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Intertubes

By jfransham

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CategoryRankScoreCount
Coolness371
Fun743.57
Overall2443.29
Mood2792.96
Audio3102.77
Humor4262.22
Graphics5212.74
Theme5332.83
Innovation6402.50

Comments

gjarble 2012-04-24 03:48

I had a lot of fun with this one. The action's nice and frantic without ever feeling hopeless. I got some false deaths in the compo version, but I also played the post-compo version and did not get any false deaths; I'm assuming that was one of the bugs you fixed for the latter. Some recommendations, if you want to keep building on this demo:
- Diagonal shooting. I know that's easier said than done, depending on how your current implementation of shooting works. I can also appreciate it if you think that'd take away from the strategy of the game.
- Perhaps you could randomize a new level after every death, instead of just on startup.

jfransham 2012-04-24 17:24

Thanks um... Gjarble...

I can theoretically do diagonal shooting, but personally I kind of liked the trapped-in-a-corner-but-need-to-move-to-shoot moments, although I know how easily it is to get attached to a flaw in a game when you're the one making it.

As for the randomised levels, the algorithm I made to make random levels is hideously badly optimised. I tried regenerating the world when you die but it just ended up with terrible loading times while it tries

marekkpie 2012-04-24 18:40

Was fun. Would have enjoyed mouse based shooting a bit more (or gamepad base doubly more).

jaj 2012-04-24 18:42

It was fun and I didn't encounter any bugs, so good job.

magicrat 2012-04-24 19:01

I had to play the post compo version because the pre one wouldn't run. Anyway, I thought the game was good, the controls were nice and the difficulty curve was balanced. nothing too spectacular audio wise but still enjoyable :) goodjob!

deejorg 2012-04-24 19:04

Nice game! Good job!

jrasmussen24 2012-04-24 19:05

Nice work on some of the smaller details (such as the knockback and effects when a bullet collides with one of the enemies). I would definitely like some rockin' background music to listen to while playing this, though.

barigorokarl 2012-04-24 19:55

I was on windows (linux to far away or to slow) and it didn't work (win xp) sorry, couldn't rate.

jfransham 2012-04-24 20:28

@barigorokarl there was a problem with me trying to use absolute paths instead of relative for the assets that linux handled fine but windows absolutely hated. Fixed it in the post-compo version

whitetigle 2012-04-24 20:29

Please....... no more WASD ! We're not all using qwerty kb layouts :)

axelhein 2012-04-24 20:33

Very fun game! Really liked the way the controls felt. Reminded me a bit of Binding of Isaac (this is a good thing IMO). The graphics also looked really good and was a good fit to the whole website setting of the game. The only complaint i have is that the levels that it generates don't allow you to move around very much. Otherwise, great work!

devwil 2012-04-24 20:35

***I'm posting this on all non-browser games I bring up in an attempt to encourage folks to make browser games next time around. Do not take it personally.***

When hundreds of people make non-browser games, that means that, to play all of the entries, I would need to download hundreds of games to my computer. I typically use OS X, so Windows-only entries are particularly inconvenient.

Please consider making a browser game next time.

matt-rudder 2012-04-24 20:35

I liked the way the waves scaled in the post-compo version, just hard enough to keep me interested. Nicely done.

azurenimbus 2012-04-24 20:37

Good game. It would be nice if the stages would change after a while, I think.

vdogamez 2012-04-25 21:05

I can't get it to run with either version. I click on the .jar file and it starts loading something but no window ever opens. It's a shame, this game looks very nice.

endurion 2012-04-26 07:26

Gets quite frantic with later waves.
Personally I'd have the difficulty ramp up faster, it takes a while before it feels interesting ;)

racarate 2012-04-26 18:26

Pretty cool... I had no idea what that second bar meant until I read the tutorial. I like that there is an additional objective of "hurry up and get points while this multiplier is in effect" in addition to the survival objective. I thought it was strange that you could move in eight directions but only shoot in four directions. The level design was neat, it was fun to run around trying to herd the enemies. The relative speeds of the hero and the enemies seemed just right. Though, visually I couldn't tell what the hero was supposed to be. Anime-mecha sysadmin? The sound was alright, but music would have been a lot cooler. Nice job overall, solid micro action game.

demonpants 2012-04-26 18:46

Pretty fun. I found it impossible once I got to wave 8 and I was hoping for more precise aiming (mouse aiming or at least 8 directional aiming) but it remains pretty fun.

arkazon 2012-04-26 18:46

Quite fun, I got caught on terrain a fair bit but I suspect that was my inability to use simple controls over anything else! Would be nice to get some diagonal shooting.

Oh and the original didn't work (I'm on windows 7) so I had to use the post-competition version.

orgarus 2012-04-26 18:52

I like the deep effect with that makes the background over the game surface.
Is a little difficult to move but it's challenging.
Cheers!

rvmook 2012-04-26 18:54

Fun little game nicely balanced waves and a little addicting too. After a while the lazer sound annoyed me a bit though

naouak 2012-04-26 19:54

Couldn't run this game on my coputer. Tried to launch the jar files several times but nothing happens.

izzimach 2012-04-26 19:58

For the first few waves I was afraid the game's pacing would be too slow, but it ramped up pretty well after a few waves. The game basically feels like a twin-stick shooter with random level layouts, and pulls it off pretty well.

jfransham 2012-04-26 21:00

yeah Izzimach, it was inspired heavily by twin-stick shooters, Dead Nation being the main one (if only because it's the only twin-stick shooter I've spent a decent about of time on). In response to any shooting-based annoyances, it's because I didn't fully understand transformation matrices at the time and therefore couldn't code the support for it into the custom rendering engine. I've since added support for it but you still can't shoot in arbitrary directions yet (I'll probably keep the post-compo version with the 4-way shooting and release the mouse-controlled version separately). Thanks for the feedback on the controls and the cramped-ness of the levels, it's good to know that kind of stuff :D

alwaysgeeky 2012-04-27 03:23

Great!! I love it! :)

artefon 2012-04-28 03:49

This entry is really fun. I like the Smash Tv mechanics a lot, although, I miss shooting in the diagonals. The game feels very dynamic. Keep updating it, there are some awesome ideas in the comments.

pighead10 2012-04-28 11:17

1116 :-( Strangely addicting. It would have been nice to have some kind of powerup or ability that can give some extra complexity to use at certain points, like teleporting across a wall or blowing up a group of enemies. It was nicely balanced, challenging but not impossible... except I suck.

ointment 2012-04-28 12:34

For me, the .jar file only launches a window that shuts down right away. Too bad.

valeour 2012-04-28 13:02

Win7 64-bit couldn't run. Just opened then closed.

triplevisiongames 2012-04-28 13:05

I enjoyed the game. I particularly like how you're forced to stay inside the level but the enemies come from everywhere. Made it really tense when you'd backed into a corner and gave it a really good dynamic.

jfransham 2012-04-29 13:06

Thanks Valeour, it's probably a problem with the LWJGL natives, which unfortunately means I can't fix it. If you're running the competition version, then try the post-compo version, as the competition version has a bug that means it doesn't work on windows (I'm running linux to program it so I didn't notice until too late)

bwdevel 2012-04-29 21:21

Unable to play Win7 64-bit + Java 1.7.

geekygenius 2012-04-29 21:26

Dosen't work Win7 63 bit Java 1.7:
Exception in thread "main" java.lang.reflect.InvocationTargetException
at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(Unknown Source)
at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(Unknown Source)
at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Unknown Source)
at org.eclipse.jdt.internal.jarinjarloader.JarRsrcLoader.main(JarRsrcLoa
der.java:58)
Caused by: java.lang.UnsatisfiedLinkError: no lwjgl in java.library.path
at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadLibrary(Unknown Source)
at java.lang.Runtime.loadLibrary0(Unknown Source)
at java.lang.System.loadLibrary(Unknown Source)
at org.lwjgl.Sys$1.run(Sys.java:73)
at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
at org.lwjgl.Sys.doLoadLibrary(Sys.java:66)
at org.lwjgl.Sys.loadLibrary(Sys.java:95)
at org.lwjgl.Sys.<clinit>(Sys.java:112)
at org.lwjgl.opengl.Display.<clinit>(Display.java:135)
at game.Main.initDisplay(Main.java:123)
at game.Main.init(Main.java:101)
at game.Main.main(Main.java:262)
... 5 more

jfransham 2012-04-30 16:43

everyone on Windows 7: apparently LWJGL doesn't currently have natives that work for it, or I need to download a more recent version of the library

schizofunky 2012-05-02 17:31

Nice game! I never realised how much work was involved fighting those pesky internet viruses!

kharza 2012-05-03 05:58

Good fun! Hard to wiggle out of the way to get a shot off when they are coming in at a small angle. (which is good!)

dcolgan 2012-05-05 03:39

13031! Excellent game - I had fun playing it. Sometimes games in this contest have other elements, but forget the fun factor. This game held my interest!

noddy2006 2012-05-07 02:43

Good fun.

The only issue I noticed was with key ghosting, so diagonal shooting while moving is almost impossible for most people. Gamepad controls definitely would have helped with this issue, but I understand that that would have added a lot of extra difficulty, not something you want in a time-restricted competition.

robcozzens 2012-05-10 09:21

This was pretty cool. I like the feel of the control but I would like to be able to shoot diagonally.
The scoring was a little confusing, but it was still fun.

oye-beto 2012-05-11 22:31

It was fun!
It reminds me of geometry wars.

I had a little problem with shooting and moving at the same time but I think it was my keyboard inability to press multiple keys at the same time. This could get fixed with WASD moving and mouse shooting.

I'd suggest using other text color in the menu, maybe green because it's difficult to read now.