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GMTK Game Jam 2021

Hosted by Game Maker's Toolkit · #gmtkjam

142k

Ratings

Overview Submissions Results Screenshots Submission feed

A jam submission

INFINITE MATTERView game page

BUILD GUNS AND SHOOT STUFF

Submitted by nethead (@_nethead) — 19 minutes, 19 seconds before the deadline

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Play uhhhhh game?

INFINITE MATTER's itch.io page

Results

Criteria	Rank	Score*	Raw Score
Originality	#459	3.857	3.857
Overall	#1176	3.357	3.357
Fun	#1585	3.036	3.036
Presentation	#1662	3.179	3.179

Ranked from 28 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?
You "join" components together in order to build weapons.

Did your team create the vast majority of the art during the 48 hours?

Yes

We created the vast majority of the art during the game jam

Did your team create the vast majority of the music during the 48 hours?

Yes

We created the vast majority of the music during the game jam

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Comments

kotziSubmitted2 years ago(+1)

Wow, great game and idea! I found a small bug on the crafting mode, if you add two components without moving the first one, it's like them both will be moving together and will be impossible to separate them (but it's easy to workaround since you just need to remove one, move the other and then add back the deleted one).

On the other hand, some information about the result of your craft would be useful on the crafting mode too. Maybe in a nice way like having the character just shooting every few seconds? I think that could be really cool. Of course, your implementation was astonishing for a 48h game jam!

Congrats for your submission!

Submitted

Hero of the Desert

netheadDeveloper2 years ago(+1)

thanks for the thoughtful comment! I think both an indicator as to whether each output is “valid” would help, as well as visualizing the output some way (like showing the player shooting in the UI as you mentioned) would go a long way towards making the player feel less in the dark as they go about crafting. thanks for the suggestions!

CroSnakeSubmitted2 years ago(+1)

It was quite fun after I figured out how it works! Only in my first playthrough I felt pressured to return to the ring and didn't explore everything and got the cards because of the message, I thought I had a time limit or so, but afterwards it was great! Nice graphics and sound, nice game! Good job!

Submitted

Defying Instincts

netheadDeveloper2 years ago

Thanks for playing and leaving feedback! I definitely should have worded the “RETURN TO THE THING” message in a way that made it clear you can explore as long as you want.

PitBuIISubmitted2 years ago(+1)

I enjoyed playing the game very much. The "crafting" mechanic is very fun. I agree with shearwoodgames, that shooting with the mouse, would be better. I also loved your graphics and soundtrack.

Great game!

Submitted

netheadDeveloper2 years ago

Thanks for playing, glad you liked it :D

PitBuIISubmitted2 years ago

Was the code, the graphics and the music all done by one person, or are you actually a team of multiple persons?

netheadDeveloper2 years ago

Just me! Coding is my day-job and I’ve been producing music for a long time, so I’m mainly trying to get better at game design and pixel art rn.

PitBuIISubmitted2 years ago(+1)

Wow, really good job then for a 48h game. You could definetly hear, that you had some experience in creating music and your pixel art is also quite good.

shearwoodgamesSubmitted2 years ago(+1)

I really enjoyed it, but I wish fire was on left mouse rather than space

Submitted

Blue Pelican Down

netheadDeveloper2 years ago

thanks, and good point i have no idea why i didn’t do that lol

Pedro BragaSubmitted2 years ago(+1)

It would probably work better if you had more time to flesh everything out. It’s difficult to introduce some ideas to the player when they are complex like this ’-u-

Submitted

Synergy [GMTK Jam 2021]

netheadDeveloper2 years ago(+1)

yeeeeeeeeeah i realized when i finally got everything working that it was gonna be too much for people to take in during a jam, especially without time to introduce the mechanics properly. it is what it is i guess lol. thanks for trying it out anyway ^^’

tiny_ninja882 years ago(+1)

This game is such a unique concept but I feel the execution was a bit weird and the controls are hard to maneuver but with some tweaking and fixes this game could become one of the most unique and fun.

netheadDeveloper2 years ago

thanks for playing and leaving feedback! totally agree about the execution; refining and implementing the concept took me so long that i didn’t have time to get the execution right.

CodingCrateSubmitted2 years ago

This looks so cool and i LOVE the music, but unfortanetly i don´t get your game. :( Maybe you could explain in the comments or something again how it works. I think the tutorial would be easier if you explained everything one by one and didn´t throw everything on the player at once, like little text messages that pop up sometimes or something. I hope the feedback helped you, would be nice if you could check out my submission too, and also if you could explain your game so i can play it. :)

Submitted

netheadDeveloper2 years ago(+1)

Thanks for the feedback! I’ll check out your game right away :D

Totally get that the game’s confusing; I hoped I’d have time to work on tutorials/explanations but unfortunately that didn’t end up happening. I almost considered not submitting because of this but I’m happy to explain to those of you who are trying it out :D

Here’s a bit of a tutorial:

First of all, grab the chests to get “cards”. Once you grab the initial 3 chests you can break out of the start area. I’d recommend just running away from the creeps until you find at least 3 extra chests since the initial weapon is really weak (bad design, sorry). You can hold space to shoot while running away, to take out a few creeps as you run around the map.

First, here’s an image showing the UI basics.

You click the + sign to add a card. You can drag the top of a card to move it. Note that if you place a card without moving it the cards end up stuck on top of eachother and you have to close them (sorry :C).

Here’s how to connect the cards; the red circles are “outputs” and the empty ones are “inputs”.

This is how the first 3 cards should be connected. Your chain should always end with an “OSC” connected to an “OUT”.

Here is another example:

You never want to MIX osc or output nodes; but anything else (RED, BLUE, MIS) can be mixed as shown. You can also have one chain per OUT node, as you can see in that image. This will let you fire multiple projectiles.

The OUT nodes are “outputs”, meaning they output the contents of your chain.

The OSC nodes are “oscillators”, meaning they move at a certain frequency which determines your firing speed.

The other nodes (RED, BLUE, MIS) are bullet types, which you can combine in a MIX node to make strong bullets.

I hope that helps, and thanks for the feedback! If I end up making a full game I’ll definitely introduce the mechanics much slower and make sure it’s a lot easier to understand the mechanics, lol.

CodingCrateSubmitted2 years ago (1 edit) (+2)

Oh, okay! I just don´t know how to get out of the start area :(. But it seems like a really great game, so i´ll give it a good rating. :)

NEVERMIND, I GOT IT! This is so cool! With an interactive tutorial and a better control scheme this could be a full game! Amazing!

netheadDeveloper2 years ago(+1)

Glad you got it, thanks so much for sticking it out!! I really appreciate it.

CodingCrateSubmitted2 years ago

No problem, it´s a great job making a game looking so interesting that you want to understand it no matter how hard it is to :)

qas-src2 years ago(+1)

I like the idea, I like the card idea and how the guns work. I think a toggle for always shooting would be great, since I just end up holding space the whole time. I would love to see a this idea expanded upon, I feel like the card idea and shooting idea would make an interesting main mechanic.

netheadDeveloper2 years ago

Thanks for the feedback! I’m definitely interested in trying to refine this idea and making a larger game out of it at some point. I like the idea of just having a toggle for shooting, holding space constantly does feel kinda pointless.

Myndust32 years ago (1 edit) (+1)

The game seems interesting, however, I don't understand how weapons and firerate work
I tried to get a fast disc because I thought it would help me fire quicker, but it just prevented me from shooting at all. Also, I don't see what "blue" and "red" components are supposed to do.

I would likely rethink my review if I had feedback on what I'm doing wrong and why.

EDIT : I gave the game a second chance and when I learnt that you cna hold space, it was a lot better, also I understood how the mechanic work, it has great potential !

netheadDeveloper2 years ago (1 edit)

Thanks for giving it a second chance! I updated the page to mention that you have to hold the spacebar since that’s kinda weird. tbh my game needs a full instruction manual to make sense lol

Myndust32 years ago

The game seems interesting, however, I don't understand how weapons and firerate work
I tried to get a fast disc because I thought it would help me fire quicker, but it just prevented me from shooting at all. Also, I don't see what "blue" and "red" components are supposed to do.

I would likely rethink my review if I had feedback on what I'm doing wrong and why.

Bartha SzabolcsSubmitted2 years ago(+1)

Really cool idea, and fits the theme well. :D
I love the idea to program my guns with nodes.
Some "compilation check" would have been great, but that is unrealistic for a 2 day jam.

The shooting is a bit clunky, but I had fun after figuring out, that you can hold space to shoot continuously.

Art was really great too.

Submitted

Bouncy Laser Tower Defense - GMTK Game Jam 2021

netheadDeveloper2 years ago(+1)

thanks, glad you liked the idea! A compilation check is a great idea. Originally I actually showed the output of the gun as you built it, but didn’t have time to add that back after I rewrote a large portion of the system D:

cookiecrayonSubmitted2 years ago(+1)

Nice! It took me a while to figure out how to play, but it was clearer once you played with the nodes a bit. Great potential to create some crazy attacks!

One thing that confused me at the start was that I added all my nodes at the same time so they all appeared on top of each other and moved together when I dragged them. I was dragging them around for a while trying to figure out how to add others until I hit the X on one and realised the others were underneath.

Submitted

netheadDeveloper2 years ago

thanks for sticking with it! sorry about the cards stacking; I was hoping to have time to fix that but alas…

LukahnaSubmitted2 years ago(+1)

There's a lot of potential here! I frequently ran into situations where my gun would no longer fire, such as when I tried to run {red,blue}->{mix}->{out} or even {red}->{out}, but maybe I'm fundamentally misunderstanding how it's supposed to work.

Submitted

netheadDeveloper2 years ago

thanks for playing :3 you always need an oscillator for there to be output, so you'd need something like {red,blue}->{mix}->{osc}->{out}.

i had intended to colour code input/outputs and add more detailed instructions to make things clear but i bit off a bit more than i could chew this jam and ran out of time lol

LukahnaSubmitted2 years ago

Ah! That's what I did wrong, then. I had the oscillators before the mixer. Yeah, the time crunch was real. My team barely submitted on time, too.

rawsome1234Submitted2 years ago(+1)

My biggest issue is the fire rate of the base weapon; it took a while and there were so many enemies that it was difficult to fight against them. It looked very nice and played well otherwise.

Submitted

netheadDeveloper2 years ago

thanks for the feedback, i totally agree that the base fire rate is too low tbh