Evolvania
Explore the world and collect all 13 gems. Find a mate as fast as you can, because your lifetime is limited!
You start with 3 lives, but each one has different abilities. Choose the one that suits you, and carry your genetic material with you. When you mate, a new generation is born, combining your abilities with the ones of your partner.
Different abilities are found according to the environment your potential mates live in, and different zones are unlocked by using specific abilities (that's where the -vania in Evolvania comes from).
(The map is incomplete and the gameplay is very raw, but we hope the prototype is enough to show you the basic idea)
Created by notapixelstudio: Salvo & Matteo
Credits:
music by: https://opengameart.org/content/free-music-pack
Art by: Kenney https://kenney.nl/
Inspiration in platformer mechanics: PigDev (https://twitter.com/pigdev)
Inspiration in Interface: GDQuest (https://twitter.com/NathanGDquest)
Download
Click download now to get access to the following files:
Development log
- Gameplay mechanics fixedSep 22, 2018
Comments
Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.
When I was playing, EVERY SINGLE TIME I BRED i would lose all of my good traits, making this a horrible game that is impossible to play and is worth less then a piece of plastic.
Ahaha lol :D You have been struck by the wrath of the RNG gods!
We definitely wanted to implement a more predictable algorithm for breeding, to avoid frustration. It didn't make it during jam time.
You should make it an official game!
Browser version review:
I want to like it because it seems like a good concept, but it's absolutely irritating.
The music is like nails on a chalkboard, and the controls are so bad, I'm speechless. I'm not sure if these issues are inherent, or due to lag, but it took a full life and half the second's lifespan to get out of the starting area because it wouldn't jump when I told it to, or wouldn't move when I told it to.
The lifespan goes down much too rapidly to be able to leave the starting area AND navigate the surroundings to find a mate in a single life. I could interact with the diamonds, but again it was so difficult to move, it didn't do much good in the end. Also the diamonds not reappearing for the next creature is very unhelpful. If I can only get so far WITH diamonds, how am I supposed to get that far without them?
Installed version review:
It won't start, I'm stuck on a black screen. I let it sit for 20 minutes after the loading bar vanished, and nothing. I was really hoping it would fix the issues I had originally typed out for the browser version, but unfortunately not.
Thanks a lot for your honest feedback, it is very appreciated!
This game prototype was made very quickly, and we focused almost exclusively on the underlying concept. The execution is indeed poor, also because of our inexperience.
We are currently working to reach a more advanced platform code, that would hopefully be used to fix the issue you experienced.
About the diamonds: our intention was to provide a simple goal for the prototype, i.e. to collect all diamonds. Diamonds do not reappear when you respawn because you keep the ones already collected. The goal should be reached throughout many generations. The idea was to make a fast-paced platformer in which you'd have to collect the "diamonds" through your generations while the life will pass relentlessly. You would need to collect the diamonds just once, then you can go fetch the others if your lifespan is over or if you die by accident :D
For the build version, I am sorry it didn't work on your system, may I know which OS you're running ? I just tried with my macOS and it worked.
Hope you will give it another try if we manage to transform it into a real game! Thanks again.
This game is pretty neat; I'd love to see some further development.
I was thrown at first because (at least the first time I launched the game in browser), my starting characters couldn't interact with anything (gems, mates, even spikes, etc.), and so they'd all just die of old age. After a relaunching the issue seemed to be resolved.
While it's a style choice, I think it would be kind of nice to implement HP rather than sudden death upon encountering something dangerous. You already even have the necessary mechanic: just dock a few years from the critter's remaining lifespan. That way the player can learn to stay out of water, etc., without as much an interruption to play.
Also, pressing 'x' once for suicide is pretty easy to hit on accident. It would be nice if there was a confirmation.
Thank you for the bug report, and thank you for the great suggestion! Losing lifetime when damaged is a really good idea. We'll definitely look into it when we will revisit the project (I hope soon).