Ludum Dare 23
April 20th-23rd 2012 :: 10 Year Anniversary! :: Theme: Tiny World
T-Pod - Spiridios - 48 Hour Compo Entry
Windows | Source/Multiplatform
T-Pod: Tiny-Planet Orbital Defender
A simple old-school arcade shooter (my apologies if you've already played a dozen of these in this compo already)
For Macs: the multiplatform source link should work provided the PyGame library has been installed. I don't have access to a Mac so I can't test. If someone thinks a Mac binary is a must, a py2app or similar port would be quite welcome.
Credits:
Language: Python
Libaries: PyGame, spiridiGame
Sound effects: sfxr
Music: autotracker-bottomup
Graphics: GIMP
IDE: Notepadd++
Background: tool I wrote around 1996
Windows Build: py2exe/game2exe
View Spiridios's journal. | View all entries by Spiridios
Ratings
![]() | Coolness | 57% |
| #246 | Audio | 2.94 |
| #436 | Theme | 3.03 |
| #504 | Humor | 2.10 |
| #509 | Fun | 2.67 |
| #541 | Overall | 2.79 |
| #577 | Graphics | 2.61 |
| #626 | Mood | 2.36 |
| #815 | Innovation | 2.00 |
Comments
Highest score out of seven tries was 81. Its a bit on the hard side, but overall it plays,looks and sounds good.
I like the music, but I also found it really challenging. I never got higher than 128.
A solid game. I got 332 points! Color coding is important in any frantic shoot-em-up game so it would've been nice if the player's lasers would have stood out more from the red explosion particles.
Would be nice if you could hold down the fire button! Far too many pressed for my liking :-) Overall a good game, fairly interesting paths from the enemies and I like that they destroy the defence laser when they collide with it.
@robcozzens - If I had a Mac I would have built a binary. It's all cross-platform Python with PyGame, shouldn't take long for someone with a Mac...
@j_peeba - Yeah, the colors weren't supposed to be permanent. In fact the particles were intended to fade over time, I just ran out of time.
@arkazon - come on, the only skill this game uses is how fast you can press the fire button! =p I like how my two very simple Alien behaviors, layered at random, can become "fairly interesting paths."
Fun game. I think its not a good fit for the theme but you should definitely keep working on it.
Great entry
@artefon - I know it's probably hard to see, but the aliens are actually visible in the saucer bubble domes. Hint: only a handful would fit on the main continent before falling into the ocean. So it's either a tiny planet or they're huge aliens. =p
The player's ship moved far too fast and jerkily for me to get anywhere.
Music was good, seen another game like this for this compo but can't hold that against you :P
Cool! it was quite hard on one hand, and quite simple on the other hand.. :) I loved the music!
Don't apologize for making a good oldschool shooter! Don't you dare! I loved it. It was fun, super smooth, good controls, good sounds and music. Only got 115 score though, it gets pretty hard.
Pretty basic game mechanics but they work very well.
The particle effects are great and I like the music.
Good morning. In less than an hour, aircraft from here will join others from around the world. And you will be launching the largest aerial battle in this history of mankind.
Mankind -- that word should have new meaning for all of us today.
We can't be consumed by our petty differences anymore.
We will be united in our common interests.
Perhaps its fate that today is the 4th of July, and you will once again be fighting for our freedom, not from tyranny, oppression, or persecution -- but from annihilation.
We're fighting for our right to live, to exist.
And should we win the day, the 4th of July will no longer be known as an American holiday, but as the day when the world declared in one voice:
"We will not go quietly into the night!
We will not vanish without a fight!
We're going to live on!
We're going to survive!"
Today, we celebrate our Independence Day!
As you said, there is nothing very innovative ... but this is a very solid game! The controls are good, it is challenging, but not infuriating, music and sounds are appropriate. I also liked that the planet dying and the player dying are separate events.
Some suggestions:
* auto-fire by just holding X, for the sake of our wrists
* A "high score" under the current score
I quite enjoyed playing it, thanks for the game!
Simple but fun! it was a tad off that I needed to keep pressing X to shoot. Like caranha said maybe at a auto-fire by holding x? But it was a fun game! Good JOB! Come check out my game!
pretty standard circular defense type game, but more playable than most of the others from this compo. The time taken to even add simple SFX and music really helps it a lot. The alien ships though move too erraticly, you're pretty much better off randomly spraying bullets in every direction than trying to actually fire at one directly.
Had to run it under WINE as well, the pyGame version you used was incompatible with mine, would have helped to ship the pygame libs/files with it.
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a short sweet little game, seems a bit too simplistic, also my fingers got a bit tired after playing for a bit :p overall though the mechanics were solid, and it was playable