FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD31 → Maze Escape

Maze Escape

By gins

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CategoryRankScoreCount
Theme204.46
Coolness1100
Overall423.92
Fun513.83
Innovation2103.65
Mood5232.96
Humor6922.31
Audio7602.33
Graphics9412.49

Comments

ultravisitor 2014-12-08 03:52

Neat expanding world concept! One screen indeed.

ky533541 2014-12-08 03:55

Very nice, this is a great execution the theme - a great touch to only reveal the map as the player progresses. Nice work

tigerbyte 2014-12-08 03:56

Neat take on the theme. Classic platforming. I actually laughed out loud at the zipline. Didn't see that coming.

fanttum 2014-12-08 03:57

Sooooo cool and my fav game yet. I can't seam to get the yellow key. Either a bug because the walls are not appearing (an inviable one blocks my path on the bottom of my screen), or I just need help, haha.
Love the idea and you made it work so well. I totally think you could make this a full game if you make a character for it. Love this metriodvania style.

jarry 2014-12-08 03:58

Nice game, i love how the camera go further to fit in "only on screen". Congrats

jed-tiotuico 2014-12-08 04:01

I had a great fun playing this. I think it's a very clever use of the theme where the game slowly transform into a one gigantic maze in one screen. I love how the exploration side of it where you discover new rooms as you progress. Only downside maybe is that wall jumping is too hard.

devonoel 2014-12-08 04:01

Really fun, great entry. Loved the interpretation of the theme.

oh_andrej 2014-12-08 04:02

I see what you did there! Fantastic idea. And there's even new skills to unlock!

Think I might have run into a bug though: The room below the one on the left with the water (the one where you swim up the narrow shaft after you unlock the skill) doesn't expand...there's an invisible wall on the right side and a visible platform way above me, but I can't reach it. Maybe I'm missing something...

stephenhaney 2014-12-08 04:03

Wow - blown away by the number of features you implemented. Great work! I got stuck in the bottom left (I think) directly below the water rooms. Only missing the yellow key! Really enjoyed playing this.

madhoe 2014-12-08 04:03

Loving the concept. Pretty fun, some nitpicks:
- The wall jumping is tough.
- Hard to control, I found myself pressing my keys pretty hard
- Like someone above said, there was a bug trying to get the yellow key :( I really wanted to see how it played out
- After some time the sounds stop playing.

adrianulima 2014-12-08 04:03

I liked how you used the theme, good game!

phaax 2014-12-08 04:06

Chrome Version 39.0.2171.71 m (Windows 8.1 Pro X64)
WebGL has encountered an error. :(

tinykidtoo 2014-12-08 04:06

This is amazing I am really having fun with it. Although I can't get past into the yellow key room as my platforming skillz are not great.

zabuza 2014-12-08 04:06

At first I was like, this is really simple... then as stuff just kept being added I was really getting into it. I really like it! :D
Sound effects are a little painful on the ears though :c

vekjeft 2014-12-08 04:09

Love it, I played it probably for 20min, and it's 5am here:) Top rating on all except humor, still gave it a 4. Fun,fun,fun. Got stuck in the bottom-left corner, it looks like a new section is going to appear after that hard jump maneuver through the bricks , but it doesn't. I "crash" into an invisble wall. Can't see any solution.

themonsterfromthedeep 2014-12-08 04:09

This was a great game! I really loved the way the screen expanded. Some of the jumping was a bit hard, but still fun.

squirrel 2014-12-08 04:12

This is an EXCELLENT game. The controls are precise, the graphics are simple (but exactly what you needed) and the theme is applied brilliantly. But what really sets this appart (in my opinion) is the level design: when he says it gets hard later, he means HARD. You have to learn to use and combine the powerups (there are a bunch and they're fun) perfectly, and some jumps take a lot of tries, but completing them is incredibly fulfilling. I just can't say this enough: it's some GREAT level design.

Some comments from my playthrough: Getting the red key and the jump after the red lock were REALLY hard, and the final part (before the last ladders) took me a WHILE (the one where you fall and then jump) but I enjoyed every minute of it.

Also, the end was a nice touch :D

Congratulations on making an AMAZING game!

danielilett 2014-12-08 04:13

Wow, I was very surprised when the game expanded like that! This was very fun, and it handles the theme in a very creative way. The steady increase in the number of game mechanics was a neat addition too, the controls were absolutely spot-on, and I can't really think of anything really bad to say about it. I'd love for there to be a bit of music playing in the background, and the graphics are very basic, but apart from that, this is an amazing entry.

pcholt 2014-12-08 04:28

That was a lot of fun, even in my tired and humourless state I was able to raise a smile :)

gins 2014-12-08 04:31

Woah, thanks for all these positive comments! Let's see about some points you guys raised:

1) Invisible walls/square not expanding: That is strange, I have played the game multiple times on all three of the major browsers as well as the Windows version, even after you pointed it out to me and I could not reproduce it. I would be very happy if someone could provide me with a screenshot and perhaps details on their browser, but since it all works for me, I imagine it'll be really hard to debug :( I'll see what I can do about it though after some sleep.

2) Walljump: You just need to touch the wall and press "Up". No need to press any directional keys at the same time. I can see though, how the walljump in addition with other moves required to pass hard parts can get a bit troublesome, but that's more or less intended. I will keep this in mind though. If I keep working on the game for a post-LD release, I'll see what I can do to improve the controls.

3) Painful sound effects: I put these together with bfxr, and some came out a bit more annoying than I wanted them. Sorry about that :( I did add an option to mute the sound effects though (press M).

4) Sound problems: I think this may be some issue in Game Maker Studio's HTML5 export. As everything worked well for me in 3 browsers I couldn't really do much about it. I'll do some research though to see if there are some GMS known bugs with audio that I can work around.

5) Crash: Thanks for the report, Phaax. Did you try using another browser or the Windows version?



Once again, thank you all for the comments, both the constructively critical ones as well as the really positive ones. It's super late, but once I got a bit of sleep, I'll go play all your games :)

Good night and have fun everyone!

mtinkerhess 2014-12-08 04:36

I escaped to freedom! Reminds me of Thomas was Alone. Nice take on the theme. There was some really tricky platforming in there but I stuck with it and figured it out, a little on the hard side but a pretty good balance overall.

gins 2014-12-08 11:26

I found out what caused the "screen not expanding/invisible wall" bug. It was a wall that was in the neighboring room. As a fix, I moved the wall a bit to the left, which changes nothing about the game besides that the wall is now visible. I hope this qualifies as a "typo" bugfix, as it's something I would have caught in a less tired state and makes the game appear "unbeatable" to those who experience it.

If any of those who reported this happen to come back here, please give it another try, and thank you for reporting.

fanttum 2014-12-08 20:12

Yea, you fixed it not appearing any more, but I still can't get past that part cause I can't figure it out I guess, ahhh, haha. Still love this game however, and that should fall under the typo rule because it was possibly un-win-able.

webravenz 2014-12-08 20:18

NIce idea :)

gins 2014-12-08 21:47

@Fanttum: At that part, the trick is to jump, then dash attack underneath and then to the left at the pillar and then wall jump over to the other side :) It's complicated, but doable with a few tries ;)

rd127p77 2014-12-08 22:13

Fun Game, sounds are ok, graphics are great, but the idea is great and is executed well

drhahn 2014-12-09 02:38

I like the use of theme, cool little metroidvania :D

fanttum 2014-12-09 05:27

Yay, I finally beat it. Such a great game, and I hope you expand upon this in the future.

revolter 2014-12-09 10:45

Cool concept. I liked the pan out feature and how you learn new tricks as you progress. Was about to quit a few times, but made it through to the end )

P.S.: The fourth gem is behind a hidden wall ;)

rougerogue 2014-12-09 18:10

This game was pretty damn cool! I loved how you could unlock stuff, I loved how the map expanded, I loved how you could teleport to different areas; I loved everything about this game! The graphics were simplistic and great. The sound effects added some more life to the game. In general, it's just great!

murchurl 2014-12-10 11:46

I like the way how the level grows as you progress and it stays on one screen so it follows the theme! great job!

bitofgold 2014-12-10 11:47

Nice concept of zooming out the world! The jump sound is a bit annoying. I tried, but cannot get the green key :( Overall, nice work and fits the theme!

gamedevextreme 2014-12-10 11:55

One of the best games I played this ludum dare, my only complains are that the sfx was very annoying, and i had to mute, and that after things got very small, it was hard to see.

gins 2014-12-10 12:04

Thank you all!

@BitOfGold: To get to the green key, you have to dash underneath the wall.

cinnamonmelonpig 2014-12-10 12:17

This is the 80th game that I played and rated and it's my favourite so far! Great idea and amazing controls!

pht59x 2014-12-10 13:20

A good platform game that suits the theme perfectly.

liamlime 2014-12-10 13:56

I really like the way you extend the screen. The game also progresses really nicely - new abilities get introduced well. The game gets fairly difficult towards the end tho (bottom left section) - unless I missed a grappling hook ability somewhere...

inhelli 2014-12-10 15:09

cool game! :)

tuism 2014-12-10 15:37

This should be curriculum work for ANY game designer wannabes. You've basically designed what's effectively a condensed re-tellign metrovania minus any fluff. Everything worked amazingly, there's no wasted elements.

It's incredible. AMAZING.

So well designed.

SO WELL DESIGNEEEEDDDDDD :D

brethudson 2014-12-10 16:23

I escaped to freedom! The game was super fun, and constantly reminded me of games I used to program years ago. You've inspired me to return to my roots and try incorporating them with what I've learned since I grew distant from them. Thanks so much for the great game, I really enjoyed it! :) Hope you score high!

mrlarryli 2014-12-10 19:15

The game is good and difficult near the end. I got stuck on near the end in the lower left section after getting 3 keys.

ljdp 2014-12-11 00:32

Very nice and tight platform mechanics going on here. I was having fun, but then I got stuck in this part: http://i.imgur.com/91sWKfb.png and gave up. I can imagine this as larger game where as the camera zooms out further some interesting i revealed. Great work!

flyingbear 2014-12-11 02:14

A bite-sized metroidvania that constantly expands yet stays on one screen (so you don't need to keep looking at a map!) What's not to like? That was very enjoyable to play through, thank you for that!

udo 2014-12-11 06:08

Very very cool. I loved the creative use of the theme with the zooming dungeon. Such a simple idea, so perfectly executed.

the-arrival 2014-12-11 22:44

Wow... simply amazing controls, features and level design. A little to hard for me to get the yellow key, but impressive game design

ams 2014-12-11 22:52

Nice concept ^^
Good job with the controls, it was fun to play it :D

chuigum 2014-12-11 23:50

Goes great with the theme. This was fun, good job!

radmars 2014-12-12 03:00

Awesome use of the theme! The platforming physics feel great too, nice work on that. I got stuck before getting the yellow key though...

geckoo1337 2014-12-12 06:21

Really impressive for an HTML project. This game is additive. I like it. Thank you for your comment about my game ++

jepster 2014-12-12 09:14

This is one of the more obvious understandings of the theme, and I think most people would have done, but had a hard time making it interesting. You, however, made it very interesting.

A good, solid platformer with stellar level design!

atomicvikings 2014-12-12 20:28

Great entry! I missed some music, but still an amazing game for 48 hours! Great take on the theme. It has a nice progression throughout due to the powerups.
couldn't get past the second to last tile though :P

crocantidepollo 2014-12-12 21:36

Nice little platformer, and really clever way to use the theme. At the end I was hoping I'd be moving individual pixels :P

mrexcessive 2014-12-13 17:37

Hi there. Really nice implementation, seen a few games like this, yours is the neatest so far. Love the depth of features, suddenly water... Is an area lower left where you can get stuck (just after water, go wrong way first). Like the key management, nice introduction. Good job!

chris-mondok 2014-12-19 17:35

Very cool. Solid platforming mechanics, and good level design. I really like this game!

gre 2014-12-19 19:34

Woo very impressive concept and take on the theme.
Congrats

ponk 2014-12-29 14:14

Really cool :) !

fanttum 2014-12-30 06:31

Congrats man, top 50!

gins 2014-12-30 10:32

Whoah, top 50! Thank you all for playing and the positive comments and ratings!

Thanks for dropping in, Fanttum! Congrats to you too for your good rankings in Mood and Audio!