Infestus

Created from scratch in 48 hours for my first Ludum Dare!

Update: I've made some changes based on feedback so far.  You can now complete the game!  You move faster, enemies move faster (and there are more of them), the weight mechanic is less cumbersome, and restart functions correctly.

The original compo version is labeled accordingly.

Controls:

WASD to move.  
Shift to dash.  
Space to toggle larva call.  
Escape for menu.  
E to drop distraction cells.  
Partial controller support (no menu interaction).  

Gather biomass from the green tanks and deliver it to your spawning pool to create larva.  Deliver those larva in turn to grates around the map to infest the research facility.  Once infestation is complete, you can escape into the world!

...except you can't in the original upload, because colliders are not triggers.

Ohh man.  What have I done?  

The theme was the last one I expected to win.  I had lots of ideas for most the the themes, but uh... this one came out of left field for me.

I decided to try to incorporate the theme in as many facets of the design as I could.  It is worse to have more minions following you because it's harder to sneak around.  It's worse to be burdened with an abundance of MacGuffin, because your movement is inhibited.  It's worse to allow enemies to bunch up, because, well, they are you enemies.  They want to eat you and all that.

I am not thrilled with the finished product.  You can play it through, so that's good.  I probably won't revisit this particular project (LD spaghetti all over the place), but I have learned A TON about pixel art and the associated concerns.  I would really like to move forward with another, more tolerably-paced pixel art project.

Anyway, I hope there's some fun to be had with Infestus.  I had fun making it.  Thanks for checking it out.