Hi, so here is my entry for the gain jam. The first thing you’ll probably notice is that it’s super super super super super super SUPER rough right now. It’s kind of embarrassing that in two weeks, this was all I could come up with. But it’s my first time making a game, and me making this was never about winning. So what I have here is more of a proof of concept than an actual finished game.
Move around and absorb enemy bullets to power your robot up.
for controls, wasd for movement, J to shoot, U to use a super move that depends on what color and tier of bulk you’re on, and to change into the other colors:
‘I’ makes you blue.
‘K’ makes you green.
‘L’ makes you red.
‘O’ makes you yellow.
There’s some debugging stuff in there too, so use R to restart the game, and B to immediately jump to the next bulk tier.
14 Likes
Rough, sure, but DAMN good for what it is. I do have some critiques, though-
The color switching buttons are very awkward. Most of my deaths were simply from scrambling to remember which color was which button!
The shoot and special buttons were in weird places, too- I get where you’re coming from, but it’s still a very odd and clunky layout.
My recommendation would be to rework the switching controls to the arrow keys, and the shooting controls to the mouse. If that it’s possible, I’d say it would be worth it.
Aside from that, I have nothing but praise- the Robogril herself is adorable, and from a technical side it is very impressive for two weeks. A pat on the back for you, I say!
2 Likes
It’s nice to see that you decided to try your idea from earlier in this game jam.
also don’t feel embarrassed, learning a new thing like making games take a lot of time and energy
I played this both with and without the knowledge that the super moves existed. if you don’t use them the game is super hard (I only managed to get to the max size once) but if you use them it’s alright but you have to use the shield a lot. it’s a bit disappointing that the bigger sizes aren’t that useful in comparison with how risky it is to get that big. the permanent upgrades are also a bit of a missed opportunity, you could have them be upgrades that stack up to a certain point. I’m thinking that it could work a bit like the gradius games, except it’s not just speed up and option that stacks (double doesn’t count because it’s useless). as they are now there isn’t much reason not to use them as soon as possible. if you don’t want to go down the upgrades route and focus on super attacks then you should probably make the play area a lot bigger so there can be more enemies on the screen.
one thing about this game is that your hitbox and the bullets are pretty big (even at your smallest size) and the play area is really small so it’s pretty hard to dodge stuff. the color switching helps but a problem is if you are unlucky two different colors can overlap and you can’t really get out of the way.
as for the controls, they are a bit strange to me. I can learn how to use them effectively but I would have bound the colors to IJKL, shoot to space and special to some of the keys just above space. but if the controls were as you described in your idea post then that would probably work great.
I feel like I wrote a bit much here (I’ve been thinking about shmups a lot lately) but I think that you can make something pretty good with this, so best of luck to you
1 Like
I hope the development of this game will go further.
1 Like
Okay this is actually really fun! I accidentally took around 20 minutes of my time messing around in it. You have something very nice in the works.
1 Like
So… fat Ikaruga? Wasnt prepared to see that one
But that makes ikaruga great is that you only have two modes, so it is very easy to switch between them. Four is kinda too much
Grotlover2 Score
| Category | Total |
| —: | :–|
| Basics: | 20000 |
| Art: | 175 |
| Writing: | 0 |
| Concept/Design | 960 |
| Msc: | 120 |
| Total: | 21255 |
Comments:
Not a bad bullet hell shooter for how rough it is. I do like the concept of having to change states to absorb certain shots and that stored energy being used for upgrades and other attacks. All in all a solid base to build off of I would say.
Jux Score
| Category | Total |
| —: | :–|
| Basics: | 20000 |
| Art: | 177 |
| Writing: | 0 |
| Concept/Design | 562 |
| Msc: | 12 |
| Total: | 20751 |
Comments:
I will echo what some of the comments say that the control scheme was really difficult and I spent most of the time fighting with them. But I have to commend you for doing a type of game that I haven’t seen in this space yet. With work I bet this will turn into a great project
Kilif Score
| Category | Total |
| —: | :–|
| Basics: | 20000 |
| Art: | 170 |
| Writing: | 0 |
| Concept/Design | 720 |
| Msc: | 80 |
| Total: | 20970 |
Comments:
I appreciate the idea behind this game, where you take a typical shmup and allow the charcter to get heavier as they collect enemy projectiles, but I feel like the idea needs some serious refinement, because as it is, I feel like the concept of actually shooting the enemies is at odds with the fetish element of gathering their projectiles. I literally just focused on getting hit rather than killing the enemies, and the game doesn’t really punish you for that. If you added a goal that pushed the player towards actually killing the enemies, then you leave them with an interesting choice to make of how much time they want to spend getting powerups vs actually moving the game forward. As it stands, though, this is a solid foundation but it would need to be expounded upon.
S&S Score
| Category | Total |
| —: | :–|
| Basics: | 20000 |
| Art: | 240 |
| Writing: | 0 |
| Concept/Design | 1000 |
| Msc: | 100 |
| Total: | 21340 |
Comments:
Squirrel Score
| Category | Total |
| —: | :–|
| Basics: | 20000 |
| Art: | 150 |
| Writing: | 0 |
| Concept/Design | 370 |
| Msc: | 30 |
| Total: | 20550 |
Comments:
I enjoyed the colour mechanics as well as the special abilities, it�s definitely a unique and intriguing concept and definitely makes for some interesting and challenging gameplay. Good submission!
Scores
Art: 912
Writing: 0
Sound: 0
Design: 3612
Total: 104866