Nice game! The gameplay is quite engaging while not being overly complicated. Also thanks a lot for including a downloadable version that works for Linux! And bonus thanks for succinct output of noteworthy events in the terminal.
After playing – with serious performance issues – I had an idea of what might cause the slowdown. The test runs seem to confirm my suspicion. Maybe this helps you make the game even more enjoyable. (See future comment below.)
(Long) Run with Browser Version
The first few runs were utter failures, but after getting accustomed to the – not overly complicated – game mechanics I had much more fun.
First I tried the browser version, but after a few minutes the game slowed down more and more. (Other comments already mention this.) And the sound became somewhat distorted.
The misconception that there are only a total of 1001 beings in this world (zombies/cured + 1 Ferret; not all inside the fence at once) kept me going past 500 rescued people since this should result in less performance issues, right? Wrong. The horde kept growing … and the framerate decreasing.
This had one positive aspect: I had a bit more time to react to respawning masses of zombies and not get cornered – time dilation ;-) After reaching the "Story End" the framerate was so low that I did not notice much of a difference going further. At 2000+ rescued people I quit.
(Even Longer) Run with Downloadable Version (Linux)
Then I tried the downloadable version in the hope of it having less performance issues.
The slowdown started later and was less severe but still quite noticeable. It was more fun and I got much farther before making more and more mistakes and finally quitting at 5000+.
At the end some of the higher upgrades I had in the browser run were still missing, but with a lot more total upgrades the build was obviously really powerful none the less.
Notes
This first item is not really important, but might be nice to have:
I prefer [Tab] to pause the game since it is much closer to WASD. (This is also more convenient in the browser version due to fullscreen mode being terminated by [Esc].)
However opening the "Actions & Consequences" list with [Tab] is only possible after the first upgrade – from level up, item or zombie mutation.
At the start of a run this does not work and can cause Dr. Ferret serious bodily harm.
Could you perhaps also enable showing the empty list? (Maybe containing a hint like "no … yet[, do … to unlock them]".)
Getting the choice between 3 Syringe/Health packs can be quite beneficial at times, but with 25+ Syringes + Lucky Dice III + Dual Wield II and Personal Shield II + Death Defying III not so much. Grinding for the last few missing upgrades becomes a bit too tedious.
Maybe you could tweak the randomness a bit more for the endless stage of the game? (E.g. enforce getting a "real" choice between three distinct items/upgrades at least every few level ups … as long as there are still real upgrades missing.)
Weird observations regarding upgrades (these could be bugs)
In the browser run I unlocked Lucky Dice III before II. But I did not count the syringe reuses, so I'm not sure whether II overruled III.
In the downloadable version I somehow unlocked Rally II twice.
Final unlocked "Actions & Consequences"
All 6 Zombie buffs … only their unlock order can be influenced.
I + II + III of Lucky Dice, Bless You, Death Defying
I + II of Rule #1: Cardio, Zoomster Energy, Personal Shield, It's Spreading, Second Wind, Dual Wield, Portals
only I of Can't Touch This
Rally I + II + II – Yes, "II" twice.
Curenicorn – Is this upgradeable, too?
Bunker Key, Shed Key
Syringe Pack x 15, Health Pack x 14
Apart from the upgrades/items the terminal output also contained this:
Elite Zombie cured x 10
Just curious: Do they have a cured form? Or do they completely transform into a supply bag? I never saw them turn human … too many zombies with less cure resistance in the horde blocking the view.
Failed to find a position free of bounds x 104
Not sure whether this is a problem that needs fixing.
A few cured people got stuck "in" the lower fence … getting turned into zombies seemed to help – or maybe being teleported to safety? Is that related to the failure?
(This failure also seems to be possible without any use of the cure … but lots of zombies: Observed in test run #2.)
And some Warnings of Godot Engine:
Sometimes between runs there are multiple identical warnings. I counted 3, 10, 12 and 0 occurrences. (No idea, how I can reproduce this exactly.)
The growing mass of glowing green auras is the main problem.
The green aura of zombies is a visually agreeable indicator of an active cure effect.
However, hundreds of (stacked) glowing effects at the same time can't be good for the game's performance.
Can you use some better way of handling this visual indicator for hordes? Maybe a suitably composed glow effect for the entire group instead of individual effects? (You can not really target individuals in the center of a horde … so a less specific indicator should suffice here.)
For isolated zombies and small groups it should not be that much of a problem and those also benefit more from having an individual indicator.
Test run #1: "Lots of glow – lots of slow"
Strategy: Play the first few minutes trying to cure a growing horde without actuallly getting any cured people to the rescue places. You can still use the Elite Zombies for some upgrades.
This accumulates a large mass of zombies and (temporarily) cured really fast while keeping the onslaught reasonably managable.
There are loads of the glowing green auras since the closely grouped zombies keep infecting each other and turning the cured people into zombies again.
Result: The slowdown is noticable relatively soon after starting and gets worse quite fast. The sound becomes distorted.
Stacks of the advanced aura (super spreader) might make the slowdown even worse, but that was not part of this test.
After about 07:00 I led the horde to the shelter. This resulted in hundreds of cured people disappearing (and lots of level ups) in a really short time, but this did not improve the performance much.
The screenshot on the left shows the horde shortly before this "rescue" happened. (The screenshot on the right shows the end of test run #2.)
Test run #2: "No glow – no slow"
Strategy: Do not use cure – not at all (!) … just try to survive as long as possible while the horde grows and gets buffed. :-(
The spawn rate seems similar to test run #1, so this should accumulate beings on the screen at a similar rate.
However, there are obviously no glowing green auras apart from the safe zone … EDIT: … and the highlighted border of your current cure target (as seen in the screenshot).
Result: There does not seem to be any slowdown nor any sound distortion.
Without any non-zombie upgrades nor (temporarily) cured people to occupy the horde this is quite difficult. Almost made it to 04:00 …
Conclusion
While this comparison is no irrefutable proof of the hypothesis, it should at least indicate a very promising "point of attack".
Thank you so much for the, in depth, analysis and feedback. It is hugely appreciated!
The performance issues are very much at the top of the priority list and, while we're still hard at work on our other project, this will be something I'll tackle as soon as we return to this game.
There are many, many improvements still to be made when it comes to performance: Object pooling, reduce object count as the horde gets bigger (like the blue glow you mention in your testing), sound optimization when the horde gets bigger, etc.
However, from my testing, the biggest culprit is the current code that handles zombie/cured collision detection. As the game goes on, a number of zombies/cured get stuck around the map or begin "clumping" significantly which causes the unoptimized code to take way too long per frame.
I absolutely cannot wait to return to this project and, after dealing with the performance issues, have some good fun adding a ton of features we currently have on our plan. Meta Progression, unique zombie types, more upgrades, ability upgrades such as a dash or teleport, equipment upgrades that modify how you apply the cure, more maps... It's gonna be a fun time.
Thank you again for your comments, you're an absolute legend! <3
This game really caught me by surprise. Many of the things I was considering to levy as criticism I actually reconsidered to be good design decisions once I understood the game as a whole a bit better. My first run went pretty badly, but probably in the best way because I learned everything I needed. At first I was trying to aim the syringe with my mouse, and ended up wasting them all not realizing they were limited; or how powerful just one of them can be. More often than not on my second run I had more syringes than I needed. I thought the base move speed felt slow in the start, but I think its actually fairly well balanced against the zombies, and the slow pace of repositioning yourself ultimately synergises with the function of the syringes and waiting for the cure to spread while you carefully herd your horde of soon-to-be-living back to a safe zone.
The one main criticism I held from the start is that the audio balancing could definitely use some tuning. Some sounds are jarringly louder than most (like some of the cheers that happen when a rare item drops), and most of the sound effects are a fair bit louder than the baseline volume set by the music and steady ambient noises. The sound design itself, however, I think is very good! I wonder if you did all your own foley, because it was definitely worth it if so. I would consider maybe using a Volume Limiter on some of the sounds to bring their peak volume more in line with the subtler noises, so we don’t miss out on all that detail by lowering the volume as a whole.
I really really enjoyed the twist later into the run where you get to pick a perk/upgrade for the zombies instead of yourself! I think there’s a crazy amount of potential in there to spice up the game and make runs feel unique. You could even choose the “more zombies” perk in an intentional bid to get more XP, if you feel up for it.
Unfortunately, my second run met an early demise, as around the time I had rescued ~400 survivors, the game started to run progressively slower, down to 1 FPS territory. During this I noticed a very large number of zombies and survivors getting stuck in a small spot just above the pond on the right side. Rescuing a number of the survivors did improve the fps momentarily, but sadly the lag grew faster than I could rescue them. Otherwise I would have been happy to try to finish a full run.
Overall I love this take on the genre, and of the games I’ve seen this jam I think this one has some of the most potential. This game belongs on miniclip in my childhood memories :3
This game was an absolute joy to play, you guys really have a knack to make fun things, I can't believe this was made for a game jam! This game is fun, but also strategic since you have to think when you use your syringes very well, the fact that you get power-ups is nice to make the game replayable but the fact that the zombies get upgraded and you also get to choose your own poison makes it even better!
Thanks so much for playing and for the kind words! Your videos are always a treat. ❤️ Building this over the course of 2 weeks was an absolute blast and we're so happy to see you enjoy it.
The list of additions and balancing we want to do is very extensive but unfortunately we ran out of time. We're very excited to keep working on this along with our other project.
such a well made game, sunk a bunch of time into this one. very satisfying to cure a large crowd of zombies, and the upgrade system is really nice. super good stuff!
super fun, had a bit of a hard time my first 2 runs because i could not find any more syringes at all, but on my 3rd run i kept finding them and got pretty far. Thats RNG for you!
love the art, you guys did a super awesome job on this!
Had a great time playing this game! Took a few failed starts to get a good feel, but you have me hooked! Will be playing this more, I think we have a winner here <3
Looks really nice, and I'm a sucker for upgrade selection. Just wish I was a bit faster by default. Also, seems like you get a bit faster while lagging (which I did often).
Amazing concept. If I have to give one feedback, I wish there were more syringes (either on the map or gifted when getting a certain number of humans rescued). Otherwise, really fun game.
I just want to say thank you to everyone who plays our game! I had a wonderful time drawing all the assets and hanging out in our stream :D Lots of Love to all! - Selene
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Nice game! The gameplay is quite engaging while not being overly complicated.
Also thanks a lot for including a downloadable version that works for Linux!
And bonus thanks for succinct output of noteworthy events in the terminal.
After playing – with serious performance issues – I had an idea of what might cause the slowdown. The test runs seem to confirm my suspicion.
Maybe this helps you make the game even more enjoyable.
(See future comment below.)
(Long) Run with Browser Version
The first few runs were utter failures, but after getting accustomed to the – not overly complicated – game mechanics I had much more fun.
First I tried the browser version, but after a few minutes the game slowed down more and more. (Other comments already mention this.) And the sound became somewhat distorted.
The misconception that there are only a total of 1001 beings in this world (zombies/cured + 1 Ferret; not all inside the fence at once) kept me going past 500 rescued people since this should result in less performance issues, right?
Wrong. The horde kept growing … and the framerate decreasing.
This had one positive aspect: I had a bit more time to react to respawning masses of zombies and not get cornered – time dilation ;-)
After reaching the "Story End" the framerate was so low that I did not notice much of a difference going further. At 2000+ rescued people I quit.
(Even Longer) Run with Downloadable Version (Linux)
Then I tried the downloadable version in the hope of it having less performance issues.
The slowdown started later and was less severe but still quite noticeable.
It was more fun and I got much farther before making more and more mistakes and finally quitting at 5000+.
At the end some of the higher upgrades I had in the browser run were still missing, but with a lot more total upgrades the build was obviously really powerful none the less.
Notes
Weird observations regarding upgrades (these could be bugs)
Final unlocked "Actions & Consequences"
Apart from the upgrades/items the terminal output also contained this:
And some Warnings of Godot Engine:
WARNING: Target object freed before starting, aborting Tweener. at: start (scene/animation/tween.cpp:548)WARNING: ObjectDB instances leaked at exit (run with --verbose for details). at: cleanup (core/object/object.cpp:2208)Slowdown hypothesis:
The growing mass of glowing green auras is the main problem.
The green aura of zombies is a visually agreeable indicator of an active cure effect.
However, hundreds of (stacked) glowing effects at the same time can't be good for the game's performance.
Can you use some better way of handling this visual indicator for hordes?
Maybe a suitably composed glow effect for the entire group instead of individual effects? (You can not really target individuals in the center of a horde … so a less specific indicator should suffice here.)
For isolated zombies and small groups it should not be that much of a problem and those also benefit more from having an individual indicator.
Test run #1: "Lots of glow – lots of slow"
After about 07:00 I led the horde to the shelter. This resulted in hundreds of cured people disappearing (and lots of level ups) in a really short time, but this did not improve the performance much.
The screenshot on the left shows the horde shortly before this "rescue" happened.
(The screenshot on the right shows the end of test run #2.)
Test run #2: "No glow – no slow"
Without any non-zombie upgrades nor (temporarily) cured people to occupy the horde this is quite difficult. Almost made it to 04:00 …
Conclusion
While this comparison is no irrefutable proof of the hypothesis, it should at least indicate a very promising "point of attack".
Thank you so much for the, in depth, analysis and feedback. It is hugely appreciated!
The performance issues are very much at the top of the priority list and, while we're still hard at work on our other project, this will be something I'll tackle as soon as we return to this game.
There are many, many improvements still to be made when it comes to performance: Object pooling, reduce object count as the horde gets bigger (like the blue glow you mention in your testing), sound optimization when the horde gets bigger, etc.
However, from my testing, the biggest culprit is the current code that handles zombie/cured collision detection. As the game goes on, a number of zombies/cured get stuck around the map or begin "clumping" significantly which causes the unoptimized code to take way too long per frame.
I absolutely cannot wait to return to this project and, after dealing with the performance issues, have some good fun adding a ton of features we currently have on our plan. Meta Progression, unique zombie types, more upgrades, ability upgrades such as a dash or teleport, equipment upgrades that modify how you apply the cure, more maps... It's gonna be a fun time.
Thank you again for your comments, you're an absolute legend! <3
This game really caught me by surprise. Many of the things I was considering to levy as criticism I actually reconsidered to be good design decisions once I understood the game as a whole a bit better. My first run went pretty badly, but probably in the best way because I learned everything I needed. At first I was trying to aim the syringe with my mouse, and ended up wasting them all not realizing they were limited; or how powerful just one of them can be. More often than not on my second run I had more syringes than I needed. I thought the base move speed felt slow in the start, but I think its actually fairly well balanced against the zombies, and the slow pace of repositioning yourself ultimately synergises with the function of the syringes and waiting for the cure to spread while you carefully herd your horde of soon-to-be-living back to a safe zone.
The one main criticism I held from the start is that the audio balancing could definitely use some tuning. Some sounds are jarringly louder than most (like some of the cheers that happen when a rare item drops), and most of the sound effects are a fair bit louder than the baseline volume set by the music and steady ambient noises. The sound design itself, however, I think is very good! I wonder if you did all your own foley, because it was definitely worth it if so. I would consider maybe using a Volume Limiter on some of the sounds to bring their peak volume more in line with the subtler noises, so we don’t miss out on all that detail by lowering the volume as a whole.
I really really enjoyed the twist later into the run where you get to pick a perk/upgrade for the zombies instead of yourself! I think there’s a crazy amount of potential in there to spice up the game and make runs feel unique. You could even choose the “more zombies” perk in an intentional bid to get more XP, if you feel up for it.
Unfortunately, my second run met an early demise, as around the time I had rescued ~400 survivors, the game started to run progressively slower, down to 1 FPS territory. During this I noticed a very large number of zombies and survivors getting stuck in a small spot just above the pond on the right side. Rescuing a number of the survivors did improve the fps momentarily, but sadly the lag grew faster than I could rescue them. Otherwise I would have been happy to try to finish a full run.
Overall I love this take on the genre, and of the games I’ve seen this jam I think this one has some of the most potential. This game belongs on miniclip in my childhood memories :3
Thanks so much for this gift of a comment and all the excellent feedback. <3
So happy you had a fun time and can't wait to find solutions to all of your pain points. You are the best!
Another certified banger, keep up the good work!
Thanks so much for playing and for the kind words! Your videos are always a treat. ❤️ Building this over the course of 2 weeks was an absolute blast and we're so happy to see you enjoy it.
The list of additions and balancing we want to do is very extensive but unfortunately we ran out of time. We're very excited to keep working on this along with our other project.
Thank you again for the fantastic feedback!
This game is super cool and well done. Keep up the good work. :)
I love it, it's super polished, it has interesting spin on the genre, art looks great, bonus perks fit well, i've got nothing bad to say, well done!
Thank you so much for giving it a try and for the kind words! ❤️ Glad you enjoyed it.
such a well made game, sunk a bunch of time into this one. very satisfying to cure a large crowd of zombies, and the upgrade system is really nice. super good stuff!
Thank you!! We cant wait to add more juicy upgrades!
super fun, had a bit of a hard time my first 2 runs because i could not find any more syringes at all, but on my 3rd run i kept finding them and got pretty far. Thats RNG for you!
love the art, you guys did a super awesome job on this!
Thank you so much! ❤️ RNG is of course a big part of the genre but we have plans to make it impossible for it to completely ruin your run.
Basically I had a run with 0 rare upgrades and I have the power to change that, so I am. 😂
Had a great time playing this game! Took a few failed starts to get a good feel, but you have me hooked! Will be playing this more, I think we have a winner here <3
You're too kind <3 Thank you so much for taking the time to leave us this gift of a comment. So glad to know you had a good time!
Looks really nice, and I'm a sucker for upgrade selection. Just wish I was a bit faster by default. Also, seems like you get a bit faster while lagging (which I did often).
Awesome work. :)
Thank you for giving it a go and for the feedback! ❤ Definitely needs some more performance optimizations, will get to those as soon as we can.
nice arcade
Amazing concept. If I have to give one feedback, I wish there were more syringes (either on the map or gifted when getting a certain number of humans rescued). Otherwise, really fun game.
Thank you so much for the kind words! ❤
Hear you on the syringes. We had some plans to make that less of a pain but didn't quite get to it in time for the Game Jam. Will revisit it for sure!
I just want to say thank you to everyone who plays our game!
I had a wonderful time drawing all the assets and hanging out in our stream :D
Lots of Love to all!
- Selene