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Calamity
Calamity
By jonnopon3000
View on Wayback Machine
| Category | Rank | Score | Count |
|
|---|
| Humor | 296 | 2.50 | | |
| Audio | 327 | 2.73 | | |
| Mood | 330 | 2.84 | | |
| Overall | 430 | 2.96 | | |
| Innovation | 461 | 2.87 | | |
| Fun | 524 | 2.65 | | |
| Theme | 584 | 2.70 | | |
| Coolness | 777 | 39 | | |
| Graphics | 817 | 2.04 | | |
Comments
terra
2012-04-23 21:33
Enjoyable! Firstly I was a bit confused about the map, I thought the red cube must of represented where I was and not where the next shaman was, so I just wandered around a bit. After I figured it out though it was good, I used the the positions of the trees to figure out where I was in relation to the shamans and I liked that element of figuring out which path I needed to take rather then being told.
Couldn't find anything after talking to the guy in the centre of the map, though. I'm guessing that's the finish?
Oh, and a bit of a nitpick, but the hitbox of the player seemed really off compared to it's size.
Thanks Terra, glad you enjoyed it. I'm also glad the "static" map went down well, I thought that I could add some cerebral element to the game by having the player calculate their own paths - it also saved a bit of development time...
As for the player's hitbox, it's actually a bit of a weird system. The player doesn't collide with tiles using a hitbox; instead, movement is only permitted if the tile he's about to move into is passable. The algorithm for keeping track of the player's current tile and therefore the function for getting the adjacent tiles is a tiny bit off, so you usually hit trees about half a tile away. Just thought I'd explain :)
After the last Shaman, there is one sort-of-surprise in the game. He says something about rebuilding the entire world, and there's a little easter egg-type thing for anyone who bothers to explore the rest of the map :)
I really liked this game, I was surprised t how satisfying revealing the world was. I also enjoyed using the map's landmarks to guide me subtle but cool game mechanics.
After meeting the guy in the middle and being told I had to reveal the entire map I gave up because I felt it would take too long to finish and the game got a little dull after that because there was no pathfinding goal anymore.
Nice work overall!
I think, this acctually is a really good game. The thing is, as Terra already said, I also thought that the red sqare would represent my position in the world. Also, I think the Graphics aren't really that good. They should have been better. And (I know for a game of that "kind" it would maybe be not that good) you should maybe have added more kinds of Tiles... Overall acctually not as bad, as I thought in the beginning.
Very nice work! The World was massive! would have been nice to have a marker on the map showing where you were perhaps?
lansiir
2012-04-24 20:34
I really enjoyed the game, and it made me think more than any other entry out here. Got to use my good old 4x4 evo map-calculating skills here. You stretch out the game a little, I think that if you made the world a bit smaller it would be even better. 4/5
tcstyle
2012-04-24 20:43
I was running quite a while without finding anything. A sign on the map where the player is would help to make it less tedious. I liked the music.
vaelzan
2012-04-24 20:43
[Comments and ratings from this account come from various team members]
In the game I noticed what seemed like a collision bug when approaching some tiles from an angle. The exploration mechanic was cool but the open level design and searching for a needle in a haystack style gameplay didn't really click too well with me and that is what made me put down the game. One thing I would have loved to see is a 'you are here' on the map. Great to see you had fun making this, keep it up :)
I think this was a very cool idea, and good execution overall. While I like the concept of slowly unveiling the world, I think it would work better if the scenery was less repetitive and/or if there were more interesting things you could run into.
Good job!
Wow, loads of comments all from nowhere, thank you guys! :)
To address all your suggestions, what you've played was actually about half of what I planned. I created base classes for things like random story encounter tiles that revealed some background, random quests NPCs, and small insignificant environmental effects. I ended up spending a lot more time on the overall design of the game and as a result, had to cut down to just the main story quest of "find the Shamans," with a bonus added for anyone who could be bothered to explore most of the map.
I hear all of your suggestions, and with the overall positivity along with my own motivation, I've decided to adopt Calamity as a full project alongside my current game project.
All suggestions have been, and will be, taken into account for further work :)
I was also surprised how satisfying it was to guide myself with landmarks. I had to read the comments here before I realized that the red box was my goal not my current location. After that though it was pretty fun! To make it better you might add more things to do and find while you're traveling between each shaman but I understand that would be hard to do in a short time. Also player collision was weird but never bad enough to take anything away from the game.
pabloam
2012-04-25 17:16
Good idea, but I felt a bit lost :(
trylle
2012-04-25 17:34
Yeah, as others say landmarks were surprisingly easy to follow. A bit miffed after the last shaman cos couldn't tell what my view radius was and no indications as to what parts I hadn't explored, so I didn't at the risk of having a single unexplored tile. Interesting stuff. :)
What a cool concept! I really liked the story. I did think the world was a bit too big. Three are lots of ways you can expand and improve this game. Good Job!
I did finish the game - AWESOME! It was hard because I could no longer see the edges of my "viewing area" So i just wandered around a bit.
Haha, SusanTheCat wins the prize for first LD participant to have reached the bonus ending. Congrats, and thank you!
I'll update the description with these details now that enough people have expressed the concern:
The last Shaman says "all of the world," but that's dialogue I forgot to change. In fact, you only have to reveal 85% of the world, and your view range at the end of the game is 20x20. If you keep track of where you've been mentally, it doesn't take long to reveal enough of the map :)
The world could have been a bit smaller or there could have been different powers besides viewing range, because there is nothing but just moving around which gets pretty boring fast. Music was good but there should be more content than just holding a button and watching the same limited tiles pass by.
Otherwise it's alright, the story seemed interesting and it was fun to find my way using the map. the game just need more of the actual game.
Really cool entry! The only problem that simply pushing down the button and looking at the same tiles is sooooooo boring.
Actually, i couldn't made it to the end.
Anyway, Great Job!
tau7153
2012-04-26 16:10
Hi, really great game, one thing that did put me off, though, is that once you can see the whole screen its almost impossible to tell what areas of the map you haven't yet explored and coupled with the static map it makes 100% completion practically impossible. Otherwise technically it seems very strong and the dialogue in places was amazing! Well done, can't wait for The Ascent! (or whatever your going to call it).
Sam
P.S.
derosa
2012-04-26 21:52
Cool concept, but a little boring without known which parts of the map you have already covered. I tried to cover the whole world, but got tired :)
andrew-2
2012-04-30 20:36
Navigating the world 'blind' is an interesting idea but either it's a tad too large or there aren't enough noticeable landmarks. I liked the music a lot but it didn't really seem to match the feel of the game.
vigrid
2012-05-01 01:58
It would be really great to have an indicator saying how much world has been revealed in the final phase, because the ending comes a bit out of a sudden. The world was a bit too big for my taste to fit the "Tiny world" theme, but in a way it was fitting. Like AdventureIslands said - there's still place for "more game in the game".
That's a nice story, and a never ending one.
It's a long way to recover the whole map, since with the last power you can't even see what you do recover and so can't see if you explorer what hasn't been explored yet.
And last comment (for a lot of other games too) : please make something to support azerty keyboard, try to control your player with the ZQSD keys, you'll understand what I mean :(
Sorry, I've not even heard of an azerty keyboard before now, I guess I'll go do some research.