Ludum Dare 22 - Leave me Alone!! - arielsan - Gemserk

Showcase
#1

I didn’t know there were tons of games named Leave me alone for this ld22 before choosing the name. Anyways, I also joined this Ludum Dare, to continue with Gemserk tradition.

I had little time to spend making the game so I targeted a simple game with almost no graphics nor sounds but fun.

The story behind the game is, you have to isolate a particle from other particles to keep the world safe, if they make contact then the world explodes in a mega hyper super duper explosion (use your imagination).

Here is a screenshot of the game:

PLAY

For more information you can read our blog’s entry too.

note: instructions are on Ludum Dare entry.

Enjoy it.

#2

Fun and exciting. I wish that there was a big explosion when you die though!

#3

I love it, nice work ariel :slight_smile:
Very fun gameplay, and using collision responses is a nice improvement over existing games like that!

#4

Feels natural to have box2d collisions and improves the gameplay.

#5

Hehe that was MUCH harder that I thought it would be. Most points I could get was 54, but that’s because I got frustrated quickly. Great job :slight_smile:

Why use a library for collision? Circle v Circle collision is the easiest collision check that exists.

#6

Why not? It has all the physics behavior implemented, all the bouncing and movement is just applying forces and let the magic happen.

#7

That’s lazy talk ;D

#8

Circle/Circle collision detection may be trivial, but one may as well let the physics engine handle the rebound vectors and damping and inertia and friction and whatnot. Gets kind of handy when you have hundreds of them and you let the hardware sort out the optimization – hotspot sure as hell isn’t going to vectorize your loops for you if you do it by hand.

#9

@ra4king

If you are participating in a LD and you already know how to use a physics library like Box2D, is there any reason to not use it? why would I spend my time developing a new Circle/Circle collision library while I should concentrate on gameplay, graphics, story and sounds?

#10

Yeah good point :slight_smile:

#11

Nice! Played for about 4 or 5 minutes–got a 98 as my highest.

Trying to figure out strategies and tactics:

(1) Are some of the objects tracking your cursor? It seems like there is a bit of this. As a consequence, it seems like a good idea to shift around to draw them to one side or another, via circling around the center of the board, if possible. Then they tend to follow as a group (congregating) and be a little easier to avoid. But this only helps a little.

(2) If you know you are trapped, try moving REALLY fast. I noticed that it is sometimes possible to jump over a killer asteroid (or whatever they are).

One thought occurs to me. There is a basic principle that in a game like this, if you want to keep people interested and engaged, they need to see their deaths coming. It shouldn’t be something that feels like it is beyond one’s control. Thus, if an asteroid materializes out of nowhere, there should be a bit more time before it becomes lethal (color code? transparency code?). Or, maybe have new asteroids that appear from the edges do so in a slower rate and then pick up speed after they become visible. Wrap-around – I didn’t notice if you used this or not, could also help a person “see death approaching”.

If you can “see death approaching”, then there is motivation to master the reaction, a feeling of “dang, I saw that, I should have been able to…” and that keeps people involved. I would like a bit more of that in this game.

Response of the app is really great! It is good to be able to whip around at will, after all the time spent with Asteriods and spaceships with momentum, this is refreshing.

#12

I found a a glitch: right clicking causes all the balls to stop, so I just right click, move to a new location, and release the button. I was able to get to more than 150 before dying.

#13

  1. Green particles moves randomly on the world, blue particles wants to go always to your location. Both particles uses physics for the movement, that is why the movement looks smooth instead just moving to your position in a line. Both behaviors are really simple, no mouse tracking.

  2. As you can see, the game is a bit incomplete, that is one of the reasons you can “jump” over the enemies, I am just updating the player position with the mouse position in each frame, not performing a smooth movement between the last position and the new position of the mouse. The result is you can cheat in that way, luckily, not always.

  3. Particles are spawned always with some distance to the player, however, as they spawn from invisible to visible, you can move the mouse after a particle is starting to spawn and it feels like it spawned over you. I agree with the “see death approaching”, maybe all particles should appear from outside the screen always or at least make bigger effect when they spawn, even before spawning.

Thanks for playing and for the comments :smiley:

#14

You, sir, have a nice addictive game. My LD is nothing.

#15

169! :smiley:

#16

I like. I rated you on LD. :slight_smile: Great work in a short time.

#17

I’ve had a few games over 100, but the highest was only 146. Have had more games under 10!

Hey, if it is fading out or fading in, why is it immediately lethal? Maybe have it at least get to 50% alpha before it kills you? Grrrrrrr. :cranky:

[Edit: ARRRGH! 174 211! OK Nate, you are on!
Could the screen be a little larger? The hero ball a little smaller?]

Nice pair of games your wrote, Arielsan. Thank you!

#18

@philfrei

If you mean this game and Vampire Runner when you say “pair of games”, note that Vampire Runner was written for the previous Ludum Dare.

Thanks again everyone for playing it.

#19

Hi guys, I am testing some new controls to make an Android version of this game. If you are interested in testing it, I would be really happy:

LINK TO THE APK

And a QR-Code for convenience:

http://qrcode.kaywa.com/img.php?s=8&d=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.gemserk.com%2Fprivate%2Fprototipos%2Fal1-release%2Fal1-android.apk

Hope you find it usable.

Thanks.