The Infinitely Small Room

xxdoombox 2017-04-29 00:00

hey really great concept! im impressed you were able to make a world editor/game creator for ludum dare, nice job! the music and art were great and they worked well together. i built a little world, but when i try to run it, the player flashes on the spawn for a moment and disappears. the only level that i can actually play is the first level that shows up when you start the game. i have tried entering different values in the "interact count" input box, but nothing seems to work. i uploaded my level as Pantheon and my username as xxDOOMbox. as i was building, i found myself really craving an adjustable parameter for the height (or z-axis value assuming the floor lies on the x-y plane). as a workaround i could place a platform, scale it to how high i wanted to put another object, place the object i wanted on top, and then delete the platform. the scroll bar under the placeable objects was hard to find as well, i didnt know it was there for the longest time. i think you should try to make it more obvious. i liked the player art and animation as well. great entry!

epiplon 2017-05-01 16:11

Ok, so I entered the game, some leve loaded and nothing happened. Nobody was moving, I was only able to edit the scene and nothing more. Tried severel buttons and clicks.

kroltan 2017-05-01 19:58

Hi @epiplin and @xxDOOMbox! There is an issue with some user-submitted troll levels with hugely scaled objects that push the player outside the boundaries of the level. I remove those trolls periodically, but unfortunately these levels linger for a while before being deleted.

DOOMbox, you can use ctrl+drag to move objects vertically. Hope it helps!

lunarfuture 2017-05-01 19:59

Hello, I like your innovation! It was a good idea to make a game editor specific to this contest! I hope you will continue with this project, good luck!

epiplon 2017-05-01 20:32

@kroltan the problem was that your own level wasn't working, which was sad.

kroltan 2017-05-02 16:04

@epiplon That is strange. Since there is no authentication at all, it might have been a troll which didn't change the author name and only overscaled an object, or really a bug. I'll investigate. If you play again and find this bug, could you please go into edit mode, click Save, and paste the save minicode here? (it will go to your clipboard automatically)

ectucker1 2017-05-03 00:07

This is a really cool concept, but I had the same issue as epiplon. Some levels worked fine, but most user made ones broke, even if they looked legitimate.

I had to force close the game to try a different level, a skip level button could help immensely to avoid this issue. Unique IDs might prevent anything being overridden, but I don't know how your backend is set up.

Here's a minicode for a broken level: https://pastebin.com/cR0w2dRX

I hope you get everything working!

kroltan 2017-05-03 01:24

@ectucker1 Thanks for the minicode dump!

Yeah, the shading gives it away, there's a wall with scale 4864 in all those levels that are very dark, including the one you linked. I'll clean those up.

The issue isn't as much as overriding levels (this is impossible), but a level with same name&author. The backend is very dumb and knows nothing of the game, it's just ID + minicode, without ever processing the minicode. For the user, it looks like its the "same level", but it isn't really. And due to random chance and spamming troll levels, it's possible to make yours the most likely level.

I can make the server smart and clamp scales to believable values upon upload to prevent this. Sadly other forms of griefing are harder to find.

EDIT: Cleaned up levels. The only constructive submission was by @xxDOOMbox :sad:, and I had to reconstruct it because it was based on a griefed level with lots of little buggy colliders around.

flukeshot 2017-05-03 06:12

Wow putting user generated levels in as a feature for an LD game. I am impressed. Unfortunately it seems some of the interactable objects have a trigger that is a bit sensitive.

huvaakoodia 2017-05-03 15:19

Interesting idea this. First time I've seen a functional level editor with global uploading in a jam! Mighty impressive.

I tried to make a level, I really did. I got the hang of the interaction system looking at the examples and even got close to finishing one, but then I tested the level, walked into the exit and it automatically loaded a new level erasing all my work! :scream: Not the best user experience design pattern that there.

carlosvvk 2017-05-03 20:45

The only interesting thing for me is the fact that you did a level editor, but the game has no new mechanics or something attractive.

marbles 2017-05-06 05:19

Although the 3D models seem basic, I like it, it's so clean!

kroltan 2017-05-06 12:40

@huvaakoodia Argh, you're right! ****facepalm****

@carlosvvk Yeah, I'm gravely aware of the barren mechanics. I spent too much time writing the editor, you'd be surprised how fast it grows in complexity!

@marbles Thanks! I'm not the best when it comes to 3D modeling, so I didn't try doing anything fancy just to end up looking badly made. Best do something simple but consistent! (and then there's the hugely out of place player model, lol)

juju-adams 2017-05-11 14:57

I had to alt-tab to get out of the game, not a big deal but a bit odd. I really liked the simplicity of the graphics and the soft shadows were lovely. Were the level files actually being pulled down from a server? If so, that's super impressive for such a short development cycle.

Oh, and was the audio procedural? Reminded me of a grid-based music composition tool/toy whose name I have sadly forgotten...

kroltan 2017-05-11 16:16

@juju-adams Yes, the levels are saved and pulled from a server.

The audio isn't procedural in-game, but yes, it does come from Otomata. I recorded 2 minutes of it and set to loop. Good enough! xD

juju-adams 2017-05-11 22:12

@kroltan Otomata, that's the name! That was bugging me all day...

mikeware 2017-05-20 04:41

That's pretty cool to put together a level editor and system like that for the compo. Sets the bar higher for the future!

I only seemed to get one level though, would be nice if there was a button to select/advance to another level.