructions, because at first I naturally assumed that the hitting makes me weaker, but it doesn't make sense in the context of snowman, doesn't it :D Not bad, fun clicking browser game for those empty timeslots in work :)
Xanjos
15. Sep 2015 · 00:28 UTC
Interesting concept. I actually like the idea of the snowman growing larger whenever it gets hit by the snowball.
Jupiter_Hadley
08. Oct 2015 · 19:15 UTC
I liked getting hit to let my snowman grow. Cool game. I included it in my Ludum Dare 33 Compilation video series, if you would like to take a look :) https://youtu.be/0AIZTu6ja8E