Ludum Dare 24
August 24th-27th 2012 :: Theme: Evolution
TOWER of Evolution - SiENcE - 48 Hour Compo Entry
Web | Web - Post Compo Version | Soundtrack MP3 | Soundtrack OGG | Source
TOWER of Evolution is a classic Jump'n Run with a twist.
Slogan: The world is only BLACK & WHITE, but people make the world more colorful.
You start as a primitive Monkey and have to climb the tower floor by floor, evolving your character by consuming the rotating mutation Blobs, bypassing enemys and traps (Blobs are also spawnpoints, in case if you die).
In order to win the game, everyone has only one choice => There is no ESCAPE!
The game gets more challenging if you try to win this game with other characters than the wussy astronaut. This means you can't consume the Blobs (this means no spawnpoints!).
Hint: Winning the game with the starting Monkey is the highest difficulty.
Game Framework: MelonJS ( HTML 5 / JavaScript )
Tools: Paint.Net, Pickle, PyxelEdit, GarageBand, Audacity, Notepad++, Chrome
Update: I added an Post Compo Version with Title screen, updated Soundtrack :), Pause Menu, Highscore and lots of bugfixes!
View SiENcE's journal. | View all entries by SiENcE
Ratings
![]() | Coolness | 71% |
| #142 | Humor | 2.89 |
| #268 | Audio | 2.70 |
| #362 | Theme | 2.93 |
| #369 | Mood | 2.64 |
| #414 | Overall | 2.91 |
| #450 | Fun | 2.65 |
| #513 | Graphics | 2.54 |
| #720 | Innovation | 1.89 |
Comments
It's even harder if you beat the game as Monkey ;-) ! Try to not collect the mutation blobs.
All of the characters and all of the hazards blended into the background, and it was very difficult to see anything.
I like the feel of the graphics, but it is indeed sometimes to hard differentiate the hazards.
The graphics remind me of monochrome atari games. A bit too easy maybe.
Thx headchant! Try to solve the game as starting Monkey. This means you can't collect the Spawnpoints.
The music and sound effects were decent, but the death scream was too loud.
I liked the dying ahhhhrrr voice sound the most :)
Also, the rules require you to make all the content during the 48h - I wonder if that's the case for all those character sprites?
The player graphics were good, the environment, not so much.
Music in the background was amazing and the sfx were alright.
As much of the ppl said, game is a bit too easy and you don't know till you accidentally try that you can kill certain enemies by jumping on-top.
Hilarious and awesome. Not very innovative or theme relevant but the humour makes up for it, adding to the gameplay, and the sound adds to the humour (that comical loop, the ridiculous sfx).
The graphical stile is pretty slick too, but the black and white tiles is quite different to the character style.
+ it's nice that you've made so many different characters
+ fun to play
- the dying sound is truly tormenting, a real motivator to keep you from dying.
- why are the spikes so well blended into the environment? At first I kept dying without knowing why...
- also, you could add some more colours to the game
Funny concept :) I found it hard to see the spikes though, because of the black and white :/
Thanks for your well elaborate and motivating critics.
@kirill: the characters are create during the 48h
@Will Xyen: Glad you like the music. I made it using GarageBand.
@Spaceoff: The graphical contrast was one aim. World B/W and colorful Characters (human beings :-).
@madflame991: don't die often ;) ... well the spikes ... some love them ... some hate them ... for me it adds difficulty to the game
More colors ... hm ... i have to think about.
Thx @all
I thought the black and white graphics were lovely. By the way, that's quite a lot of character sprites you've got there. Impressive!
The death screams made my day. I died deliberately a couple of times just to listen to them ;)
All in all, a great game. Thanks!
Hey Sience, looks like you nailed the game with this engine, salute Codea pal :) 5stars!
Hey thx juaxix! Oh man i like using new engines and push them to the limits. MelonJS is great and works on mobile devices too. But my game still misses touch input.
Not sure what it was the dying sound or the hidden spikes but it made me jump the first time I died. You died a lot on this game but the checkpoints meant it wasn't too painful. The sprites were nice some were definitely references to characters. I think the graphics were okay, just highly stylised.
Really like the art in this. The environment looks fantastic. The sound was really good too. Also, you got a chuckle out of me when you turn into the thing with the speech bubble. It really is impressive that you managed to animate so many sprites in such a short amount of time, too.
You made lots of nice characters. The art is a little bit too hard on the eye while scrolling the monochrome tiles start flashing. Besides to that I really liked the game. Jumping (gravity) seems a bit too high and abrupt. But it's okay. Well done!
I finished it in one go, very entertaining! I actually like the graphics. Remind me the first time I saw an Apple II at my best friend's house when I was like 10. I was sure you were a mac user ^-^
Very very fun, and the forgiving checkpoints were very very cool
Okay game, the characters contrast highly with the backgrounds and with each others, did you really make them all yourself?
It's okayish game, prtty difficult though, but that's because the jumping is very strong, if it was more floaty or higher this would perhaps be more enjoyable to play. also the spikes blend into the background which is pretty bad.
alright entry though, you've done ok job.
I choose the contrast and the difficult jumping because of the good old times and the unforgiving jump & runs from that time.
It's a very short and hard game. It was even harder but i thought it would be too painful ;-). But this was my objective.
really hard to see the hazards, and the jumping physics make it really hard to control, its ok just the jump physics in particular really ruin how fun it could be.
If i lower the gravity the game would be too easy. It's a part of the gameplay ... dying is a part of it.
Crisp graphics, clear objective. Some of the graphics can be a bit eyestraining though. Jumping is also very very quick, by which i mean the character gets shot up and lands very fast, maybe add some hang time in there?
Very moody and funny... the death sound scared the crap out of me every time. I like your graphics, though they are tiny, and I agree with some of the other feedback about contrast and difficulty in realizing spikes are spikes. Can you get past the no trespassing guy? Perhaps you could add depth to the game by providing different abilities/control for the different evolutions?
It's not really gravity, it's the way you move, you shoot up and down so quickly there's no real control so often you wont see where you go and dye 15-20 times quickly in a row, which is ear splitting tbh. The jumps are obviously just a simple acceleration curve which is never fun to play in any game i've seen it in, my normal way to describe it is it doesnt feel like jumping so much as it feels like a quick burst from rocket boots shooting you up while standing on the surface of the sun.
i think i need to create a post compo version :D ... thanks for all your feeback ... it's great!
A fun Game. I really like the spawn point system. The graphics reminds me of the good old times. The music an sounds fit very well!
Update: I added an Post Compo Version with Title screen, updated Soundtrack :), Pause Menu, Highscore and lots of bugfixes!
Fun game; I liked the different looks you took on as you went up the castle. The 2-bit art was a little hard on the eyes, and I have heard that scream more times than I really want to, but I enjoyed the game and played it to the end. Nice work.
Liked the idea of changing character graphics :) and the evolution in it was interesting :)
@amidos2006 Ah the first one who liked the changing graphcis and the idea of evolution from Monkey to Astronaut :). Thx
@lekochen You mean to scale it up? Because it's html5 and most browsers use antialiasing for upscale which looks bad. I have to scale it up natively, but therefore i have to rework the whole game. It needs some time, because currently i'm ill. Sorry :-/.
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It short but fun game. The black/white graphics look terrible but sound are cool.