Critter Mayhem by MachWerx
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.
| Link | https://github.com/MachWerx/CritterMayhem |
| Link | https://machwerx.itch.io/critter-mayhem |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/56/critter-mayhem |
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🗨️ |
PS: as a fellow participant I´d recommend you interacted more with other games so yours could reach more people :)
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.
@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.
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!
Would be nice to have a little indicator, where the next thing is. I flew out too far and didn't find back 🙈
Nice entry, good job.
@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
