Play the WebGL version here: https://ninjascribble.github.io/LudumDare39/
The H.M.S. Hrothgar has been destroyed by a fleet of enemy invaders. You are the only survivor, but your weapons systems are down and your fuel tanks are running low.
There might be just enough energy crystals floating in the debris to get you home, but can you break through the enemy's lines?
Good luck, soldier. We're counting on you!
- Game engine: Unity 2d
- Graphics: Pyxel Edit and Pixelmator
- Sound: Chiptone
- Tap the Left and Right arrow keys to move around.
- Use the Up arrow key to deploy energy reserves. You only have three, so use them wisely!
- The hit boxes are small enought that you can just sneak through enemies in formation.
Honestly, we went into this Ludum Dare with an idea of what kind of game we wanted to build before the themes were even announced. The classic top-down shmup has always been one of my favorite genres -- the sense of speed and the immediacy of each movement you make combine to put me into a relaxed little zen-like state where I can lose hours at a time.
Of course with only a weekend to build something from scratch, there weren't hours to lose! Graphics came first on Friday night, and we were done with the basic gameplay by the end of the first day. Day two saw the addition of enemies, some tweaks to the game speed, and all of the non-gameplay scenes.
Yes, you can win. I've done it exactly once, and it's damn hard to make it happen. If you do manage to win, you'll be rewarded with a short story screen and the chance to play again, although... the gameplay might be broken as of the current build so it's best just to reload your browser instead. Heh...
This was the first entry we've made using Unity 2D. I've been avoiding it because stepping out of code and relying on the IDE tends to make me nervous. And yeah, we did have some trouble using the collaboration tools (lost work at the end of day 1, no fun), but in the end it did speed up development and make a few things (like supporting fullscreen) a lot easier.
This was also the first time I've had the chance to use Chiptone, which makes building game sounds a breeze. Props to Tom and Adam Vian at SFBGames!