August 24th-27th 2012 :: Theme: Evolution
Devolve today with Cellvolution!
A simple but engaging action/strategy game where you must navigate your cell to avoid and consume other devolved cells. As you progress through the infinite amount of levels evolution gets progressively harder as the cells grow in size. Only forward thinking and luck will get you through to the next level of evolution.
The premise is straight forward, your cell randomly changes color and this color tells you the other cells you can pair with or need to avoid. You have limited health and time but must consume a growing number of matching cells to level up. Don't worry, you will have power ups like speed boost, or health refills to help you in your evolution. Be careful, one power up provides you the ability to evolve quickly but with it comes greater difficulty, you will see.
CONTROLS:
The controls are simple, "WASD" or Left-Right-Up-Down will allow you to navigate between crowded cell filled areas or avoid unfriendly cells coming after you. Collect power ups and matching cells but avoid the other colored cells. The mouse is not used.
WHERE TO PLAY:
http://bobthegoblin.com:8081/LD48/index.html
TIMELAPSE:
http://youtu.be/2Dro3DkLgNQ
I used a tool called gawker and it really made small screens that skewed on YouTube. That was the best I could do :(
GAMEPLAY VIDEO:
http://youtu.be/t31ARPDDzEU
TECHNICAL DETAILS:
Made using Cocos2d-x HTML5 Alpha and the code is 100% Javascript with no other frameworks.
http://www.cocos2d-x.org/projects/cocos2d-x/wiki/Html5
This is a browser game so there is no install but you need a newwer brower with HTML5 support.
Downloads and Links
Ratings
 | Coolness | 100% |
| #285 | Audio | 2.66 |
| #313 | Mood | 2.74 |
| #371 | Theme | 2.91 |
| #399 | Overall | 2.93 |
| #412 | Fun | 2.71 |
| #437 | Graphics | 2.72 |
| #502 | Humor | 1.74 |
| #536 | Innovation | 2.47 |
Comments
hum, works on 14 for me?
I found was the keyboard dispatcher threw exceptions periodically and required a full reload of the page in FF.
if you see the game but no reaction to the keys then ctrl+R on MAC. :(
Really enjoy playing this game. How refreshingly simple, yet entertaining and strangely addictive! Very obvious this developer created the game from scratch (especially if you watch the video). Relates very well to the theme.
I saw your post, and I didn't believe it until I got to around level 4. This is a neat game, the only issue I had was with the circles covering up my health. But I just ate them, and it was fine. I can see how this game could get addicting!
Also, getting the health restoring powerup sound is a little odd...
I like it. The gameplay is easy to pick up and understand. Although there should be more feedback for the player when the character is close to evolving. Still, a nice effort.
I tried Chromium and Firefox: Wouldn't load for me, sorry :(
[~]$ chromium-browser --version
Chromium 18.0.1025.151 Ubuntu 11.04
[~]$ firefox --version
Mozilla Firefox 11.0
[~]$ cat /etc/issue
Ubuntu 11.04 \n \l
Simple and easy to understand what to do, and I liked the background music/sounds.
Played that on Chrome. But i didn't notice grat difference between evolutions.. In fact, my cell is totally the same!
Working fine for me in Chrome! Love the ambient background loop, it really adds to the atmosphere.
Nice moody music (how did you make it?)
Good gameplay, just wish the baseline speed were a little faster.
I like that the objects fly at you all the time - makes it difficult.
At some point I had to adapt my strategy - when you know color will change soon, you can stop chasing your current color and focus on either of the upcoming: anyway a nice feeling that it's not too simple.
@infernet89 Yea you have to level up to evolve (everything grows = less space to play). As your score increases so does your size.
I had bigger plans, in that other levels would be more advanced creatures and projectiles but ran out of time.
Nice simple game. It was very intuitive to pick up, but it felt a little slow after a little playing.
I like the simple rules, could be a lot of fun with a bit better controls :) Sometimes few cells spawn on an edge of screen and you can't get to them..
Not the most friendly for colour blind people, but that's hardly your fault. ;)
The background music is amazing, and the gameplay is fun too.
@the.vaber
I know that some cells spawn out of reach, it was on the bug list but I pushed it low down and couldn't get to it after time ran down. I think it's something that is tolerable.
@Charlie Hadden
What, I have colours in it :)
Thanks for the comments guys. I will use all the helpful feedback since I would like to continue "Evolving" this game.
@kirill
So for the noise, I created it in Audacity with low pass filter, low tempo and reverb effects. It turned out creepy
Relates really well to the theme, and though it gets a bit repetitive and sometimes the text is hard to read, it isn't bad at all! Good job, innovative concept.
Good mood, cool sprites. The game's a bit simple and repetitive, so I hope you can improve on that. Also try to not use red and green colors in the same tone, some people can't tell them apart. Good job!!
got to level 6, 380. Kinda wish the guy moved faster, and as for progression I'll just say that it feels like it gets harder without getting much more fun. It'd be nice to have a little bit of reward for getting farther I guess
@nuria
Yah, I'd like to keep on this game some more.
@Maxium
Sucks but not much I can do since I host it on an old computer at home using mediocre internet speeds.
Nice simple mechanic! Changing your color was interesting in that everything that you'd been avoiding suddenly became this stockpile of goodness.
Cool simple mechanic! The gameplay gets a bit boring and slow, and I fell like you could do more with it. Somewhat addictive and a good game.
Easy to learn and fun to play. You really can't ask for more than that.
Very easy to play and no explanation needed, nice smooth graphics, decent sound.
Your graphics are sweet! The game itself is very straightforward, but I enjoyed the spawning mechanics - except that the cells had a tendency to spawn directly on top of me, in front of me, behind other cells, and similarly be annoying.
Nice and simple, but still quite challenging on the later levels. The movement felt a tiny bit slow but aside from that, I really enjoyed it. The music combined with the background and what not made for a really eerie atmosphere which I thoroughly enjoyed.
Like the concept and was fun to play especially when it got harder after the first couple of levels.
level 7, 302 score. Didn't really understand what the power ups did, and it is kinda repetitive, but I liked it.
Very nice game! Funny sound effects and after level 4 the game became pretty challenging for me! xD
@Datw
Ok the power ups are as follows:
- Wrench, restores your health back to 10
- Lightning, doubles your speed for ~9 seconds
- $, is kinda strange...it gives you more points but in return more points mean you evolve quicker. IE, everything grows in size.
Has a nice look, good clean graphics. I like the concept but I'll have had more fun with it if you develop the controls a bit to make it more fun moving around :)
@eyehawk
I'm thinking maybe you have a non-HTML5 browser. I tested this in older browsers and this will be all you see.
I felt the difficulty didn't scale quickly enough, but that wasn't enough to keep me from enjoying it. :)
Thanks to everyone for all the really good feedback.
I originally planned this to be more of a shmup but as I developed it it took a life of its own. I'm now thinking this will port well to a tablet since the controls really seem to suit a touch screen device.
Yes this game is not the run and gun of many games, more of a calm zen feel. I am happy with the outcome none the less.
I'm colour-blind so it was a pretty frustrating game experience :p
No idea how I would improve this as a game and in that sense I should give it a high score, at least it was close to a perfect in what it tried to be. The problem for me was really that it was too simple for me as I'm not a casual gamer. But you just can't please everybody, I think what really matters is that you managed to please yourself with your creation. If you did that, then it was really worth it.
Nice fun and easy to understand game. Now if only the wrong colored cells hadn't kept spawning right in front of me in the later levels ;)
The game started chugging around level5. Some times the color change did not give me the color I needed and I had to take hits to escape a bad situation.
So this is a "neuron" that grows when you collect cash? :-) Hilarious.
The game is a bit to easy/predictable though.
Nice work anyway!
@hamster_mk_4
yup, that is a necessary strategy sometimes. I have no double hitting so if you eat the wrong color you blink for a couple seconds allowing you to clear out more blocking colors without taking damage again.
Also you have to think ahead for example, if you hang out in a corner too long all the bad cells are drawn to you and can pen you in.
I didn't know there were the HTML5 version of Cocos :D, great discover! The game is OK, the only I can comment is about the unreachable cells when they spawn on the top margin, but good job! :)
Smart game mechanic but I couldn't play it because I'm color blind :(
nice! Something cells spawns near the border are not accessible but nice and addictive game! :)
I like the simple game logics and the concept itself...remind me of classic games like puzzle fighter :)
keep developing it!
I like the concept. I think the player could use a bit of momentum so that you don't stop on a dime.
Nice combination of sound and visuals, a bit of a dark tone I like.
Don't really know how you evolve as you go along since I didn't during the first few levels, but even so a good demonstration of a core mechanic :)
Good concept, wish it would have played a little faster though -- kinda felt slow all the time without the little lighting upgrade.
Overall, great job!
@lbrande @hamster_mk_4
hummm, anything is possible.
@Rex @pbdiode and the rest...
Thanks a lot all you guys for just giving it a play.
@sP0CkEr2
Thanks. Had a play of yours and like it a lot.
Going to now take time to give everyone a review back since you took the time to review me. Much appreciated!
a little slow paced and easy, simple concept but executed well. could have definitely used some variety as once you play one level it's essentially the same thing repeating over and over.
simple and addictive concept, i think a bit more events, like interactions between the cells would add some fun D:
Nice job
nice game. simple and inuitive with nice graphics.
like the timelapse too
Intuitive game. I'd make the time/health/left separate colours to the cells - at first I assumed there was a connection. The player's animation looks great but could use a few more frames.
I like this concept, and you need to add to it some diversity. Nice!
I got through to level 6. It'd be nice to see some variation in gameplay other than the cells getting a bit larger :)
There were also some problems occasionally with cells appearing on top of one another, which injured me when I couldn't see the danger.
Works for me in Chrome. I like the gameplay, it´s very simple and works well. Good job..
Simple to get started and clear the first few levels. Quickly gets tricky and fast paced. Enjoyed it!
Fun but I thought it could have used a bit more depth to it and perhaps a bit of a speed increase. I also felt that luck played into it too much. Only bug I found was that some powerups spawned right on the edge of the level and I couldn't pick them up. Still, this was fun and a bit addictive. I got to level 8 before I died.
Graphics are nicely done and fit the theme well.
It gets insanely hard on the higher levels ;)
Had fun with it. Could have used some sound thought.
Simple but entertaining. I reached level 7 and it was challenging but i don't really see the evolution in this.
Mayne a work on appearence should be enough.
Had a dark moody tone to it. It felt interesting. Would like to see the mutation circumstances expanded beyond changing color.
Nice idea and fun too. Really liked the graphic style you used.
Very simple concept that fits the theme well. I like your graphics and sound too. Nicely polished too. It got boring pretty fast though, maybe add some more interesting and frequent powerups or evolutions.
Nice job, would like to see some new elements added each level, such as more colors, etc.
Great idea but the graphics could've been better and the sound was a little loud.
Tired, with sound on --> kinda' addicting, but can get better.
In a rush, with sound off --> boring.
What I like in this game is the feedback the user gets on what he is doing, which can be hard to find in some html5 games I saw in the compo.
It is also weird how some of the most addicting games have an element that the player can not control, an element of "just bear with it" as well as an element of "you must do it right now." Your game has potential, but you should make it somehow more interesting, add more variety, and something to keep the player thinking that what he is doing is bringing him somewhere. Make evolution give the player new capabilities, like sucking up the cells, or maybe zapping them in a line. Maybe giving a power-up that makes the player capable of eating all kinds of cells for a short amount of time.
@Zelen3d
Thanks for the ideas on the power-ups, I think a couple would be really cool.
I spent this weekend porting the game to C++ and was successful running it natively on my iPad tonight. I now want to start thinking of some enhancements to the game, for one the idea of devouring other cells for a short time is appealing. Thanks for that!
As for hosting, yes it is sitting on an old computer in my basement that is connected to the internet. I have some space on my MS Azure node and it would be a lot better off there but I hadn't time by the end of the competition. Anyway this is where I first deployed it and really had no other option at the time... I guess I'll just leave it there.
Nice simple game rules, the warning that you are about to change colour is good, same goes for the invulnerability time after you are hurt, and the upgrades are nice.
Interesting game. It was a little too simple to hold interest, although the unpredictable color changes made it fun. I'd have liked a little more permanence in the speed upgrades - that might have been cool. Fun and colorful, to be sure. Nice work.
Gaah starting from level 5 it gets really hard and frustrating.
Because these things are so huge and they spawn on top of each other and you can't see them properly and die....
Still was a fun game. Would have liked the extra traits to spawn more often though. Especially the speedups ... or maybe when evolving become a bit faster, as it was really slow later on.
Nice game, good work. Liked it a lot.
would have liked to see more variation between evolutions. also it was unclear on how big your hit box was. otherwise very good game.
The gameplay was solid, however the points system wasn't really compelling to me. Something that would have been more interesting to me would have been some sort of diverging evolution. For example, if you picked up mostly red's at the end of the level it would increase your speed, red's could increase your max health and blue's could increase the power up drop rate. Then you could implement more interesting powerups like a magnets, shields, etc.
Neat little game. I love that you used cocos2d-x HTML5. I've used Cocos2d before (and loved it), but didn't know there was a HTML5 version. I'll definitely be checking that out.
Good sense of theme and well rounded game.
enjoyable little game. is there any benefit in picking up the "$" markers? - it only seems to make it tougher
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Odd. It's not loading or playing for me in Firefox.