FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD41 → PlatSCII

PlatSCII

By whycardboard, connell and Under The Weather

View on ldjam.com

CategoryRankScoreCount
Overall3663.64108
Fun3453.55105
Innovation2083.78108
Theme2643.99105
Graphics5393.53107
Audio3123.51102
Humor7492.5995
Mood4693.41103

Comments

blinkenlights 2018-04-23 22:56

I'm sorry, is the game finished yet? I can't find a link. Please tell me when it's up, I'd love to give it a try.

whycardboard 2018-04-23 22:58

@Blinkenlights The game is now up!

kataware 2018-04-23 23:35

Alright, can't wait for the links xd

oscartrevejo 2018-04-23 23:50

Nice work lads! We also did a very original too, ye mid check it out?

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/hype-time

connell 2018-04-24 00:04

Thanks I will take a look

connell 2018-04-24 00:04

our artist is just working on the game page shouldn't be much longer

connell 2018-04-24 00:07

First Ludum Dare for us (me, matthew, evan)

whycardboard 2018-04-24 00:07

Just Finished! The link is up! We are also going to try to export to Mac and Linux!

mainghia95 2018-04-24 00:23

Nice work guys. I like your idea. We also make our original. Mind to check it out: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/daxua

connell 2018-04-24 00:24

ok sure thanks

velocity7 2018-04-24 00:27

Great idea

abhimonk 2018-04-24 00:28

I always have a soft spot for ASCII art, so I really liked the art. A fun idea, and a solid execution of it. The music fit the "dungeon" atmosphere very well. With these typing games, it always feels satisfying to dodge an enemy by pre-typing a command, hitting enter at the right time, so I think you guys did a great job in that aspect. I'm not sure if this was the intended way to play the game, but I found myself just spamming "j enter j enter" with the occasional "f" or "b" to fly around the map towards the end. The camera vignetting also made the game feel more "dungeon"ey. Great work!

jlv 2018-04-24 00:39

Really precise level design, more intuitive controls than originally expected, and I had a blast with the overall music/sound design. I wouldn't mind a shorter respawn time, and the need to press "+" to input simultaneous commands tends to "break the flow", but really nice work overall !

whycardboard 2018-04-24 00:39

Linux and Mac are now up!

connell 2018-04-24 00:43

Thanks for the Supportive Comments everybody!!

stderr 2018-04-24 00:44

Bleh, Google Drive is a pretty bad interface for grabbing multiple files. Not really your fault though. :)

Overall, cute little game! I think I kinda cheated a bit by multi-jumping a lot (it's easy to spam j, enter, j, enter..) I like the simple graphics. This sort of interface reminds me of another game I played recently called Duskers, where you control drones with typed-in commands.

I got stuck in the tutorial and couldn't complete it for some reason before starting the game, whoops. Should have read the instructions. :) Oh and having to click into the text box was a bit confusing at first. I thought focus would be put there automatically.

jsmars 2018-04-24 00:52

Really cool concept here! Would be cool to work out even more commands. I had some trouble with the command input box loosing focus so I was forced to use my mouse, and F+B didn't work so I couldn't get past the second level. F+J worked tho!

whycardboard 2018-04-24 00:52

@stderr Sorry about that! We took a couple hours trying to fix that textbox problem, but it started to devour our time and we couldn't work on it for much more. I have fixed the Google Drive problem, so it should be much simpler for future downloads now!

connell 2018-04-24 00:52

yeah sorry about that it's our first Ludum Dare and we just did this for fun. we aren't expecting to win

dfkpmo 2018-04-24 00:56

Very cool game. I love the way you just don't give a shit of graphism but it's great anyway ! The "boss stage" difficult is just perfect, i died 3/4 times. Nice game ! Checkout my team's game : https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/im-not-a-hero

beh 2018-04-24 00:57

Great concept. It's a real challenge to the brain! I also like the visuals. The remarks I wanted to make were already mentioned, so I skip that. ;) Oh, and I see quite some potential for more features and levels! :thumbsup:

mathiouza 2018-04-24 01:04

Cool polished game :) I liked the music and art too.

Keep coding :)

connell 2018-04-24 01:04

Thanks Everyone!

pixels-everywhere 2018-04-24 01:08

Very well done!

pixels-everywhere 2018-04-24 01:08

Very well done!

under-the-weather 2018-04-24 02:13

This is awesome! Thank you to everyone who has supported us with excellent feedback. This is what makes a strong, competitive community: having a solid grounds for advice and words for the future.

Man, I'm already excited for the next round!

firehawk 2018-04-24 13:25

The graphics is very creative. And the command based movement is also awesome. Hope, you will continue doing this sort of stuff. Good luck !

connell 2018-04-24 13:28

thank you

hagamosvideojuegos 2018-04-24 13:29

I like it! We think a similar concept but with different styles

connell 2018-04-24 13:30

thank you

quijipixel 2018-04-24 13:44

I tried on Mac 10.9 and couldn't pass the opening screen. I loved the idea of the game but couldn't try it out (cannot select any option: enter exit, etc.) NEVERMIND: just had to click on ENTER and then I could write the command. Loved the game! Congrats!! The physics mess up the movement sometimes but I guess that's part of the challenge. Great job!

connell 2018-04-24 13:53

yeah mac version dosn't work very well but windows does

norris-eldridge 2018-04-24 14:43

Sadly on the mac I can't seem to play it :( but the screenshots look great! Definitely looks like an interesting idea!

whycardboard 2018-04-24 14:45

@Norris-Eldridge So sorry you can't play!

ludrak 2018-04-24 15:06

Really nice game ! I really like the graphic style and the pixel font you used, but this game definitely need more levels !

brillie-phan 2018-04-24 15:08

Definitely love it at first sight! :) I died most of the time when in boss fight :)) haha. Was fun though

Check out our team game https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/life-and-death

hiwarp 2018-04-24 15:15

Hi! Nice idea!

On mac resolution seems cropped. But works well.

Some feedback thoughts: The entry of commands could be improved a bit by removing the "+", for example: jj (not j + j), or fff = f * 3.

sun-parlor-studios 2018-04-24 16:17

Is it intended that you can keep jumping by spamming "j"? I'm not sure haha

Anyway, the game is pretty well done and feels good to play. One of my concerns is that the character actually tips over instead of staying upright and as mentioned above the repetitive jumping feels a bit level-breaking.

Aside from that, fun little art style you got going on, including nice music! Good job!

azargaz 2018-04-24 16:26

Very interesting idea. The art style, audio and command mechanics are all great.

totalaj 2018-04-24 16:32

Great game, great concept, and great execution. What I would love to see is a bit more stable gameplay, as trying to do it in controlled jumps sometimes lead to falling off ledges. Maybe a square hitbox? Although that would probably lead to problems of its own. Bottom line is that it's a very pretty and appealing game that I would totally buy

bros 2018-04-24 16:34

Fantastic game, nice idea!

I beat the complete game and everything worked for me.

The only thing that bothered me, was to click into the enter-area after each level. Should have been autofocus.

Other then that: Nice

thylomer 2018-04-24 17:52

Great concept, I enjoyed the style you went with. Good job

zak-zeddam-zakaria 2018-04-24 18:16

i like the game cant wait to try it out

larryseinfeld 2018-04-24 18:45

Holy crap! Really nice use of the theme. I have a thing for text adventures, so to combine it with platforming and utilizing it for the visuals too was really cool. Controls are simple and intuitive too. And damn that music was nice, it got me so pumped in the last level that I didn't want it to end! I love the progression of the level design too. Smart game!

whycardboard 2018-04-24 18:49

@LarrySeinfeld Thank you! If you liked the music, there is a link to the soundtrack above, the boss fight song was called Divinity.

larryseinfeld 2018-04-24 19:01

@Matthew-Hrehirchuk Sweet, thanks! Sick track!

thygrrr 2018-04-24 19:05

Likes ------------ Remarkable idea and remarkable polish. It turns out to be a very atmospheric game, and the text command twist is really nice.

Since it is so physics based, there are more solutions to some levels than meets the eye. Nice :)

The presentation is spot-on and the use of characters to show the dangers vs. platforms works surprisingly well.

Improvements ----------- Somehow I keep losing cursor focus, which makes some tighter spots a bit aggravating.

Gist ---------- Didn't have this much fun since **Snipes** :) Cheers!

cheesey-bob 2018-04-24 19:38

Really enjoyable little game - I would have liked more levels to play! The ones you had were very well designed. Gameplay felt really nice and smooth once I'd got used to the controls. Fantastic audio and aesthetic (I'm a sucker for ASCII though).

maximbegunov 2018-04-24 19:53

Finished it in one breath. Honestly, I was impressed, this idea for a puzzle game is just as awesome as the implementation of it. The only bad thing was that I had to click a couple of times on the text field to type, other than that, very polished game, one of the best I've seen this jam.

veilastrum 2018-04-24 19:54

This is really nice game. Smooth and polished game-play, nice graphics, and good music as well. The atmosphere adds to the mood of the game as well. Overall, very well done.

strato 2018-04-24 20:25

Didn't like needing to switch from keyboard to mouse to be able to type, but the mechanics were neat. Could use more variation in commands.

dragojt 2018-04-24 20:26

Wow, tricky movement mechanichs but I enjoyed it a lot. With just 3 colors (black,white,red) you got a nice visual experience that, with the incredible music, make this game a solid game for a jam. Nice work men!

lagman9000 2018-04-24 20:31

Probably my favourite game so far! Lovely concept and fun controls, really enjoyable. The audio is fantastic, really chill. Great work! If you get chance check out ours :) https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/mechasnek

fashionbatman 2018-04-24 20:51

Great job! Solid game design and it looks awesome.

connell 2018-04-24 20:54

thanks

caleblewis 2018-04-24 21:25

Great concept! I feel like the controls could use a bit of work, like making it so you can't jump beyond the double jump (as it is now, you can just spam j/enter to jump forever) and would love to see some improvement on the movement commands so rather than just preset commands you can string together anything, like f+f+j+b+b+b or something like that. I can't believe you're all only in junior high! You have bright futures ahead of you.

q-ro 2018-04-24 21:35

Really pretty game, the art-style and the atmosphere are pretty cool, my only "complain" is that you can jump finely if you type fast enough, or use Ctr+c Ctr+v like me xD, so i suppose that needs fixing, also the fact that the input is not on focus immediately (I have to click before i can start typing) really takes a bit off of the experience, but still really cool game.

connell 2018-04-24 21:38

yeah we were thinking about changing those but we didn't have the time

gdort 2018-04-24 21:56

If you want more ratings just port it to WebGL :wink:

connell 2018-04-24 21:58

Can I still? Submission Hour is over

mordokay 2018-04-24 22:06

This game was awesome! ... ended up really fast though ... would have been nice with more levels .. still a very creative approach of combining these 2 types of games ... as far as graphics go even a triple A game developer company couldn't have done it any better :P

connell 2018-04-24 22:07

wow thank you!

whycardboard 2018-04-24 22:07

@Mordokay AAA Game companies are too scared to compete with these 4K ASCII characters!

joe-cowman 2018-04-24 22:08

In regards to your question posted above, you CAN still port it to WebGL. According to the rules: "Porting (especially to Web or Windows) can happen after the initial 48 hours."

I really enjoyed your game! The movement felt very smooth, the music was atmospheric, it all just felt very unique and cool! My only suggestion is to think about player convenience when developing controls. For example, "f+j" is much harder to type on the keyboard than just "fj".

Great work!!

nicksmaddog 2018-04-24 22:18

Great game! Really enjoyed it. Just wish there were more levels to play!

quentin-warnant 2018-04-24 22:50

cool concept, nice execution! I liked the combos, wish I could input more than 2 at a time. well done :)

connell 2018-04-24 22:51

THANKS

holofire 2018-04-25 00:35

Really enjoyed the game. Just like others have said, typing the same letter really fast over and over again allows you to move/jump infinitely. Awesome work! :smile:

connell 2018-04-25 00:37

thank you

stevenjmiller 2018-04-25 00:37

Fun game! I quite like the style, and the music fits well. In terms of improvements, I think making the text box be permanently active would make the gameplay a little smoother. Currently, the mouse is only used to click on the text box, so having to do seems a bit odd and very slightly hurts the pacing. As a side note, it seems the best way to go about levels is to type j repeatedly, as the game allows for jumping even when the player is already in the air. I'm not entirely sure if this was intentional, though it makes double jumping feel impractical, as it is faster to type "j < enter > j < enter >" than "j+j < enter >". Overall, I thought the game was great!

connell 2018-04-25 00:39

yeah feed back taken into consideration for next LD! Thank you!

connell 2018-04-25 00:41

Yes it was intentional but we weren't aware that it would ruin the gameplay slightly

ahs 2018-04-25 00:50

Really liked it! there was a similar 3d platformer made during this jam but I dont remember what it was called... In any case, great job! I really enjoyed beating this game

connell 2018-04-25 00:50

thanks

pillowpillow 2018-04-25 01:15

Haha I really love this game especially the final level i have to light up the torch, it is challenging but not so hard for me! Expecting some more levels or functions(like R can repeat your single move) in your next update .

del-nordlund 2018-04-25 01:47

Love the concept and experimenting with the combos! Great job!

gamesplusjames 2018-04-25 02:13

That was a really interesting combo of styles. As stevenjmiller said, it would be nice if the text box was automatically highlighted as I sat on the main menu for a while thinking something wasnt working before i realised i had to click into it. I like the ASCII art style you used too. Nice work! :)

lotus 2018-04-25 03:35

It is amazing! I love the random feeling and tension. And it is also pretty polished. Good job! And I know a game that also uses spelling to act. You may like it somehow. https://teamassgal.itch.io/interspeller

coda-highland 2018-04-25 03:45

I'm on a Mac, and I'm interested in playing this, but I can't get the game to start -- neither the mouse nor the keyboard seem to do anything at the title screen.

jeffchen 2018-04-25 12:17

Really loved the idea!Nice done!I think it would be better if add more control in it,haha

yngvarr 2018-04-25 13:55

Great! The lighting effect is wonderful, coupled with background music it creates the game's special mood. Well done, guys!

starzzdrak 2018-04-25 14:12

I love the idea but the controls are really hard for me so :/ But its really nice game :)

siimer 2018-04-25 15:16

Really liked the visuals and soundtrack of this game. The mechanics are also solid and novel. One thing that was annoying to me was that the text box isn't auto selected on starting a level and in the menu. I almost didn't play because I couldn't find out how to start the game.

blinkenlights 2018-04-25 17:55

Was looking forward to playing this game (as you can see by my first comment), but sadly it doesn't seem to be working properly on Linux :( I can download & run the game, but it doesn't seem to be reacting to my input. Are you using an engine?

whycardboard 2018-04-25 18:03

@Blinkenlights Sorry linux isn't working! I tried to run it on Ubuntu 16.04 but the plugin I needed doesn't exist... To answer your question, we are running the game on Unity. A couple people have also run into this problem, but on the start screen, the textbox labelled ENTER needs to be clicked a couple of times.

blinkenlights 2018-04-25 18:07

@Matthew Hrehirchuk You are? That surprises me, all the other LD Unity games I've played so far worked flawlessly. I'm also running Ubuntu 16.04 LTS. What sort of a plugin did you need?

whycardboard 2018-04-25 18:09

@Blinkenlights Let me check really quick — EDIT: Sorry, my internet sucks —

minirop 2018-04-25 18:16

nice visual indeed. easy controls and "funny" graphics. I just had a hard time finding that you need to click on "enter". Maybe giving this field the focus on start or writing something more explicit like "type here" could help.

whycardboard 2018-04-25 18:20

@Blinkenlights APPARENTLY I need a Parchive Archive extractor??? I used PyPar2 to extract the x86 into a million .par2 files. I'm used to Windows.

blinkenlights 2018-04-25 18:26

You're extracting the 'PlatSCII Linux.x86' file? No need, open up properties > permissions and check 'Allow executing file as program'. Then simply double-click and enjoy! (I know, it isn't that obvious)

danes1111 2018-04-25 18:28

That was a lot of fun. It brings me the time when I was making console games in C. It take me some time to realize that I need to type "start"... to start the game.

whycardboard 2018-04-25 18:31

@Blinkenlights I did that, but it won't work for me! It might be what i'm running it with? I don't know.

blinkenlights 2018-04-25 18:35

@Matthew Hrehirchuk Alright, try right-clicking, 'open in terminal' and type "./PlatSCII Linux.x86" *with* quotes. You know what, this might be easier via Discord. Could I try and call you?

whycardboard 2018-04-25 18:40

@Blinkenlights Sure, I’m — already on discord —. I’m busy now, but I’ll be free in about 20 minutes?

neontropics 2018-04-25 21:10

Nice game!

At first it seemed a bit two simple, but having to input new commands before the last one was finished was great and added a lot of flexibility to it.

It's pretty challenging though - maybe I'm just lazy but I did get pretty frustrated after failing a level a couple times and having to redo the first part of it lots of times.

wevel 2018-04-26 07:28

Very fun levels. The art worked really well. I feel that you shouldn't need to type '+' between multiple commands. Also, it should select the command box at the start as it took a while for me to figure out that you need to. Overall a really good entry, well done.

groggi 2018-04-26 10:03

Really nice! Would have been nice if you could combine the commands, eg. f+j+j or f+f+f+j and complete one Level just by typing all the commands at once! ;) Also the command box should always be selected to type commands more easily without having to click the command line at the beginning. Or maybe all of this was intended! :) Anyhow a great game! The music, sounds and grafics are also very impressive and fitting! Keep it up!

ashtrail 2018-04-27 05:06

The concept is cool, the game plays out really nicely. The music is really good and the sfx is fine. I enjoyed my time playing it.

My only gripes are 1) the download was a bit of a pain, maybe host the game on itch.io next time, 2) the main menu is really confusing at first, I first downloaded it on my mac, didn't get *I was suposed to type the menu option*, tried rolling my head on the keyboard and clicking everywhere to no avail. Thought "must be buggy on mac". Downloaded it on my windows. Repeat. Then I saw enter and I was like "waiiiiit". Maybe if we didn't have to click on it and typing would directly write in the input it'd be easier to understand.

Anyways congrats a really cool game, good concept, good gameplay, good polish :ok_hand: (just a sprinkle of UX would be rad).

yetman 2018-04-27 22:44

First of all, thank you for making the commands short, I truly appreciate it. The game looks good and the controls are really good but I hate that you need to put focus on the textbox before typing; it would have been a lot easier (especially in the menu) if I didn't need to. The levels are really fun but the game is short and now I need more. The only problem I faced was in the tutorial where I got stuck in the "j+f" part and had to restart the game. The art look really great and so does the music and sfx. Great job.

csanyk 2018-04-30 19:57

This looks really cool! Only, I can't figure out how to get off the start screen. Clicking menu objects like buttons doesn't do anything. Keyboard input doesn't do anything... how do I start the game?

whycardboard 2018-05-01 00:08

@csanyk Sorry about the start of the game! The grey text saying ENTER is actually a text area, and the text below are commands

csanyk 2018-05-01 02:20

Ah, thanks!

Now that I can play it, this is pretty awesome!

Some suggestions for polish:

- Always focus the text area so you can just start typing there when the next level beings - Put a blinking cursor there so it's more obvious to the player that they can type ;) - More sophisticated parsing, such that I can enter a chain of commands, like "fffj" or whatever, would be cool. Then you could have bonuses for solving the level in the least number of "moves", etc. - vi-like edit mode commands would be awesome. Your game would have an instant niche audience for vi geeks if you did this, and might even help teach vi to new users. - I'd like to be able to enter new instructions on the fly, rather than wait for the @ to slow to a stop and type more commands in. This would give the game more of an action flow, and less of a turn-based feel, which I think would be an improvement. I guess you can do that already, but something about the timing for it doesn't feel quite right to me -- I guess because the new instruction isn't acted upon until I hit Enter. So maybe if you type while you're already in motion, new keystrokes take effect immediately, and you can stop immediately by hitting .

Just some ideas. When a game gives me a lot of ideas, it's a good game.

Overall, this is a lot of fun, and has a lot of potential.

samuelsousa 2018-05-01 07:45

I like how you where able to add combos to the movement :) It feels very puzzle like in with you need to think before you act :)

bengle15 2018-05-01 20:53

This game is great! Keep doing what you're doing!

macdoom 2018-05-01 23:47

Plyed it to the end! Very innovative concept. The most difficult part was guessing how the menu worked! Big ASCII fan! Music was relaxing and sound fx appropriate to the atmosphere. Excellent work!

augustetheclown 2018-05-02 15:12

Very clever concept and I'm really impressed your team made this while so young! I never expected to see a text command-based platformer. Just a tip for the future, zip your games before you upload them, you can do it on Windows by right-clicking on the folder and going to Send To -> Zip. There wouldn't be a problem with you zipping it and reuploading it now, that doesn't go against the spirit of LDJ.

yashpal 2018-05-02 17:41

**Great work team. :smile: :thumbsup: **

**I am really impress by this game. **

character movement, environment, sound, Particle, all great.

Few things I notice is every time i press same key than also I get little bit different movement of character. some time it jump more & other time it jump less.(might be unity problem).

@ csanyk suggest very good point to improve this game.

You can make this game like Area "A", Area "B" area, etc every area have some different special command.

There is lot of potential in this game

cristiano-m-garcia 2018-05-06 14:45

Good job! Cool game!

I left my rating of your game, if you can leave your feedback in our game, Witch's Escape.

I hope you continue with the project.

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/witchs-escape

connell 2018-05-06 14:50

yes we are we are currently working on a post-jam version with an in-game level builder and one extra level all with new music

connell 2018-05-06 14:50

and i will rate your game

davidsheadgames 2018-05-09 01:27

I really liked the concept presented here. There's potential for a fuller game, for sure!

Some notes for improvement: - The tutorial seems broken. Typing the f+j doesn't go through, it would seem. Not sure if maybe I mistyped it, but it's nigh impossible to tell. Also, I feel the text in the main menu did a much better job explaining it than the tutorial did. - The text field for the menu doesn't really give a clear indication you're supposed to type there. It was by pure chance the cursor was on the enter field one time when I restarted. - The text field at the start of some levels loses focus, which means I have to know to click into there in order to play. - The volume level of the last sound was much louder than the others, which is kind of a feel bad. (RIP headphone users)

Otherwise, this is a very solid idea executed well for a short, fun experience. It's well-balanced for what it was aiming to do.

mic-matrix91 2018-05-09 20:46

I played a similar typing game yesterday, at first I thought to find the same concept, but then I was surprised because this is faster: using only a letter as command, or two letters as a combination, you can quickly move the hero.. it's very funny and challenging! The graphics ar simple but very nice. The music is amazing, it creates a very cool atmosphere that matches with the game style! Excellent work!

whycardboard 2018-05-10 00:47

Thank you everyone for your feedback! If you want your commands faster, we are just exporting our post-jam version, so now you don't need that pesky plus sign in between commands, plus our new level editor!

kittyinthestudio 2018-05-10 21:33

I really like the game. I do think the game is broken though as i can keep jumping forever if you keep pressing fj. other than that. Solid Entry! game looks nice and plays nice

connell 2018-05-10 22:53

play the post jam it is alot better

noah-beckman 2018-05-12 00:29

I really like this type of game and used to play and make tons of them when i was little. I think your mechanics of the game work great with the theme and love the graphics even though they are simple. Overall great game! Thanks for rating our game as well!

euske 2018-05-12 04:58

Pretty neat idea! It seems the two ideas blend pretty well I liked the physics a lot. A bit of (seemingly?) randomness/unstableness was pretty effective too. Allowing a more complex command would make this a blast!

ddrkirbyisq 2018-05-13 23:24

Played and rated the compo version.

Pretty interesting concept. It does feel like it would perhaps be more interesting as a puzzle game instead of a physics-y platformer as right now it feels a bit gimmicky/random, plus there's no limit on the number of jumps you can do or the speed at which you can enter commands. The "combos" seemed like a cool idea until I realized it was more efficient to just spam f, b, and j separately. At that point it just devolved into a platformer with awkward controls. Again, I feel like if it was a more deterministic puzzle game it would have been more interesting.

Still pretty fun though!

connell 2018-05-14 01:50

we fixed all that in the post-jam @DDRKirbyISQ

ddrkirbyisq 2018-05-14 01:57

@Connell Awesome! :D

jusw85 2018-05-15 19:34

Sorry I really wanted to try out your game cause I also had an ASCII aesthetic, but as mentioned in other comments I also have some issues with the Linux build. I can run the application, but have some issues with the textbox :(

whycardboard 2018-05-15 19:40

@jusw85 Hey, sorry to hear it. We don't know how to export to Linux. I can't get it to work on anything.