April 26th-29th 2013 :: Theme: Minimalism
Ludum Dare 26 — April 26-29th, 2013
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Take The Red Orb is an a minimalist action game that started off as a minimalist hidden object / point at the object type game. Original idea was to have a single red orb (or object at that time) in a sea of similarly-coloured objects. It's changed a little since then (more than one red orb, more of a focus on control and skill than on finding objects).
It's pretty simple: click on the red orbs to collect them, move the mouse to control the camera.
If you collect orbs quickly enough, you start accumulating score. At this point you need to continue to collect orbs at a consistent pace to not lose your score. All of this is pretty obviously manifest through the changing art and audio in the game.
Though at first it feels like you should be going for orbs as soon as you see them, to achieve higher score (by not making a mistake for longer) you'll want to hold on to some orbs while you plan a route (don't hold on to them for too long else they'll go away again).
This was bundles of fun to make -- about 4 hours design & basic controls yesterday, 2-3 hours of music making early this morning and then a solid 10-11 hours this afternoon & evening getting it all working right and integrated. I hope you enjoy playing it as much as I did making (and playing) it ;)
* Note: the Linux version uses the Unity 4 Linux publishing preview -- I've tested it okay on Ubuntu but understand there may be issues on other distros.
Downloads and Links
Ratings
 | Coolness | 100% |
| #249 | Graphics | 3.55 |
| #340 | Audio | 3.06 |
| #363 | Mood | 3.13 |
| #553 | Overall | 3.17 |
| #640 | Innovation | 3.02 |
| #646 | Theme | 3.45 |
| #835 | Fun | 2.68 |
| #980 | Humor | 1.64 |
Comments
This is really effective. Love the visuals. It's a really compelling mechanic.
The game is fun and it's more difficult with my macbook touch pad.
Neat concept and looks quite nice. Sadly I am red/green colourblind...and cannot play this game with any level of skill.
Reall physchedelic the camera xD. Its nice, but it needs some kind of effect when you click on the red spheres and some fx.
Awesome controls, graphics and sound. simply, yet hard master. i love it!
almost claustrophobic ! love the looks of this one; simple gameplay, but fun
Simple but beauty. How to score is not realy obvious, but it add a little depth to it. I like the graphics.
Lags as hell for me: ~2 FPS (Linux Mint 12 32bit, 4GB Ram, 2x2 Ghz, Intel graphics chip)
This I like. Seeing a lot of use of primitive shapes in unity being called minimalism but not achieving much. This however, just uses primitives and lighting to really create a cool environment.
My one and only suggestion would be to give all the spheres a pulsing animation, either translation, scale, or maybe both. Make the whole environment more dynamic.
Anyway, great use of theme, great mood created, well done.
It is a thing of beauty! The gameplay is a bit simple for my tastes but the crazy amount of polish more than makes up for it.
Great alien feel, quite creepy, love the music, game needs a bit more interest but I guess that would break the minimalism feel - maybe do something more with it now compo finished ? Would make a groovy screensaver for a wall sized whiteboard !
Lots of polish, minimal gameplay. Unfortunately that combination is completely counter to my own priorities, but very very well executed.
Nice way of playing with the FOV! I find it a bit harsh that the score resets on the first misclick (max 35 for me... getting old). But still, nice atmosphere and nice game!
Superb entry, it's beautiful and it fits very well the theme. Too bad there is no progression in the gameplay through time. The atmosphere is incredible. Bravo :)
This was the best use of Unity I've seen so far in the competition. I have to say it would be a blessing if there was a clear indication of why you lose all your score (I've gotten up to 53 and then back to 0) as I read the instructions and did not seen anything in the HUD that shows how much time I have left between clicks and did not get a visual or acoustic cue that I lost my score because I clicked the wrong thing. Hope this helps (I did not detract points for this issue).
Really simple and well executed idea. It's intuitive but I would enjoy more audio and/or visual feedback when the chain is broken or when a new highscore is achieved...
the lights were well set, as sometimes it can make some misdirection about where's the red orb. Well done!
Once I figured out how to get points it was pretty fun. Music was great, and graphics... come one, you already KNOW that the style is awesome! ;)
Wow very addictive game! Don't like that there is too little time to catch second red orb when you started combo, but anyway it's cool work :)
The lights often made it impossible to see the colours properly.
Some feedback on hit/miss would have been useful.
Neat little game though.
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Psychedelic stuff man.