Critter Mayhem by MachWerx

[raw]
made by MachWerx for Ludum Dare 56 (JAM)

Collect pearls and avoid the whale!

Move your pointer to guide your flock. Each pearl will add one more critter. If the whale touches a critter, she'll eat them. Clicking will make your critters burst apart, which you can use to help avoid the whale at the higher levels.

If you can get a score over 20, that's really good! The highest score I've ever gotten was 21. My son got 26 once. I tried to make the whale's movements challenging but somewhat dodgeable. She'll accelerate quickly towards you but she doesn't turn that fast. So circling around her works pretty well, until the later levels when you really need to time your bursts to escape and reach the pearls.

Ratings

Overall 337th 3.75⭐ 28🧑‍⚖️
Fun 153th 3.889⭐ 29🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 377th 3.5⭐ 28🧑‍⚖️
Theme 611th 3.596⭐ 28🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 531th 3.685⭐ 29🧑‍⚖️
Audio 77th 4.04⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Humor 802th 2.523⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Mood 339th 3.769⭐ 28🧑‍⚖️
Given 23🗳️ 33🗨️

Feedback

ArmainAP
08. Oct 2024 · 15:57 UTC
The music is quite calming!
Joel Davis
08. Oct 2024 · 16:39 UTC
Really fun and nice graphics. Lot of personality in a simple game. I'd love a little arrow pointing towards the pickups when they are offscreen, a couple times I got "lost". Nice job
LDJam user 205479
09. Oct 2024 · 06:34 UTC
Fun! It feels like a matador dodging a bull. Nice job!
ellearx
12. Oct 2024 · 01:42 UTC
Love the vibe! Has a nice fluid movement and very relaxing music. Would be great if it had more obstacles, enemies and a bigger space to move around. Beautiful nonetheless! :)
PS: as a fellow participant I´d recommend you interacted more with other games so yours could reach more people :)
🎤 MachWerx
12. Oct 2024 · 01:52 UTC
@ellearx Thanks for the feedback! I just started interacting with some other games but I'm on a Mac so I'm limited to just Mac and Web games so far...
smilewood
12. Oct 2024 · 01:57 UTC
Fantastic use of flocking for a game, I enjoyed guiding them around trying to dodge the whale. The speed ramping gets intense pretty fast, by the time I got to 15 it never felt like more then luck to doge anymore. The music is nice and calming, the overall vibe of th game really does it for me. Well done!
ellearx
12. Oct 2024 · 01:59 UTC
@machwerx Good luck!!!
oliver_day
12. Oct 2024 · 02:04 UTC
I couldn't find any pearls the first round and even though I liked the graphics there were a lot of gaps in the rock meshes (was that intentional though?). Still a fun game
Deruitda
12. Oct 2024 · 02:27 UTC
Great audio
Dantaro
12. Oct 2024 · 02:31 UTC
The game features beautiful aesthetics that create an immersive atmosphere. I particularly enjoy the "floating" effect while exploring the "ocean", which adds a unique sense of tranquility. The music is atmospheric and complements the overall experience beautifully.
🎤 MachWerx
12. Oct 2024 · 04:32 UTC
@oliver-day Thanks for trying it out. The pearls are the little pink spheres and collecting them increases your flock. But they're randomly places so they might have been a bit offscreen so I hope you can find them if you try again.
Machinic
12. Oct 2024 · 04:49 UTC
Great fundamental mechanics. Very fitting soundtrack. Cute use of boids (I think?). The gameplay would feel a bit more rich if you could scatter/split, and had an advantage to grouping up (maybe getting more from food)? Obviously it wouldn't have to be that specifically, but something to make the gameplay more nuanced.
Samuli
12. Oct 2024 · 10:26 UTC
Superb mood and enjoyable gameplay. I was able to get 18 points! I think the length of a one session ins pretty spot on, not too long to disencourage the high score play.
tete
12. Oct 2024 · 10:32 UTC
Neat little game that fits the theme. I found that the best strategy for higher levels is to aim for the side of the whale, since it doesn't turn too fast (I got a score of 31).
someone
12. Oct 2024 · 10:37 UTC
That was nice chill game. I do like a good flocking behaviour.
The scatter mechanic wasn't particularly great for avoiding the spherical whale, and does very little with few creatures. I also kept clicking outside the window which was not ideal (it worked better in a window than full screen).
18 was my highest score. It seemed impossible to avoid the whale around that point.
It was easy to get lost if you decide to explore the map rather than stick around where the pearls all spawned.
🎤 MachWerx
12. Oct 2024 · 15:46 UTC
Thanks to everyone for your feedback!

@machinic Hah, we have similar names! I custom programmed my own flocking but it's probably pretty similar to boids. Each critter tries to move towards the closest other critter but also towards the mouse pointer. Also there's a very primitive scatter that happens when you click the screen. The radius of it increases when you have more critters.

@tete Wow, I wasn't sure if it was possible to get over 30. 31 is impressive!

@someone It's possible to avoid the whale consistently up to around 21 but you have to move orthogonal to it at just the right time. The scatter helps and it scatters more the larger your flock is. If it's large enough, you can scatter right before the whale arrives and then regroup behind it. But it's pretty tricky to get that timing right.
Grummelchen
13. Oct 2024 · 13:28 UTC
Like the concept and the music. I find the hit sound when you hit one of the balls is quite high, and a bit uncomfortable. I like the smooth gameplay. My only issue is that the enemy sphere is quite erratic in how hard it is to dodge
Pachino55
13. Oct 2024 · 15:30 UTC
Calming music, I really like the chill vibes this game brings
bashem
13. Oct 2024 · 15:40 UTC
Got to 25 so far. Since the spawn points are concentrated in a limited area the best strategy seems to be going in circles trying to keep the whale at the opposite side. Will definitely come back later to try to beat @tete 's record!
NatNSpectrum
13. Oct 2024 · 18:24 UTC
I really enjoyed this! Managed to get to 20 points once. I would say the inclusion of an arrow to direct where the next orb spawns wouldn't go a miss, while most were central and easy to find, there were a few cases where said arrow would have been nice.

Also the hit box for the whale, felt a bit annoying when I would run into its rear end and still get ate!

Otherwise, excellent game! Well made!
Tharinda Kodikara
14. Oct 2024 · 14:40 UTC
Cool game, fun to play. Well done!
Urfoex
14. Oct 2024 · 18:28 UTC
Nice entry.

Would be nice to have a little indicator, where the next thing is. I flew out too far and didn't find back 🙈
Exa
15. Oct 2024 · 07:09 UTC
Nice game,very interesting plot!!!!Nice job!!!!
pepnou
15. Oct 2024 · 17:29 UTC
Nice game. I would have like for the ball to not move to fast to quickly to be able to gather a larger flock. Prety relaxing with the music (the ping is a bit to high volume) if you forget the ball trying to squash you :)

Nice entry, good job.
brainles etertainment
17. Oct 2024 · 18:43 UTC
Wow! Very cool game. I liked the simplicity of controls. The game play pretty relaxing and chilling, nice time-killer. At first I was confused since didn't understand what to do, when I found the first pearl everything became clear. I think multiplayer version would be pretty fun.
brainles etertainment
17. Oct 2024 · 18:45 UTC
Btw, any change of itch.io-version? I would added it to my favorites.
🎤 MachWerx
19. Oct 2024 · 18:52 UTC
Thank you all for your feedback! I've made some bug fixes per people's comments:

@oliver-day, @someone, @natnspectrum, @urfoex: I've added indicators for the pearl and the whale when they're off-screen and I've fixed the rock mesh gaps

@grummelchen, @pepnou: I've lowered the pitch and volume on the pings from the pearl to be less jarring

@brainles-etertainment: I'm glad you enjoyed it! I've added an itch.io link. Here it is as well: https://machwerx.itch.io/critter-mayhem
Suchista
19. Oct 2024 · 19:51 UTC
Very cool and relaxing game, held my attention for a while. The art is nice, though at first I thought the asteroids were collidable. My high score is 29. Gj!
![critter-mayhem-score.png](///raw/05e/81/z/68f95.png)