FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD27 → Blackout

Blackout

By x-or

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CategoryRankScoreCount
Coolness1100
Audio1723.25
Humor3182.68
Mood3513.00
Innovation7262.75
Overall7532.87
Fun8202.61
Graphics9162.27
Theme10922.33

Comments

tork 2013-08-24 17:56

Not sure what to do, stairs get me to the same place every time

x-or 2013-08-24 18:17

It's not actually working yet. See it as a teleport pad rather, until I implemented the stair functionality :P

There is no game "goal" just yet, and the 10-second-theme is also not in my code yet.

I'm uploading and updating my log, so I got a backup in case my HDD crashes.

Apart from the "game start", the other buttons don't work either so far. If you're a bit patient, you'll be able to play the finished game, once I'm done. =)

2013-08-26 01:26

You're the best :-)

dungeonsoffear 2013-08-26 04:33

I think I played through it, went in the time machine, then talked to the pink circle and it took me to the main menu. Besides the goofy AI, it was interesting. Audio could have matched the mood a little more, but hey this is Ludum Dare! Solid 3/5, good job.

x-or 2013-08-26 11:44

Yeah... reaching the game menu means that you win. I didn't have enough time to design the win-screen. In fact, I thought of linking the ending to the 10-second sequence to make the timetravel more logical. Also, you're not actually talking, it's using a baseball bat =) Unless my "great" user-interface bugged out, that is.

falconstar 2013-08-26 12:58

"You have no chance of survive make your time"... xD
Zero Wing references for the win!

kristinnes 2013-08-26 12:58

Nice little puzzler :)

raggy 2013-08-26 13:00

Here sure must run fast to get there in 10 seconds!

The music gave it a good sense of urgency and I enjoyed the plot.

ciaran54 2013-08-26 13:06

Wow, nice ending. But the UI was really awkward. If you had used WASD rather than the arrows it would be fine... but I had to keep moving my hands about :/

thejackimonster 2013-08-26 13:12

I don't really understand the game...

fireblend 2013-08-26 13:46

Controls are definitely awkward, and I'm actually not sure if this was intended but it's a pretty frustrating thing :P the music is very fitting.

x-or 2013-08-26 14:50

Well, intended to a certain degree... I wanted to find a way to let the player interact with tiles he could stand on, aswell as with not accessible tiles - such as switches in the wall. I became aware of these troubles during mid-to-late gameplay, but I was used to it already since I implemented the tile interactions... Rewriting the engine wasn't really possible anymore at that time. I also planned to give the player the opportunity to play with the keyboard only, but time was running out =( I also added a marker, flashing on the tile you looked at, but I believe it didn't help much...

madk 2013-08-27 04:58

Heh, that was a pretty clever story. Apart from the wonky controls I liked the way it was executed. The graphics were kinda charming.

kidanger 2013-08-27 18:37

Good game, with interesting story mecanism!

diptoman 2013-08-27 19:09

I was expecting a simple story from the story, but i was pleasantly surprised by how deep the story was! The puzzle at the time machine room had me stumped for a while, but I hit myself after I realized the method. Buut, I don't know who to hit! XD
Great game nonetheless! The soundtrack compliments the game well.

rincewind_cz 2013-08-27 23:27

Great puzzle just before the end :-)

x-or 2013-08-29 06:23

Thanks a lot for your critics. Appreciate it much =)

awppy 2013-08-31 18:27

The music was awesome. I'm not sure if I got the "ending" or not; as soon as I used the bat it brought me right back to the title screen. I'm assuming I was wrong, because I played through the game again (all doors were unlocked) several times and just systematically hit each dude one after another but it always just brought me to the title screen

x-or 2013-08-31 18:41

Using the bat means you win. I thought of making it possible "only" to hit Mr. White but decided against it for some reason. I just know that I was short on time (and I was tired a bit at 3 AM), so my decisionmaking might have been a bit biased back then.

laelien 2013-09-01 00:14

Excellent entry, really. Good music, nice story, nice little puzzle. Would have been perfect if you discovered YOU used the bat to solve a paradox, but hey, I'm not going to blame you for this :P Nice mood too.

larb 2013-09-01 00:41

Great music. Awkward controls. Pretty good entry overall though. I liked it.

arcturusdeluxe 2013-09-01 11:56

Nice music! The gameplay was solid, reminded me a bit of Chip's Challenge, if you ever played that. Graphics aren't great and the UI is really awkward, but other than that, good job overall!

x-or 2013-09-01 22:22

Nope... never heard of that game. But I'll definitely search it out and try it ^_^

theholychicken 2013-09-03 01:48

Cool story! Like one of those looping nightmares.
Plus very nice music to wash it down. Nice work!

tryzor 2013-09-05 13:16

Really nice song ;)

x-or 2013-09-05 13:26

Thanks so much, guys! I start to get proud of my soundtrack, which is really motivating. I think I need to fire up my DAW more frequently now =)

cogcomp 2013-09-05 17:22

Really REALLY love the music! A basically kept playing because of it :-)

mekuri 2013-09-08 23:27

I really liked the twist the story took. I think you got a bit easy around the Theme, but the idea was solid. Fun little game :-)

_alts 2013-09-09 04:10

I liked the story that the game seemed to imply. The music was also really nice. I would have preferred keyboard controls for [action] rather than the mouse, since the arrows and space are already used.

x-or 2013-09-09 17:13

I wanted to map the listeners to keyboard aswell, but I had trouble with callbacks =/ There should have been more possibilities for each NPC, apart from talking... RPG like combat, I even semi-implemented a weapon system. I also had a health bar, which is even visible on one of the screenshots. I ended up using it as a volume-change bar, since health wasn't needed after all...

In fact, I wasted a lot of time on things I never used... The entire text within the game is dynamic, all I'd need to do would be a button to change the "language" parameter, and the entire game would be translated (if I actually put the translation into the text arrays).

I planned to add a lot more variety to the intro aswell. I know that it totally sucks. My plan was to give the player hints through sound, making you basically listen to your environment during the blackout. I ended up recording myself tossing things around, banging at my desk and making weird noises. I don't like the intro, and honestly, I never liked the theme. It was one of the few I rated -1, since I found it to be waaaay too limiting. Limiting any action to 10 seconds, or making the game last 10 seconds was nothing I ever considered, so I ended up making the intro last 10 seconds instead.

sestren 2013-09-10 02:18

Apart from having to use the mouse, space bar, and the arrow keys (which don't work together very well for me), I rather liked where this entry is going. I'd like to see more if you plan on doing a Post-Compo version. Loved the music, btw.

tater_hater 2013-09-10 04:30

Thanks for the comments on my game, they were very constructive and will help me a lot next time. I loved the theme of your game and the story. The rogue like controls were a bit repetitive but all part of the experience, (and the joke relating to it was humorous) and overall pretty good

gvmakesgames 2013-09-10 10:51

Nice puzzle! I enjoyed the music :D

drabiter 2013-09-12 15:18

I did it. I did bat the pink one and it's over. Unfortunately it uses mouse+arrows instead mouse+wasd.

x-or 2013-09-12 16:52

Congratulations ^_^

Honestly, I wanted to go for keyboard only. As I noticed the flaw of the controls (apart from the messy part of forcing the players to "look at their feet"), it was too late to reprogram the engine. Changing the controls from arrows to WASD would have been 4 values to edit, but I tested my game using arrows, so I was kinda used to them; I don't really know why I went with arrows at all.

jacic 2013-09-13 17:08

Interesting idea, but having to switch between keys and mouse was kinda annoying.

snoringfrog 2013-09-14 15:40

Interesting game, as you noted yourself, the system for finding/using things is a little odd. Otherwise, it was a decent game.

nthird 2013-09-15 20:58

Interesting little puzzle game. I liked the keys that flashed just for a second, giving you a hint where you should look. First few times I saw it I wasn't sure I had even seen anything. Agree on the confusingness of the interface. Most of the time it was just slightly unintuitive but when trying to climb stairs I would sometimes have to turn back around to get facing the right way to interact with them which felt wrong instead of just awkward. Was fun though. Great job!

christinaneofotistou 2013-09-16 20:38

great music, I struggled with gameplay a bit, but I got the hang of it!

By the way the vst I used for Legend of Troll is the Korg M1 http://www.korg.com/Legacym1 a super-useful workstation, based on the actual Korg M1. It's at $50 and an amazing buy, especially if you're trying to recreate amiga music, since most .mod and .XM samples are from the super-popular at the time Korg M1.