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Vampire Shotgun Zombie Apocalypse's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Playability | #1 | 5.000 | 5.000 |
| Theme | #233 | 4.000 | 4.000 |
| Cleverness | #282 | 4.000 | 4.000 |
| Artistic Style | #970 | 3.000 | 3.000 |
Ranked from 1 rating. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Judge feedback
Judge feedback is anonymous.
- game only froze once while playing, and only for a moment, controls had no issues, theme is good, the idea could be fun if it were a linear level game but in the arena shooter area this is pretty good, I did like the idea of different styled enemies having different blood types however they look too similar when you are shooting into a crowd of enemies, and the bullet not always firing straight, while upgradeable is a bit much and can cause you to kill enemies in bad combinations and weakend yourself, I am nit picking the bad points because overall this game is well executed, playable, and a fun idea
Did you include your Game Design Document as a Google Drive link?
Yes
Seriously... did you include your Game Design Document?
Yes
Is your game set to Public so we can see it?
Yes
Tell us about your game!
"In this zombie apocalypse, you're one of the few survivors left.
Luckily, you found a very special shotgun lying around, a vampire one.
And like a regular vampire, it needs blood and darkness to function properly."
🎮 HOW TO PLAY
Use Arrows to move, Mouse to aim, and Left click to shoot.
🧛 VAMPIRE SHOTGUN
The Vampire Shotgun will use a combination of blood types to upgrade its capabilities, it won't stop consuming, so be aware!
Zombies don't need blood, vampires do.
🧟 ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE
Zombies may be rotten but the Vampire Shotgun doesn't care.
The zombies have different blood types (A, B, AB & O), use these to get the upgrades you need.
🌤️ THE ARENA
Looks like a sunny day with clouds, and that's good for you, because the vampire shotgun, like any other vampire, doesn't like direct sun.
So get in the shadows or suffer the consequences
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Comments
Hello, I played your game! It was very fun. I did 2 runs, both reaching about 4 minutes. I like the fact that you can only shoot in the shadows. I didn't really put much attention into the upgrades. I figure the idea was having to decide which enemies you want to kill, but for the most part you could just kill all of them, that's what I did. Tbh I don't see that as a problem because it was fun just watching groups of zombies explode. Something that could be improved upon is more feedback when the player gets hit, since I didn't really notice sometimes. Overall, great game!
Hey, thanks for playing and thanks for your feedback, I take note of everything you mentionned :)
Hey, very cool game! Took me back to high school when I was playing Crimsonland during IT class. :)
I think it's a very cool idea to incorporate the blood types the way you did and a fresh take on power progression! One actually has to decide which enemies to kill in order to maximise progression and prevent regression, instead of simply picking up or ignoring random power-ups that drop from random mobs or bosses, or choosing from a set of however many either by levelling up or entering the next room. I love that luck plays such a big part as well: first you have to get lucky with the power-up combination, and then also with the correct zombies spawning! And between those two random rolls, that's where skill comes into play.
I think you limited the amount of zombies that can spawn, I guess divided into waves, right? It gave me the opportunity to run after a specific combo I wanted for 2-3 minutes before progressing into the next stage, and I feel like you shouldn't be so nice, haha. You should force us to make tough choices by keeping the onslaught coming, and if we can't get that sweet ricochet or +1, or we're desperately trying to avoid the longer reload time, well, it's either that or getting overwhelmed!
But then again, my max time was like 5 minutes because I need to git gud, so maybe some mercy does not go amiss for players such as myself. :D
You could also expand on the shadow mechanic - certain mobs that spread shadow, others that spread light, or mix it into the blood types somehow so you gain some agency on how much shadow or light there is on the terrain. And again, make it so that you have to choose what's more important - more shadow, or a nice juicy gun power-up. Or make it so certain power-ups come as a double-edged sword. But these are just random thoughts of mine for where you could take it further, if you were planning on doing so - I had a lot of fun playing it already!
Very cool! Thanks.
Hey thanks for playing and your huge feedback ! I totally agree that the upgrades could have an impact on the shadows and lights, but have you noticed that the powerups only affects the shotgun as it is the "vampire" and they come from blood ? The game's diegesis would have to be changed slightly to modify light and shadows too, even if gameplay wise it would be a plus !
There's no wave system : For each upgrade took you have 8 max zombies that can spawn + 1 every 2,5 s (initial spawn time is 0,25 s). I wanted to prevent a no choice option for the player, but you're making me reconsider it !
Also side note, the shadow mechanic is kind of hacky as it is implemented, I'd rather have dynamic lights/shadows and obstacles. There's a lot of room for improvement ! If I recall correctly, in the initial design, Vanilla suggested some switches to turn light on/off at specific places - that would have been interesting too.
Thanks you again for the feedback !
Sweet pixel art & music.
Ended up playing much longer than anticipated because it was so satisfying to just make bullets rain. :)
There is indeed a huge lag spike when shooting your first shot. Probably you should pre-create your blood particles or bullets / objects pool or surface during game loading (depending on how you did it), instead of waiting for a first creation/draw.
Thanks you for playing :)
I did preload every scene so I'm unsure if I missed something, if my understanding of preload is incomplete, or if of if the issue is somwhere else.
Really fun game! I love the characters and the limited color palette. Having to run around and find a shadow to shoot from was fun. I liked that shooting felt really fast and fluid. Overall this is a top-notch game. You've got a follow from me!
Thank you, I know that Vanilla worked hard on the art assets and the limited art palette was a conscious choice of her :)
I love the art and the shooting, but the reloading mechanics were confusing and the game was lagging on the first run.
I've also noticed a freeze when firing the gun for the first time, I don't know what's the source of it :(. Reloading could indeed have an UI animation but we were running out of time ! Thanks for playing !
Please keep working on it, with a bit of fine tuning and a bit more animation for the bodies this could be perfect for stress relief!
Super satisfying game. Very well done!
+ Shadow gun is a cool mechanic that forces you to think about positioning a lot
+ Cranking out shots at max speed feels great
+ The upgrade system's pretty inventive
- It was tough to know how much the upgrades were achieving.
- What good is small bullets? Caveman brain want big bullet. More better.
- Getting caught by zombies that spawned inside the walls is unfortunate
"Caveman brain" => lmao ! The small bullets are actually downgrades. The idea is for the player to only shot the zombies corresponding to the upgrades. The spanning in wall is unfortunate indeed, there is a check to not make them spawn outside a defined area and another to not make them spawn on top of another, I wonder how they still achieve that :(. Thanks you for your feedback, I really appreciate.
EDIT: Oh I know, when they flee the might stuck on the wall since I update their position and not their velocity... silly me.
Unga bunga, thog not consider that system might have clever incentives for target selection.
...Though wouldn't that result in the player being eternally chased by an ever-growing pile of undesirable zombies they can't kill? idk.
Glad to be of service with the wall-zombies, though!
If you're carefull not totally filling the indesirable blood gauges and only fill them up when they are linked to good augments you should be fine. But yeah, passed a certain amount of upgrades you just "go for it" and try to kill as much as possible to get an highscore :).
Fun Game, was super satisfying getting a kill and filling up the gauges haha.
Easy to pick up Straight away. Wish there was more haha!
Good Job
Thanks you for playing :)
The art is so good omg, really love the logo. And the gameplay is super satisfying. Great quality!!
glad you like it 😊
Lots of fun, excellent art, simple premise but endless joy
Thanks you friend !
thanks :)
The presentation is great, and the game does feel pretty good to play
Also love the shader effects for the shadows. They made the shadows look pretty creepy ( in a good way )
Unfortunately though, like others have said, it was pretty hard to differentiate between the types of enemies. So much so that I just found myself shooting everywhere instead of being careful with my shots like you probably designed this to be
That said, the game feel was still pretty good though. Love the overall audio, including the sound of the shotgun. However, there times where it felt like the bullets you shoot just go through enemies instead of damaging them
All in all though, I still think that this was a damn good game and idea. Great job on this
The shader comes from a water one that I adapted, it wasn't easy so thanks you !
I think your remark is spot on with the difficulties to differentiates ennemies. It's a point we would have dig more if we had time, and the overall game design. We added the blood moving from the ennemies dirrectly to the gauges and the 0.5 blood type animation where an ennemy dies to remedy this, but we could have done more.
Thanks you for the feedback, have a great day :) !
Beat game with some nice polish. Some of the upgrades are pretty cool and running around to stay in the shadows is fun. Good work!
I'm happy you found fun :)
Took me a few seconds to figure out how I could shoot. But it felt really good. Aiming felt pretty good too, and the movement was smooth.
Yeah we could have put that in the tutorial !
4709 is my best score. Upgrades feel random.
Thanks for sharing :)
Sound design is really good and it's satisfying just to shoot. Being able to shoot in darkness is a good idea too. Combining blood types is also a good idea but i didn't feel like they matter much when playing because shotgun have so little cooldown time and enemies are mostly slow and have low health. Feels very polished, good work!
Thanks you a lot for your feedback, I think most players shared your though about the upgrades not mattering that much, it was hard to equilibrate and could get some more polish !
The gun play and sounds made my brain go brrrr. Great job! The shadow and blood mechanics are also inspired!
One thing is the sprites were very similar so memorising their bloodtypes is kinda hard. Maybe an indicator before they die would lead to thinking more about the blood combo system.
So happy to hear the game feel is adapted :) !
Just for the record, we haven't put any 'recoil' on the shot mechanic because the shadow is detected on the player by looking on a pixel at the center of the screen (hacky !). I'm glad this did not impact the feel !
There actually is the blood type appearing in place where the zombie die, did you miss it ?
Thanks for your feedback and have a good day !
I saw it, I just mean having something before they die would help with selecting priority targets
Love the feel, sound effects really make it pop! Lost myself for a while there just shooting with how satisfying it is!
Thanks, those kind of comments really means to me.