Head toward the light and bring as many with you as you can.
Graphics
Very simple, which allowed everything to blend together as a cohesive world. Although they were a bit too simple to intuitively understand what each object is. The lighting effects were a redeeming quality. 4/10.
Audio
This gets the lowest rating from me. The drum beat got annoying pretty quickly. The song had nice elements, I think the drum beat could have used more work though. And no sound effects for the game also contributes to the lower audio score. 2/10.
Gameplay
The gameplay was fun. I enjoyed frantically clicking around the screen to survive. 6/10.
Originality
This was definitely an original game idea, I never would have come up with a game where you run towards the light trying to escape from barbarians. Very fantasy-like idea. 6/10.
Theme
I don't think this fit the theme of gravity that well. I assume you built the theme into your game by having the followers attracted to you if you get close to them. But that's not really gravity, that's just them following you. 2/10.
Overall score
4/10.
Music really gives this game its name, the marching drums, though I agree it gets a little annoying if you play the game more than once or twice. I think getting a good scores relies a bit on luck, as the character itself doesn't feel very mobile, but it was fun enough to make me want to try getting a higher score on a second play! So overall I think you did well :)
Also agree it's a pretty interesting interpretation of the theme, we gravitate towards the center, and our followers gravitate towards us (although they don't really do that until we touch them which feels like a missed opportunity hehe)
Good job!
I'm not sure what "Gravity" has to do with it!
I assume you built the theme into your game by having the followers attracted to you if you get close to them. But that's not really gravity, that's just them following you.
I did use a pretty liberal intrepration😅. In-part because I've already done a game jam with orbitial mechanics:
And also as a small act of rebellion, as I believe that "Gravity" limited creativity. You can see this with the amount of games that were Physics Sim + Some Mechanic
(and two grid-based puzzle games about balencing planet systems, which isn't alot, but it's odd it happened twice, both with different scratch-built systems). In that sense, it's the worst of the ten themes. However, many submissions seem to be from first-timers, who might've been thankful for the straight-forwardness, so "gravity" isn't all bad.
The drum beat got annoying pretty quickly.
Music really gives this game its name, the marching drums, though I agree it gets a little annoying if you play the game more than once or twice.
Agreed! My aim in the ten minutes I composed it was to create a marching beat, but it does start to grate after awhile.
You need to adjust the mechanics a bit.
How it currently works is spawns are on a timers and on a timeout it puts a follower or barbarian ahead of the player.
I like the reccomendation to start low and ramp up difficulty toward the end, but I also sort of like having situations where the player has an against the odds moment where the win in spite of bad RNG. Probably needs a lot of tinkering to figure out.
I think getting a good scores relies a bit on luck
Absolutely due to the way spawns work: entierly randomly based on timers in front of the player. So, if a group of civvies spawn next to barbarians and none of them have bows the player is screwed.
as the character itself doesn't feel very mobile
The mini map is there to try and help the player make snap judgmenets on pathes to take, but based on the fact that I haven't seen it mentioned, it might not be apparent that it see's well beyond your current position and can help you avoid dicey scenarios. could also be that it's too small, being transparent makes it unreadable, ect. Regardless, it certainly isn't solving the fact that there's not enough people for the player to get a high score! If I keep working on this I'll add seeds so at least every player suffers from the same RNG.
Game is quite nice. I am guessing the way gravity was interpreted was in the severity of the situation as you have to keep moving to the center while surviving. It was very satisfying to amass a large group of survivors that defend you as you keep moving. I would like it even more if the player moved a little bit quicker thought. This is a solid concept that could definitely turn into something great with some refinement.
It took me some time to understand what to do, but after that, it was clear (and pretty stressful being chasing by the chaos AND some enemies with an axe !).
I think I had a very generous RNG for my second run with 25 people saved, because I tried some more games and my score was far from that (more around 15).
Congratulations for your entry !
This was fun. It's slow enough to give you time to plan your movement, but fast enough to not be boring. After gathering up a few archers, walking through enemies isn't much of an issue anymore – fortunately, they seem to know which enemies I want targeted.
Some sound effects (subtle ones, so they don't drown out the music) would be nice. And some particles when friends or enemies expire.
This is the most fun I have had in this event so far. I think this game takes a lot of familiar pieces and contextualizes them in a fantasy adventure that makes it exciting. It makes me want to create a narrative from the emergent gameply in my head. I think if you juiced the graphics up to 11 with some dnd kinda guys that could make it that much more compelling. My one criticism is that I really wish that I could move via keyboard keys or a joystick because clicking all over the place for so long is going to give me carpal tunnel.
# | User | Score | |
---|---|---|---|
1 | @sebastienb | 25 | |
2 | @Hydra | 19 | |
3 | @thomastc | 17 | |
4 | @BluePinStudio | 16 | |
5 | @fisherbitgamedev | 16 | |
6 | @Gunnar | 15 | |
7 | @Soul | 10 | |
8 | @Jesus | 8 | |
9 | @Beebster | 0 | View all 9 scores |
Probably the best interpretation of the theme so far! Very original, I didn't think I'd like the gameplay, but I played for longer than I thought. It did seem pretty hard to find followers though.