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Operation: Alien RIPley's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Audio | #12 | 3.190 | 3.538 |
| Visuals | #15 | 3.467 | 3.846 |
| Gameplay | #16 | 2.774 | 3.077 |
| Accessibility | #17 | 2.704 | 3.000 |
| Overall | #17 | 2.993 | 3.321 |
| Theme | #18 | 3.259 | 3.615 |
| Itch page & Marketing | #19 | 2.565 | 2.846 |
Ranked from 13 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Theme interpretation
The theme "A Poor Connection" was implemented by controlling a combat android that can't be too far away from radio towers and more towers having to be activated to be able to finish the map by extending controlling range.
Players Notice
There are ingame instructions with this explanation plus control hints:
Recapture all radio towers currently controlled by the alien forces.
Don't go too far away from active radio towers or you loose control of the combat android.
Development Software
Unity, JetBrains Rider, Blender
Accessibility
It doesn't rely on colors or audio so it should be fine for color blind or deaf people.
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Comments
I never expected a 3D web game could perform this well, especially considering all the grass and lighting effects you are using!
The game itself was a bit on the hard side if you try going at crowds head on, for me it turned a bit into "kiting simulator" especially when trying to attack enemies down below, especially with the insane veteran sniper level accuracy the aliens had.
With that, having the ability to rotate the cam would have made that a much nicer experience.
Being used to do WASD on a Azerty control scheme of forced Qwerty layout was a bit hard, skill issue on my end maybe? but having a keybinds menu would have nicely solved that! Also tried out using a controller after reading that it was a thing ingame on a relay pilar, but sadly I couldnt figure out how to shoot using it.
Sound design was quite good, I do felt like there was not enough feedback when enemies got hit especially if they were offscreen.
I had a great time reading your devlog & I provided feedback on it, adding in my own experience ontop.
Its really nice to read the optimisation stuff you had to do to get the game to work and I'd look forward to seeing how your projects further build towards a greater game.
I have a recording of my entire playthrough + reading all the page content, please reach out to me on Discord if you want to see the "clip" (more like hour long vod) xd, Its waaay more than I could possibly put in a simple comment on Itch!
Thanks for joining the Jam, And I hope you had a good time working on the project! <3
I think there is actually only one real light: the sun. All others are those fake lights attached to bullets that I wrote about on Discord and in the devlog. Yesterday I tested an improvement to that fake light idea since overlapping lights get so super bright. My new alternative doesn't anymore but is a bit too weak, maybe that can be improved further with harder rendering tricks.
Yeah a lot of enemies at once are difficult. The idea is to only fight with a few at once avoiding drawing more and more into the fight. They will alert nearby aliens when hit and can of course see you. You can also tactically leave health drops for later if they would overfill you at the moment. You can also get behind obstacles like radar towers, ships and the plant barriers to make them loose sight of you.
With the cooldowns of the weapons (1-2 seconds) there is a certain rhythm of dodging (with space) and shooting you can get into to dodge most bullets. Depending on the rhythm of the enemy shots and amount of enemies that might not work that well. I try to make a video of a more or less full playthrough later and post it on Discord as well.
The controller hint is a missed leftover from when I still wanted to add controller support but I never implemented aiming with that marker so I took most buttons out again and remapped the alt buttons to 1-3. Control remapping and proper settings in general would have been nice as well as a bunch of other things. The current settings have various issues. Can't you just enable an English keyboard layout to avoid that common Azerty issue? German here who has that issue to a lesser extend as well.
I'm working on a lot of things right now like a better vegetation renderer to use in future jams. That did eat quite some time. I wrote down so many things to work on... Including settings. Another big time eater was Amplify Shader Editor failing me and me having to redo some things, I could have avoided that by simply changing the shader model to <=3.5 instead of the standard of 4.5 which doesn't work on WebGL... Found that out after the jam.
You did a great job making the game run with all that grass in WebGL. The enemies feel spongy because they probably have a big HP bar and have no visual feedback or animation when hit.
Yeah better hit feedback for enemies and for the player are some of my todo list items I didn't have time for anymore. I also wanted to add RPG like stat upgrades so that you can make yourself stronger which would have made enemies only spongy at the start. Maybe I should have changed the balancing.
I really like the fundamental gameplay along with the art! I think you did a good job with the different weapon abilities, but they need some tweaking to be more equal to each other. I won the game with 8 towers activated. My main strategy was to not have more than 2 enemies on me at once. While it would be expected to use the wide shot in situations like that, hitting them together 10 times with it is not ideal when I could just use 4 shots on each of them with the E ability, which also explodes and has a chance of hitting the 2nd enemy. I also noticed that the towers varied from 6-9 upon restarting, while the spawn (and assuming the rest of the map) stayed the same. I personally don't see a reason to change the amount of towers unless the map is different as well, to better balance them.
I like the music and SFX, but I think the hit sound can be more satisfying. It currently feels a bit dull, and hitting the enemies doesn't really provide feedback on how much damage they're taking. Having them limp or making it clear that they're hurt after taking some damage would benefit the player experience a lot. My only other real issue is not being able to see the enemies instantly. It sometimes took me a while to notice when the enemies were on screen, and sometimes I've only noticed them when I was shot at. I think having a colored outline for them would solve that issue. Valorant does that and it helps a lot to make it clear when you're looking at an enemy. I really did enjoy the gameplay, and would love to see it get more polished! The gameplay is all there, it mainly just needs some fine tuning. Great job with the submission!
Thanks! The map basically stays the same but towers, enemies and the decorative ships are placed randomly in certain spawn areas. You can read about that in the devlog: https://acurna.itch.io/operation-alien-ripley/devlog/958686/jamlytics-jam-1-part...
Originally I wanted to make a full map randomizer but had more important things to do first so it stayed at that fixed level. Some things being randomized is still better than everything being always exactly the same. I hate how most games have no randomness at all with NPCs walking on exactly given paths and such.
As already mentioned in other replies better hit indication for enemies and the player was planned and I also thought about making them more visible. I tried glowing eyes but that didn't really help and probably neither would have glowing weapons. I thought about giving them some kind of colorful space suit and even found a model which I maybe could have somehow merged with more time... I also thought about showing damage numbers but that would only make sense if you could influence them in more ways like in an RPG. I also thought about adding some kind of enemy radar or marker. In a previous game I had health bars over enemies but I wanted to keep it more realistic here. Enemies shooting at you surprisingly also didn't seem like such a big issue because you normally can dodge the bullets in time.
Runs and looks pretty nice. Enemies are a bit too spongy, though.
I do like playing a twin shooter from time to time, these are some simple fun that I can just enjoy, and this game is no different. I think the game is a bit ambitious and unfortunately, quite a bunch can't be delivered on time (which we all understand, jams are always like this, so no need to feel bad about it), the game already has a solid core gameplay loop to work with. The gameplay currently although a bit simple, is still engaging enough to make an enjoyable experience. The graphics are pretty, and there is quite a nice ambient sound going on too. The game runs quite smoothly despite what you said on discord, so that's a job well done.
For some criticism, I think the thing that stood out the most for me is that there is a seemingly random delay between when you shoot and the gun actually fires. It makes the game feel extremely unresponsive. The delay is also randomised, and I can't find any hidden requirement (distance, movement, enemies, bullet on screens etc) for that. If it's an intended mechanic, it would be best if it were communicated clearly to avoid confusion. I would also say putting the two alternative attacks on Q and E makes using them awkward, especially when you are actively moving and avoiding the enemies. Last but not least, I think the enemies blend in too much with the grass/ground, making them very hard to notice before too late. I get it that it might be more real that way, but for an arcade-style game like this, it would be a bit better if they stood out a bit more.
Anyway, I'd say you did a pretty good job of making this game! Keep up the good work!
That is the gun raising from the resting/carry position. You can hold right mouse button to move while aiming which removes that delay 😉That also puts you in walk mode instead of sprinting. It's like having to transition from sprinting to aiming through a scope or whatever in first person shooters. That aiming mode is mentioned in the instructions.
You can also use the abilities with 1-3 but yeah they are a bit tricky to use. Originally I wanted to make it playable with a gamepad but didn't have time to fully finish that. Maybe the controls are more suited to a gamepad and just tricky with mouse and keyboard.
I also thought about enemies blending too much into the background and thought about making the weapon or eyes glow or putting them in a more visible space suit. They can also attack surprisingly from offscreen. You have time to dodge all bullets though so it didn't seem that important. All the ranges and such are a tricky thing to balance. Maybe I would have found a better balance with more playtesting.
runs pretty good in web!, The game is good, cool visuals, the enemies have too aim!
woah cool, it's hard to dodge the bullet but it's quite fun exploring the area XD
Nice visuals!