I've always said that atoms have had it too good for too long.
Fun game, felt like a flash game from back in the day. My only real complaint is that you run out of offensive upgrades before defensive, so the end of the game doesn't feel as good in that department. Other than that, great game!
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Shockingly Negative's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Gameplay | #4 | 4.130 | 4.130 |
| Polish | #8 | 4.130 | 4.130 |
| Theme | #9 | 4.174 | 4.174 |
| Overall | #9 | 3.887 | 3.887 |
| Art | #21 | 3.826 | 3.826 |
| Audio | #31 | 3.174 | 3.174 |
Ranked from 23 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Arcade
No
Not an Arcade Game
Comments
Very cozy and detailed game! I had a lot of fun and got all the way to endless mode. The upgrade pacing (esp. having a +500% available early) made the early game feel very good.
I especially loved the detail of the electrons orbiting you as you collect them!
Submitted
Game and ShockI wasn't sure at first that I did it right, because the sound the rod makes after collected. But the game was actually really simple and partially automated. Would be a bit too long if I overlook the collect percent upgrade. I got to the endless level, the game was pretty nice and relaxing.
Submitted
CHICKCHARGEReally go into this one. Reminded me of that black hole game a bit. It was a little unclear in the beginning that the protective shield needed to be broken to collect the goodies, I initially thought the targets were breaking it but it’s just that I was aiming at the ones up close afraid they were gonna hurt me. Then later I realised the “shield” was essentially a timer and not affected by damage. Anyway this was great!
Submitted
shockwavesThanks!
The protective shield on the atoms is actually the electrons orbiting the nucleus (yes I know the Bohr model is outdated but I wasn't going to implement quantum mechanics and electron clouds!)
As for the "shield" timer, it was originally called "time", but since it depletes faster on higher levels it didn't make sense. In hindsight I probably should have called it "energy" to make it clearer that it wasn't depleting from taking damage.
Loved the tech tree and the attention to detail. Was hard at first to determine what exactly was happening, but once I got the hang of it, it was great. A tutorial level in the future might help clear up exactly what is happening. But great job for a 10 day jam.
Submitted
The House on the HillGame is great! Went through pretty much the whole tech tree now (those last few shield upgrades are quite the price jump lol) and was a good time throughout. I'm not sure how the levels work though? Assumedly it just makes higher health atoms spawn but I'm not clear on what's increasing it?
Submitted
CDD: Change Directory DragonThanks for playing!
Yeah the levels make higher health/atomic number atoms spawn and drain your shield faster, requiring you to do regular shield upgrades. Higher level atoms drop more electrons though so it mostly balances out, especially if you upgrade rod efficiency to get more eV per electron.
It seems I missed those final shield upgrades when I was doing a balance pass on the game.
Had a lot of difficulty following what was happening. Felt hamstrung by the autofiring, was slow
Submitted
Rise of the LakeChaos, chaos, catch me if you can...
That's about what was going in my head while playing this game. I really don't have that many comments, other than a lack of music. The gameplay loop already felt super smooth, the mechanics were simple yet entertaining, and I felt as if I should only put in more time.
I suppose the one comment I had is the expensive upgrades. Though normally you collect a max of around 20-30, I struggled for the late game, having to grind up to 100. But as some people point out, they like this grind, and I've grown into the grind as well.
10/10. Hoping for further development!
Submitted
Am I The Binary?Hmm i guess I didn't understand the electron collection mechanic, because when you collect electrons the lightning rod explodes and I thought that was a bad thing happening
Submitted
ECAROH'S SHOCKNeat game, had a lot of fun playing it! I really liked the concept of slowly building up the periodic table but it went by so quick. By the time i had carbon and oxygen showing up the tech tree was already finished and then uranium showed up in the same round.
Submitted
The InterloperThis was a banger. I managed to max out skill tree pretty quickly, though achieving that last shield upgrade really took time. I loved the straightforward art (the particle effects!) and mechanics here, but I'd be curious to see how the game would play differently if the upgrades were locked behind a progression mechanic that forced me to finish the boss before accessing more of the tree. I became OP pretty early on which made the rest of the levels a breeze. Lovely entry. Thanks for making and sharing it!
Submitted
Zip ZapThanks for playing!
I had to severely nerf the tech tree costs and complexity to allow raters to mostly unlock it within 10 minutes, otherwise they'd see an enormous tech tree with huge costs and get bored.
If I were to remake this as a commercial product I'd probably use Godot, but I love using TIC-80 for game jams since it helps me limit scope creep.
Optimizing for the jam crowd is 100% the right move. The last jam I did had a pretty amazing incremental game that had me and other players hooked for over an hour, but the level of polish and fit on that was unlike most other games I've played in this space—especially considering it was a jam game!
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