Spectra by red-stake
Shoot and don't get hit. Should be easy, right?
Install instructions
Unzip the .zip file (right click and select "Extract All...") and run the .exe to play
Controls
WASD (or ZQSD) to move LMB to shoot
Development Info
- Engine - GameMaker
- Sprites - GM Sprite Editor
Unfortunately I didn't have time for sound.
Screenshots


| Link | https://red-stake.itch.io/spectra |
| Link | https://red-stake.itch.io/spectra |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/54/spectra |
Ratings
| Overall | 81th | 3.9⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 13th | 4.2⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 220th | 3.275⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 124th | 3.9⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 75th | 3.975⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 36🗳️ | 18🗨️ |
A shame you couldn't add sounds, would have made it even more satisfying.
I did get stuck in the walls a few times when shape changed, though, which I doubt was intentional.
And shooting at the big cube with the powerup shakes the screen so much I couldn't tell what was going on xD
Thanks for the kind words about everything, especially the aesthetics, I hoped people would like it!
Juicy, cute, awesome level transitions! Just really missing sound.


Very interesting concept, I'll give it a try later on, maybe I can beat master my technique to reach a bit further. And the colors are really pretty, wish it had sounds & music. Keep up the good work, cheers! :)
The graphics are simple yet delicate. I really love it.
Screen shake is a highlight.
I think a cool additional feature would be if the colors had an effect on or correlation with the action
As other said, sounds and music for this kind of game could really bring more fun, but i agree with you on what you said in the comments, making a sound for a very repetitive action in the game can also make it unpleasant
I think Vampire Survivor could be a good reference in this case, because it only plays a sound when you kill an enemy, and the sound itself is a quick percussive sound (kind of a popping popcorn sound :smile: ) and so is not too aggressive with repetition
But anyway, very solid entry, good job
Wow, this had a great vibe! The cycling colors, the shifting shapes, the tight controls and the chunky graphics all really came together nicely. If this had great crunchy sfx it would have really gone to 11.
I think I would have played more if the restart loop didn't go so far backwards on hit, but maybe it had to be that way.
Difficulty was well-balanced though. Game's telegraphing did a great job of letting me see a moment ahead, and yet still created many VERY close calls. There was also a nice non-uniform pacing that emerged... if I stayed on top of keeping everything clean, I could keep it under control. But once I missed one thing, it threatened to snowball.... until I cleaned up again and got back to baseline. Then, the game had waves that were tougher that would force such spikes on me even if I didn't mess up, so the pacing was never flat.
Well done, really nice entry!
After my first few tries the hexagon/pentagon shapes you sometimes see reminded me of a song that would probably go really well with those. So I started [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=juZUdf_A3lM) in the background and did another game. Instant 9/10 experience, all it was missing after that was some gunshot sounds and maybe editing to sync the music with the bullet fire or enemy spawn rates.

You could probably make a pretty good post-jam game out of this, great work!