August 24th-27th 2012 :: Theme: Evolution
Tad's Adventure
TAD (Timely Adaptive Design) must navigate a harsh and unyielding environment. As he progresses he will need evolve into a stronger creature by learning new abilities, while at the same time forgetting those that help the least.
The game is a basic shooter, with a twist. All abilities (save for basic movement) must be selected from a random list of choices. You may go completely defensive and avoid enemies rather than confront them, or take the offensive and try move to the top of each food chain. Each level you will choose two new abilities, but you must first lose one you already had. Choose carefully as each has their own benefits and weaknesses.
Controls:
Keyboard:
Arrow keys - Control movement
F - Swim (if you are not buoyant)
D - Use your normal attack if you have one
S - Use a special attack (if you have one and the special gauge is full)
Space - Start and pause game
Gamepad:
Digital directional pad - Control movement
(A) - Swim
(X) - Normal attack
(S) - Special attack
Start - Start and pause game
Written in C# using XNA 4.0. If you haven't run an XNA application before, you will need to install the XNA redistributable, available from Microsoft at http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=20914. Note that you will not need to install the game itself on your machine, just unzip the archive and run the game executable.
Downloads and Links
Ratings
 | Coolness | 82% |
| #46 | Overall | 3.74 |
| #49 | Theme | 3.89 |
| #75 | Graphics | 3.90 |
| #101 | Fun | 3.43 |
| #120 | Audio | 3.22 |
| #160 | Mood | 3.08 |
| #247 | Innovation | 3.15 |
| #377 | Humor | 2.06 |
Comments
I would love to play this, but I use Linux and it doesn't work under wine without mono
I took a tomorrow off, to recover, so I will see what I can do. I haven't used Linux in a while, and have done very little development in that area so I can't make any promises. I'll keep that in mind for the next competition.
Really fun! I suck at it, though, lol. Asking the player to choose skills to drop makes for interesting gameplay. Great job!
Why did I give up buoyancy in the second round! That ability makes the game much easier, especially paired with fast movement. Buoyancy is the best of the ability in my opinion. I wish you could re-choose the abilities to lose and gain, like at the start of a level, when you die so that you can "evolve" to meet the needs of the level. Instead I found my self guessing what would be handy/cool. Although I bet the levels are doable with out any of the traits any way.
This was a fun game and the music was pretty good too.
I loved the system with getting two skills and losing one, that was really interesting and a great adaptation of the theme! Fun game too, took me a few tries but I managed to beat it! Excellent artwork for everything!
Your screenshots look amazing! I really wish there were a Mac version of this.
Really liked this game. Very well executed and solid gameplay. Quite challenging though!
I downloaded the XNA redist file, but it also requires before that is installed to have "at least Microsoft .NET Framework 4 Client Profile".
Good done with the features and graphics, you have to improve sounds and music in my opinion...
The movement should be smoother :)
I really love the retro feel of this game. Very fun and challenging levels.
Great overall ! I really like your game ! Some of my habilities seems to vanish beetwen round while some other are staying... Since you have icons for each habilities you should make them appear ingame on the interface.
Ben, after each level the game asks you to lose an existing ability before letting you choose new ones. When my brother was testing late into development he suggested that I make it more obvious that you were choosing an ability to lose. The dialogs look nearly the same, and at that point it was too late to do anything about it before the submission deadline.
Very Nice. I love the graphics and the game design is also great as well.
There was nothing I didn't like about this game, really.
Great job!
Fantastic, a great use of the theme. I too loved the graphics, nothing like nostalgia.
Great game! Looks good, sounds good, and the abilities are fun to play with.
Sequel? :P
@BMacIntosh Haha, not sure yet. Probably will clean the game up and expand it a bit more.
I liked it! I really sucked at it :( I wish my xbox controller was here so I could play using it, I think I'd suck a lot less :)
great art, sound, mood and gameplay, I really liked it.
Nice job!
It reminds me of 16-bit games, congratulations for that :)
Sorry, I really wasn't able to get into this. This controls are awfully clumsy, ESPECIALLY without buoyancy. The relative pacing is awfully slow, and in a flash you're reduced to nothing, and the whole thing starts over again. The regular attack never worked, and I always died too fast even at the first moments to even get a chance to see if you developed anything interesting with your take on evolution. Meeeeeh ;/
- BlueSweatshirt
The best game from the compo I've played so far. Well done! The only thing I found strange is that you do not have a forward-shooting cannon by default. I only obtained it at the beginning of stage 3!
Love the retro feel to this game. The music, sounds and graphics are spot on. I'm not very good at it, which is a shame, as I'd like to see those other levels from the screenshots. :)
@braingale; There's definitely some balancing issues that need to be dealt with on the "normal" attack, and while the game is solvable without buoyancy (especially if you take spikes or shocker instead), I think I need to reduce the effect of gravity so that you don't have to mash the jump button as much.
I also liked the idea of choosing your skills as an interpretation of the theme. The game is really hard but also very enjoyable. Well done.
Not the killer seaweed! I'm having TMNT flashbacks! Difficult game, but very fun to play.
@Sestren, hehe, I had to throw that one in. I'm a big NES nut.
I couldn't seem to hit anything with the regular attack, so if I wasn't lucky enough to get an offensive ability at the start of the level I was reduced to just dodging for the whole level (I never did make it past level 1, unfortunately). That said, it seems like a pretty solid game - and I do like side-scrolling shooters.
@dalbinblue I just came back here and saw your answer about the hability loss. New skill award is the best time of the game and you really dont want to read text, just chooses skills :) Maybe red window background would help the player notice it.
You can't change entry but maybe explain it sooner in your note. I think it's your core gameplay the most important thing the player have to know before playing : -1 +2 habilities each level
Omigosh when I was ~9 I thought of a game I called Tad's Adventure
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Linux port, please?