FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD23 → tr-3012

tr-3012

By heuermh

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CategoryRankScoreCount
Innovation1883.46
Audio2033.05
Mood5182.56
Humor6701.75
Coolness73642
Graphics7422.25
Overall7672.42
Fun8421.83
Theme8801.73

Comments

liger13 2012-04-23 04:04

Interesting. Could have used a quick what's happening text. Although discovering what the game was about was a bit fun, I almost stopped prematurely because of the "annoying" sounds I didn't know that I was making.

sidetrackgames 2012-04-23 04:45

Didnt really understand it at first, but seems to be a refreshing concept.

raptor85 2012-04-23 16:04

Thread-1" java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Line unsupported: interface SourceDataLine supporting format PCM_SIGNED 44100.0 Hz, 16 bit, stereo, 4 bytes/frame, big-endian

just fyi, the sound format you used does not work across all platforms in java, it's an unsupported extension.

It still runs otherwise but i honestly have no idea what to do, i can move things around but no idea.

heuermh 2012-04-23 17:59

Sorry, without sound there's not too much to the game.

What platform are you on? I hadn't seen any problems when testing OSX 10.6, Windows XP, and linux mint alsa + jack.

I'm using Beads for audio (which in turn appears to use Tritonus) through Processing.

http://www.beadsproject.net/
http://www.tritonus.org/
http://www.processing.org/

spilth 2012-04-26 02:34

I couldn't figure out what to do.

madflame991 2012-04-26 05:33

I know it's more a toy than a game but it was loads more innovative than most platformers out there. I also liked the drawings and the background space-y music.

dagothig 2012-04-26 05:43

I found it a bit hard to understand what the game was about, but once I got the hang of it, it was fairly interesting to play

r3ason 2012-04-26 06:34

Can't figure out what to do exactly; is the point to just make random noises? If someone could point out the goal, I'll give it another go! Thanks!

r3ason 2012-04-26 06:35

Can't figure out what to do exactly; is the point to just make random noises? If someone could give a small hint, I'll give it another go! Thanks!

noddy2006 2012-04-26 06:42

Well that was... interesting :P.

I had very little idea what was going on, all I eventually realised was that you seem to be effectively making loops by setting the robots on paths. I think in order for that to work though, it needs a lot more GUI elements, otherwise the player gets very confused, very quickly.

Very cool, on the whole though. The innovation, nice audio and nice graphics certainly helped

dukope 2012-04-26 07:35

Audio is crackly on OSX. Interesting idea extracting gameplay out of a sequencer, but it's not much of a game at the moment.

monkeyarmada 2012-04-26 10:16

Really interesting concept, but I don't think that the total absence of a tutorial or a small intro to the game is a good idea. I took the time to explore until I found what the controls did and I managed to create a bizarre melody with the automated robots, but I think most people won't take the time. I think that the initial effort may result not funny for some people. But it is ok if you intended to do something more experimental.

heuermh 2012-04-26 18:05

Thank you to everyone for the feedback.

@dukope: Could you let me know your hardware specs + java version? I tested OSX on a MacBook Pro and an older MacBook and it worked well enough.

@Raptor85: Following up, I tried switching to the PulseAudio drivers on linux mint and while the sound still played it did break up/get crackly.

I am not altogether happy with the performance of the audio library I am using (Beads), though chances are good I am not using it in the most efficient way.

Thus in a future version of tr-3012 I will be removing the sample playing functionality from the game itself and will instead send MIDI & OSC events to an external program for rendering the audio.


@Monkey Armada, @noddy2006, @dagothig, @spilth, @SidetrackGames, @liger13: Since this is more of a toy/instrument and less a game, I thought that the element of discovery might make it more interesting. The trade-off is that people may be confused/frustrated; thanks for your feedback.


@R3ason: Yeah, that is pretty much the point. I have always wanted to try non-traditional ways of sequencing drum machines/other electronic music.

cosmologicon 2012-04-28 18:42

I'm able to switch between robots and move about, but I don't hear any sound at all. I'm on Ubuntu. Is sound essential to figuring out the game? If so I may not be able to do this. Here's the error I get:


Exception in thread "Thread-1" java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Line unsupported: interface SourceDataLine supporting format PCM_SIGNED 44100.0 Hz, 16 bit, stereo, 4 bytes/frame, big-endian
at com.sun.media.sound.DirectAudioDevice.getLine(DirectAudioDevice.java:157)
at beads.JavaSoundAudioIO.setupOutputJavaSound(Unknown Source)
at beads.JavaSoundAudioIO.access$100(Unknown Source)
at beads.JavaSoundAudioIO$1.run(Unknown Source)
at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:662)

scoopsy 2012-04-28 20:14

Apparently sound is the magic to make this work, but I didn't get any. (OSX). Also, this spun my CPU into serious overdrive.

make-a-game 2012-05-04 16:04

This game lacks a bit of visual feedback and perhaps a tutorial. On the other hand, once I started to make sense of the robots roles I had fun improvising some beats. The concept deserves to be developed further! A daring entry!

icefox 2012-05-10 08:23

Weird little synthesizer toy. Might have been nice to have something besides percussion.