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Zero Waves Remain's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Gameplay | #20 | 3.750 | 3.750 |
| Overall | #44 | 3.650 | 3.650 |
| Audio | #72 | 3.375 | 3.375 |
| Theme interpretation | #158 | 3.150 | 3.150 |
| Graphics | #180 | 3.125 | 3.125 |
| Innovation | #212 | 2.750 | 2.750 |
Ranked from 40 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
GitHub repository URL
https://github.com/JustMegaAlex/ZeroWavesRemains
Game description
Twinstick shooter set in space. Choose your tools carefully to deal with waves of enemies
Theme interpretation
The gameplay is build around arriving waves of enemies. The game's title basically means the win state
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Comments
Super fun gameplay! The weapons are really run to use, sniping drones out of the air from a far was really satisfying. Switching weapons quickly to deal with different threats was also really fun. The gameplay is also really smooth and didn’t feel too floaty while moving around.
Opening the shop during the round to quickly buy ammo and health felt a little cheesy, maybe only allow it at the end of rounds. Also a countdown timer to the next wave would be better than letting the player start it I think. A boost bar would be helpful with maybe limited boost.
This was the first game of the jam that I played that I felt like it was too short! More guns, enemies, bosses, and an endless mode please!
Thank you, your feedback is music to ears! ❤️
Well, that's a hardcore player we have here "Give 'em more limitations!" 😃
But seriously, thanks for noticing all those things, I'm writing down everything.
I like the idea of adding countdown timer. One question though, about removing the next wave button. Won't it be a bit tedious if you're forced to wait for the countdown if you dismantle a wave early?
One way is to take a look at how tower defense games do it. Most have the next wave start after a few seconds or the option to start early. The pressure to get all the resources and get to the shop seems like it could be fun to me. Play testing is king though obviously.
Another option is to do something like brotato by auto collecting all the resources and open the shop automatically to buy stuff if you don’t want the time constraint.
Thanks for this references. And yeah, testing will show the truth.
Also the game works like tower defense scheme you referenced. Though right now it fails t explicitly show that, if you fail to clear the wave in time the next wave will come by cooldown. "Press to start next wave" text shows only if you got them all in time
I love that you can see where are they coming from, really cool!!
Thanks!
Victory!. Really well done. Clean and simple gameplay. Some visual improvements to the player and enemy ships would help but overall a solid game.
Yay! Congrats!
Thank you, I'm delighted you liked it.
Yeaaah, visuals are not my strongest skill. I will focus on overall appeal of the game in the next development phase, which starts in 3 weeks.
I'm actively working on the next build. It will be quite big: new enemies, reworked ai, reworked items and difficulty settings. I haven't beaten the hard mode yet myself 😅 If you enjoy the challenge, stay tuned for the updates!
This is a pretty polished game! You've got good game feel, great UI, and a fantastic in game tutorial. I loved reading that you focused on juice and game feel this jam, and you can really feel that in the game! You've got great visual and audio feedback! The one I would suggest adding still is having units flash white or something similar when being damaged. You've got good feedback in the UI for when the player gets damaged, but not for the enemies. Adding a flash would sell the damage effect a lot more.
Awesome job!
Thanks for the kind words! This is the warmest feedback I've received so far 🥹 Happy to hear that you liked it!
And thanks for the tip! I actually had the idea of damage flashing too. But I had this bias that it will look arcade-ish. So I kind of just left in on the back of my mind. Until you played it 😄
I'll try to experiment with flashing and will add it to the next build. I'm preparing a big update right now, so if you're into shooters stay tuned!
i wasn't sure about the controls at first, felt a little unconventional, but that might be a good thing. i got used to it in the end. love all the upgrades!
nice work!
Thanks!
Hey, finally got to play your game. The controls were a bit unusual in a good way; the boost in addition to the absolute directional movement seem to give more flexibility in controlling the ship but also added a bit to the challenge.
I also appreciated the very clear and to-the-point tutorial that did a great job in easing me into the game and taught me the controls. Two _minor_ oddities were 1) the tutorial wanting me to press P to actually pause the game :)) But you also made the best of the pause screen by putting a list of controls there too. And 2), the fact that I collect the drops from the enemies but then have to go back to the shop to purchase them. But again, these are very minor things that didn't really detract from the game.
It's clear that you had a pragmatic mindset and a clear vision for this game which results in a wholesome experience for the player in general.
Overall, a very solid game with outstanding music & SFX.
Whoa, thanks! Great feedback ❤️
I've added pausing very early in development and by the end of the jam I realised that no player have used it. Because nobody knew it existed. So yeah, it's a bit odd, but now you 100% know about it 😁
As for the shop I felt this oddity myself too. Anyways the system works and my time is limited so it is what it is now.
Since you're the only person who noticed it do you have any idea on how to improve the items system? Maybe add something like vampire survivors upgrade system?
You're welcome :)
For the item system, I can think of two options:
The first one gives the player more direct control and choice on how to spend their money and the second one adds an immediate reward and progression mechanism and randomness.
Love them both. The first one also opens a gap for meta progression (unlock more shop items)
But the second one promises more randomness and I have another mechanic in my mind which nicely combines here
Thanks again!
Btw have you beaten the game?
very satisfying to play, love the little particle effects! overall this is super polished visually, nice work
Thanks!
Really fun game, but I also got the same bug as the other guy. The wave sometimes triggers by itself, at first I thought I just accidentally clicked it. But it often reoccurs.
Thanks! This is a valuable feedback as I can see my design mistake 🤦
Waves are actually supposed to "trigger themselves". If you look at enemies outside the circle you can see that they're slowly moving towards the circle. When they reach the bound the next wave starts.
I definitely should've communicated this more explicitly
Woah, this has so far been my favourite game of the bunch I've reviewed!
Really solid game play. Also love the fact that you have a whole tutorial explaining the mechanics and shop system. There's a lot of polish and care in the game and it really shows.
I think I've encountered a bug. Occasionally, the next round would trigger by itself. I tried to collect the money or do some shopping and it'd just jump right into the next wave. I had this happen a few times during both my runs.
I managed to beat the game on my second attempt, I think I got lucky with my drops and bought healing quite early on. I used pulse almost exclusively and a few times the sniper when I had to wait for the pulse to reload. It would've been nice if the pulse would automatically refill between rounds so that the player isn't incentivised to wait between rounds just to reload the weapon.
All in all, I really enjoyed the game and you've done a great job with it!
Wow, thanks for your warm feedback! Happy to hear you like it 8>
😮💨 Phew. Did it finally. Great work! It’s been amazing to see this entry come from it’s early inception into the polished gem it is today.
Great work!
Thanks for your kind words! Happy you liked it 8>
Great game! solid game play and sound effects. The only real challenge I had was that several enemies would get stuck outside the play zone and super slowly, like 1 pixel per second speed, move till they made it into the play area. It made it harder to find the ends of the waves at times. Other than that very enjoyable!
Thanks for playing and for the feedback!
This was a really well polished entry, nice work!
The music was nice, the sound effects were satisfying, there was a great variety in enemies and mechanics!
I felt the movement was a bit sluggish, so dodging enemy projectiles was a bit annoying, as was shooting at the ones off-screen (you can see quite a bit farther left and right than up and down).
Great entry overall!
Thanks for playing!
I wanted to give the ship sort of "big mass" feeling but it's probably a bit too much. You're not the one struggling with evasions, hehe.
As for limited view, it was happening to a lot of other players in previous builds. But I've set camera zoom to max value by default - there shouldn't be a lot of off-screen shooting. Though you still can change it with mouse scroll. Could it possibly happen to you? (I might just turn zooming off in future)
Yo this game was awesome! I really enjoyed the wave system, and the freedom to make choices on upgrades really made me think! I'm very impressed, amazing game!
Glad you enjoyed it! Thanks!
This game kinda got me excited to play, reminded me of the kind of stuff we'd play during class with my college buddies on the browser hehe. Someone prolly said this already, but make the cursor embedded in the browser and maybe look into adding multiplayer with random space related events, and you'll have a game you can release and prolly get a few college kids hooked onto :D
GG
Thanks! Took a note about cursor. Multiplayer would be awesome, but that's probably for another game, haha 😅
Cool game! I liked the in-depth tutorial, and the soundtrack, and the feel of zipping around my little corner of space to defend it. The SFXs are great, but I think a little bit more juice and VFX would really elevate this experience. At least a little throttle trail coming out of my ship, you know? But I guess we can always say such things, now can't we. All in all, the game is fun and that's what matter most :)
Thanks for trying out my game too!
Yeah, I was thinking about that jet trail the whole jam and thinking "leave it to polish phase". Anyways I'll continue working on this game so the trail and more vfx will eventually appear =)
Great game! The gameplay was engaging and smooth, we felt like everything was very balanced: the weapons, the enemy variety, and the difficulty curve. It was definitely a fun game and thats is something very important!
Just some personal or maybe biased suggestions regarding the style, but we think the end was maybe a bit anti-climatic and a final boss battle would have been oh so much cool.
P.S: The music and SFX were also great!
Thank you for the feedback!
Yeah, I wanted to add a boss fight for sure. But a jam is a jam, you gotta release what you have 😅
Also I'm enjoying working on this project a lot and I'm going to continue its development after the jam ends. Including adding more enemies and boss fights! So stay tuned if you enjoy such type of games 😉
Nice game, the sounds adds a lot!
Thanks!
that's like quite addictive! I'll play it more just for fun, great game! Shooting feels very exciting
Thanks! Means the world! ❤️
Engaging game with really good game feel thanks to all the visual feedback. Great job!
Thanks for playing!