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Space Invader's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Enjoyment | #1957 | 3.077 | 3.077 |
| Overall | #2316 | 3.154 | 3.154 |
| Presentation | #2452 | 3.154 | 3.154 |
| Creativity | #2534 | 3.231 | 3.231 |
Ranked from 39 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
How does your game fit the theme?
This is a remix on space invaders where but with the ROLES REVERSED. You play as three aliens who are trying to survive the ship's attack.
Did your team create the vast majority of the art during the 48 hours?
No
We used pre-existing art
Did your team create the vast majority of the music during the 48 hours?
No
We used pre-existing audio
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Comments
Great game! Don't have much to say, it's a simple and fun game, nice job :)
An interesting twist on the formula, i like how you have to constantly swap between the aliens to keep them all alive.
this is hard with a keyboard!
good job!
Nice game jam idea, I liked it :)
Nice game! Simple but fun and interesting!
Very hectic! Some other way to switch might be a way to improve it but the execution as is was great!
A nice game, very nostalgic. It was quite easy to just leave two of the aliens in a corner while you grab the targets with the other one. Perhaps if controls automatically switched between aliens after a few seconds this would be alleviated. Still very fun, excellent job!
I'm not generally a fan of games where you have to manage several things at once under extreme pressure, but I found a neat exploit to let me handle this one...
I collected all of my invaders onto the same grid space, near the top of the playspace. I could shuffle them to the side by executing a simple sequence on my Xbox controller three times: Change alien, move alien. That kept them all safe pretty much indefinitely.
Then I realised you were meant to try to collect the small circle, so would leave the two at the top, and chase the circle with the 'spare' alien. Doesn't really matter which, as they're all the same as far as I could see. Once that was collected, retreat to join the others and regain my composure!
This meant rather than having to focus on three things at once, I could decide between just one thing, or if feeling brave two. And because the bullets move pretty slowly I'd have plenty of time to move the two invaders on the top row. The ship seems to move around mostly at random, so the edges are pretty safe.
Interesting amount of strategy for such a tiny game. Props to you sir!
I found it quite difficult that everything moves on the grid, but nothing moves together. All the bullets move out of sync, which makes it almost impossible to cross the stream of shots unless the ship happens to leave a column gap in between two shots. That's pretty rare, and after dying a frustrating number of times trying to cross a steady stream of bullets, I gave up.
Potential improvements? I kinda like it the way it is! But you could experiment with having a less random and more AI-like thing where the ship picks an invader and chases it for a while. You could also experiment by having lots more invaders, and allowing a set number of them to die. Maybe even all of them - like the arcade versions. So it starts out as a slaughter, but ends up as a one-on-one tense battle. You could also have pickups that are meaningful. Maybe the ability to fire back, or bring back the bases at the bottom that can be destroyed by any shots?
In the original arcade game, the invaders movements were linked together, and staggered slightly (I think that was a limitation of the hardware). The player could only shoot one smoothly firing bullet at a time. Maybe you could experiment by following those features more accurately too?
I loved having game controller controls too. I think keys would have just been too confusing for my old-man reactions to handle.
Really thought provoking game! Well done for making it with the tight games jam deadline.
Than you so much for your feedback!
I did think of many of the suggestions you provided, but I didn't implement them mainly due to time constraints and skill issue. In reality I probably spent around 12 hours on the game, as I had other stuff going on over the weekend as well.
The whole idea behind the targets was that when you collect the target you would damaged the ship. There is actually UI for that when black squares get removed from the ship itself. When you remove three squares the target will actually move to the bottom center where all three aliens must go in order to ultimately destroy the ship. I wanted to make animations, to make it all more clear, but I didn't have the time.
I also tried to make the ship "smart" by making it more likely to go towards the center, because when the movement was entirely random it got stuck in the edges for long periods of time.
I find your strategy really interesting. I only realized the aliens could overlap (which in hindsight of course they could), near the end of the jam. I wanted to fix it, but it was a higher priority to get a web build working. My strategy was to just do everything very quickly before the ship could shoot a lot of bullets, but I am happy you managed to figure out another strategy!
Interesting concept! Liked how the whole game was super simple but has the idea of reversed roles.
Nice game! I think the grid-based approach was a good choice. I would tweak the randomness of the ship's movements a bit, right now there are sometimes long periods where you don't have to move at all.
That was tricky, but managed to beat it :D
Very well presented! A bit too difficult for me, though :)
space invaders is one of my fav games ever. Cool take on the theme! Challenging, but really fun
Was pretty difficult at first, which was fun! It was a bit unclear to me that you had to reach the circles. But I definitely had fun!
Really fast pace game 3 aliens at the beginning and all have to survive o.O sry :D I wasn't able to play very long. But nice take on the theme
I like how you need to manage 3 aliens at the same time, dodging bullets while still trying to make it to the goal. great job!
Fun game, challenging yet simple, my team had a...similar idea, your execution is still pretty different, how often do you need to collect the cicle to win?
So there are two stages. When you collect three circles, you reach stage two where the circle moves to the bottom center. Then you need to reach there will alm three aliens and you win.
Thanks
Cool twist! It's a small glimpse into what could be a larger tactical puzzle game!
Nice game! I loved the added complexity of switching aliens. Great Job!!
First game this jam that I properly finished! Several were more like a high score thing, but yeah. I didn't notice that I could swap aliens at first, so I was confused that I kept dying despite dodging all the bullets, lol. Really fun game and surprisingly challenging despite having just one enemy shooting at you. Well done!