BLOB

Be a blob. Be the strongest blob. Blob is a 2D Topdown Singleplayer Roguelike. As a blob named Blob, you will experience a minimalistically designed world, that changes not only with each new run but also with rising levels in accordance to 5 historical themes. By defeating enemies and finding the portal to the next level you will be able to upgrade your stats and become stronger. A variety of items will provide you on your way through a blobby world and allow for different strategies in defeating your enemies. How many of them you will defeat is a matter of strategic thinking and how fast you will reach the final level is a matter of skill. Since the map is randomly generated, each new run ensures a unique experience. The historical themes that are used in the game are starting at the cavemen era in the first levels of the game and will end in a futuristic scenario with humans and robots. It will be a long and tough journey to reach the final era and the last level so prepare yourself - with snacks, lot’s of caffeine and your blobiest of all moods!

Gameplay and Mechanics:

The Player spawns in a new random map each new level. The sprites of the levels change according to the era. The eras again change each 10th level. Max Level is 50. Each round goes for 60 seconds. Goal is to find the portal to the next level. Next to the player there are also enemies and items around the map.The enemies need not necessarily be killed but the more enemies get killed, the more choices the player has at the end of each level to upgrade his stats. Those are: Max Health, Fire Rate, Bullet Damage and Movement Speed (Fire Rate in seconds until next shot. For some reason.). The enemies scale with each level in speed, detection range and health.

Another important point here is that the range of possible stats for enemies increases thoughout the levels. Especially at the end of the game, there can be many surprising moments due to high differences in the enemy stats. The fighting works as follows: When the enemy collides with the player, its remaining health gets substracted from the player health. Simple as that. 

The items are a feature that brings strategical elements to the game. There is one item on the map at the beginning of each level. This number increases by one for each era so that at era 5 there are 5 items spawned in each level. The player has a gadgetbar where items can be stored and used. The player starts with two gadgetfields and gets an additional one in each new era. The items that the player can use are: (see ingame instructions for a version with sprites)

Regenerate Health: regenerates health for 15 seconds

Increase Max Health: increases Max Health by 50% for 30 seconds

Increase Speed: increases Speed by 50% for 15 seconds

Increase Bullet Damage: increases Speed by 50% for 15 seconds

Increase Fire Rate: increases Fire Rate by 50% for 15 seconds

Increase Luck: increases Crit Chance by 0.25 for 15 seconds

increases multiple Stats: increases Movement Speed and Bullet Damage by 100% and Fire Rate by 50% for 10 seconds

Lure Enemies: Drops lureObject and lures enemies for 15 seconds

The item effects can be stacked, such that the buffed statvalue gets calculated from the already buffed statvalue, resulting in extremely high stats. For some, like Fire Rate and Movement Speed, there are technical limitations leading to a closed range of statvalues. Those are 0.08 for Fire Rate and 14.5 for Movement Speed. Increasing stats above those borders is not possible, neither through item effects nor by upgrading them. 

Changing the background sprites from era to era brings variation and a nice look to the game. The feeling of progress is additionally supported by a rising number of enemies, increasing player stats that have impact on the way the game is played, a fabulous sound with lots of elements that mirror the process we went through while building this small diamond; - and a learning curve that the player develops. Every 10th level is a boss level with an increased number of enemies. At about level 10 the actual game starts to kick in. In the first 10 levels, the game remains easy and also kinda slow. Most of the enemies can simply be defeated by running into them. This changes throughout the second era. The enemies become strongerand especially faster. The completely random movement pattern can make them appear anywhere on the map and some of them can spot the player from high distances. This accumulates and especially after entering era 4, the player really starts to feel the pressure. In the last era, the game lets the player experience the limits of this game has to offer. The high movement speeds, fire rates, enemy health values and especially numbers make a strategical approach to finish the game nearly impossible. At least that is our internal prognosis since we have all not been there yet. Ahaha.

The controls of the game are simple and easy: WASD for movement, mouse for aiming and shooting, 1 - 6 for the respective gadgetfield. One ingame round can take a maximum of 60 seconds. An average playthrough of our experienced testers takes about 20 minutes and typically ends in level 30 to 40 on medium difficulty. The path a player has to take to reach the final level not purely depends on skill but also on luck. Mostly everything in the game occurs at random: The player upgrade choices, the enemy stats, their movement, their color, the map, where the portal spawns,  the number of enemies each level, 

... and so on. 

Thanks for reading this and have fun with the game!

The Game:

https://roehrichamapparat.itch.io/blob

The Trailer: