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Functor
Functor
By fate
View on Wayback Machine
| Category | Rank | Score | Count |
|
|---|
| Innovation | 2 | 4.52 | | |
| Coolness | 3 | 74 | | |
| Theme | 47 | 4.14 | | |
| Audio | 112 | 3.72 | | |
| Overall | 146 | 3.70 | | |
| Graphics | 167 | 4.04 | | |
| Mood | 243 | 3.45 | | |
| Fun | 413 | 3.20 | | |
| Humor | 809 | 2.24 | | |
Comments
The idea is really interesting, but it's rather odd to play, because the rotation locks sometimes (gimbal lock?) and it's rather hard to see which color one can destroy.
In addition to that one needs to think about the math and what color is matches and which button to click.
For me the speed stuff was built, was just too fast while having to rotate around, trying to spot the right block etc.
Graphics wise it's really awesome looking especially the transformations and the fact that you "shoot" the math formulas that get applied is really interesting. :)
Awesome ! You can really do whatever you want to your planet. It's really fun to see the effet of different math functions. Congrats.
indigo
2015-04-21 00:22
Doesn't work under Linux in wine, sadly.
fate
2015-04-21 00:25
Hey @indigo I've just uploaded a proper native linux build
maral
2015-04-21 00:29
I really want to play this game, it looks adorable, but it crashes on Windows 7, unhandled exception, no clear debug message (Unhandled exception at 0x7546CB49 in Functor.exe: 0xC0000005: Access violation executing location 0x00000000.)
fate
2015-04-21 00:40
@Marek Oh that's strange, does it happen right on start-up? Or even before the window opens? Could be an OpenGL problem, or a loading problem, make sure the stuff in the res/ looks ok and is not corrupt.
I would really like to see a slower paced game using the same deformation system. The game mechanics are so tough and somewhat difficult to understand, but the sandbox they are sitting in is SO interesting. I especially love the world wiggle at the end. Great touch.
The game looks gorgeous and also sounds nice. My main criticism is that important information on how to play the game is miscommunicated:
When I first started the game, I didn't even notice the text on the side as the challenge was already on and I was blasting away at the towers randomly.
There seems to be no way to see what the maximum tower height is or what specifically to do to reduce tower height. Since big text at the bottom was "tower height" I presumed you just had to dig all the towers as low as possible.
Also the placement of the functions is really awkward as the player constantly has to look back and forth between the corner of the screen and the center. Wouldn't it be better if the two options were on the left/right side of the crosshairs?
I haven't found good use of the sin and rand() functions
they don't seem to do enough to affect the towers.
I find some of the x*x function name misleading: x*x acts more like 2*x rather than x^2. at low values of x (between -1 and 1), x*x should decrease (tend towards zero)
Overall I still enjoyed the experience given it's very appealing presentation.
fate
2015-04-22 00:44
@eXpl0it3r It's not gimbal lock, there's actually just a clamp on that axis. It was due to some problems I had to do with directional vectors which I ran out of time to fix.
@DomNomNom you're correct the x*x and -x*x aren't exactly what they say they are, they're more like ( x + power ) * ( 1.0 - ( focalPoint - distance ) ). I just couldn't think of a nice way to show this on the UI.
To people saying it's too fast or hard understand... sorry about that. I spent most of time getting the surface deformation working and didn't spend enough time on the game-play and balancing it. The first two levels are definitely possible, the third one I'm not sure about yet.
I rly like this concept!
morazor
2015-04-22 11:57
Very original and nice visual style. I like it!
adamw
2015-04-22 12:02
Is rly gr m8, I r8 8/8, No but seriously, great game!
Excellent Game. It is unlike anything I have played before and you deserve credit for how innovative the game is. However as a side effect of how different this game is I did find the rules initially difficult to understand. Well done on this entry
hyoga-3d
2015-04-22 14:32
It is a bit difficult at first, but after I got it, it was really nice, also the idea of changing the planet is really nice, great wok.
Wow, impressive. Full concept is amazing!
junber
2015-04-22 15:30
Amazing. Very cool graphics style, cool concept. Really good game.
Stretched onto both screens when launched, and i couldn't figure out a way to close it short of by external kill command. A windowed version would be much appreciated because this looks like something i'd have fun with!
blob
2015-04-22 15:53
Interesting concept and very nice realization ( with option menu and all). Didnt understand the gameplay at all though :S
Tutorial says I need to lower the surface so I used only function that do to destroy the towers but sometimes raising it would kill them, and bunch of times lowering surface would destroy any block. Maybe I misunderstood?
fate
2015-04-22 15:55
@SpringCabal was that on Linux that it did that? It runs fine on my multi-monitor set-up on windows, but linux machine is only single monitor so I haven't tested that. There is a windowed mode; you can change it from the game's pause menu's settings (you have to get past the intro first). Or in the top level directory of the game folder there's a file called "config.omi_pref" you can just open this as a .txt file and you should find a line with "fullscreen: on" and simply change it to "fullscreen: off"
Absolutely beautiful presentation, fantastic music, and a really unique mechanic. I'd be excited to see where you could take this in the future, adding more interesting decisions for the player to make, beyond use using a positive or negative function depending on which color a given block is. This is already super impressive for a jam, and I think there's lots of potential ahead. Well done!
fate
2015-04-22 15:57
@blob yeah sorry gameplay is pretty confusing. I spent most of time on the implementation of the surface deformation and didn't spend enough time on game-play that fitted around this. You need to lower the surface to destroy blue blocks and raise the surface to destroy red blocks (the ground colours match this, low ground is blue, high ground is red).
kaa
2015-04-22 17:20
Super game! Very interesting idea which is suppred by huge variaty of situations. Really well done!
Love the game man , congrats
A lot of innovation going on here and the presentation is excellent. I had a difficult time understanding what I had to do to destroy the towers though so a tutorial that makes sure you understand that concept would be a good thing to add.
Genial concept and great realization.
Really great concept! Firing 'functions' against a mesh is really interesting; and the "Choose 1 of 2 randomized inputs" adds nice depth.
I could definitely see the mechanic being applied to all sorts of puzzle / building games.
ouro17
2015-04-23 14:45
Ey, great entry, I like how functions are represented! Congrats!
I had also set out to do something with terraforming initially, but after pacing around for an hour trying to figure out how to translate it into gameplay, I dropped it. Makes me appreciate this game even more.
Visuals are simple and yet look great, and along with the audio give a nice atmosphere to the game.
Like how your transformations persist after finishing a level. Would be even better if they stuck for repeat playthroughs.
A bit of a repeat of previous comments, but yeah, camera controls can get a bit disorienting, and it can be hard to see whether you're supposed to push or pull. Quaternion-based rotations and some visual feedback as to the status of the current base (like a colored glow, a billboarded dot, or something) would solve those issues.
Great game overall. Good job!
jalgames
2015-04-23 15:46
A really nice idea and I think you implemented it really well. I also like that you sued your own engine!
sputnik
2015-04-23 16:09
Really interesting et superb graphics.
Very good idea and implementation!
Nice game.
But hard to understand the gameplay.
Fantastic presentation, and very cool from a technical standpoint, with the terraforming stuff. The gameplay was a little obscure, like I'm not sure what the requirements for damaging the towers actually were, and I'm not good enough at maths to really judge what the functions will do to the landscape. But otherwise very cool!
lyje
2015-04-23 18:25
Incredible idea. Graphics and audio are fantastic. Unfortunately it's really hard to see, in many cases, what the bottom box is, making it virtually impossible to play once the landscape gets complicated.
elejdor
2015-04-24 08:28
Awsome game!
dallonf
2015-04-24 23:30
Fantastic visuals! And you really nailed the camera controls - that's a tricky thing for planetoid game.
Unfortunately, I really have no idea what's going on in terms of gameplay. I couldn't figure out how to destroy the towers and I mostly just wound up clicking randomly in their general direction.
crowbeak
2015-04-25 07:26
I didn't read the instructions very well, so it took me a while to figure out exactly how this works, but once I did I really enjoyed it. I like the simplicity and the kinds of planet formations you get.
The idea is really nice, and the functions applied to the planets are rather amusing and interesting.
Still, the gameplay feels weird. Even after playing 15 minutes, I still can't understand which mouse button kills what color, nor if my shots have any effect. It seems like sometimes they do, some they don't. Also, sometimes it's awkard understanding what color I should try to destroy becuase they overlap.
Couldn't beat the easy level, nor get close to it. Still, using functions as a weapons for me is 5/5 on theme. Wish I could have enjoyed this more =(