FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD24 → Glider Drop

Glider Drop

By tomhunt

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CategoryRankScoreCount
Coolness373
Innovation503.35
Theme1572.58
Graphics2002.59
Humor2231.24
Fun2242.20
Audio2281.00
Overall2282.50
Mood2371.76

Comments

ethankennerly 2012-08-28 05:55

Conway's Life fascinates me. Looks slick! I was not quick-witted enough to devise a tactic for keeping many blocks alive. The red blocks erupted chaotically, and I failed to reproduce my result.

goerp 2012-08-29 15:34

Looks good. I wonder what you could have done with more time. For now it's just life I guess as we know it.

aschearer 2012-08-30 07:23

It was an interesting experiment. I wasn't really sure what I was meant to do or how to improve. I also felt moving the blocks around was a bit challenging. Perhaps some in-game instructions would help make the purpose clearer.

gritfish 2012-09-06 11:24

Combining Conway's game of life with a tetris "falling blocks" mechanic is a pretty cool idea, but there's not much of a "game" here. Kinda reminds me of wetrix for the n64.

gama11 2012-09-07 06:51

Interesting idea, but why the controls? RShift / RCtrl is like the most inconvenient key possible for rotating tiles because it's so close to the arrow keys. Space would work way better.
I can't really see the evolution theme here.

pierrec 2012-09-07 10:28

It's almost impossible to figure out what to do to keep a lot of blocks alive...it's very random (well, i know it's not random at all, it's pure logic but it's too hard for a human brain)
Anyway, takes on Conway's Game of Life are always interesting, and this one is no exception. I had fun to watch all these glider evolves, as usual

triliyn 2012-09-07 11:13

I like the idea and the graphics were actually very pretty, but there's not really much to do. I might have liked the gliders to start from further up so that I could have more control over when they hit the ground (especially since for now it's just a sandbox).

repstyle 2012-09-07 12:50

I don't know the game "Conway's Life" then i don't know what to do. I can't understand what is happenig.

A tutorial is needed.

josh-dreamland 2012-09-07 13:41

The controls were annoying, but I like the concept. Not all that evolution-y, but still better than the run-of-the-mill "collect powerups!" games I've been seeing. My only real complaint with the controls are that it resets your position each time; I want to be just a few pixels away from where I dropped last time, for massive damage.

cracky 2012-09-08 02:55

Kindda falls into the "more a simulation than a game" pitfall, but nonetheless really cool!

solkar 2012-09-08 05:56

It crashes on MacBook Air OS/X 10.7.4. I will try later though.

cornedor 2012-09-08 11:31

It is a great idea. But a bit hard to play because it is so fast.

tomhunt 2012-09-10 01:31

Thanks for the comments, everyone. I made a few tweaks to the game and put the updated builds up on dropbox alongside the jam builds.

Since a lot of the feedback was around the crappy keyboard controls, I did away with those entirely, and replaced them with a mouse-centric setup in the post-compo version for faster and more precise control. I also start the blocks higher up and have them move down a bit slower. Balancing this out is a manual quick-drop mechanic mapped to the left mouse button.

@solkar - I haven't test this at all on 10.7, so thanks for bringing that up. I'll have to look into that further.

jprogman 2012-09-12 04:23

I like the challenge on keeping the blocks populated. What I feared on for this game is what happens next after I get the maximum score. Would I play it again after that? Maybe not, so it would be ideal to think of some more challenges while keeping the game's original concept.

While it will going to take me some time to learn some strategy on reproducing the red blocks, I'm hoping for tutorials to teach me the basics in the future.

creative630 2012-09-12 15:01

Interesting, but definitely needs more variation :)

hamster_mk_4 2012-09-16 03:31

As a program this is interesting, as a game, not so much. The blocks fall too fast to really get any sense of control in what is happening.

davidemo89 2012-09-16 10:33

Mhm... innovative for sure. first I was like "what the hell I have to do" but then was a little fun =)
gratz

djcsdy 2012-09-16 12:14

Awesome idea! Innovation points!

The controls are a bit confusing but it's fun to play :).

imef 2012-09-16 12:15

Had lots of fun playing this!

rawbits 2012-09-16 14:12

Hey I used this machanism too for my terrain generation - it needed some modification ofcourse.

Btw nice concept and I like how you used the red and blue together like a pro. :D

My highscore is 93.

cthulhu 2012-09-17 21:31

High-score 92! (I don't know if it is good)
Hard to control and to plan the moves.

Good idea and job!